EDU 280

Reading Development

Reading

• Reading is the process of constructing meaning from a written text.

Three main goals for reading instruction:

• Fluency

• Comprehension

• Motivation to read

Fluency

• is the ability to identify words accurately and read text quickly with good expression.

• Fluency comes from practice in reading easy books about familiar subjects. – These texts primarily contain familiar, high-frequency

words

• As children develop fluency, they improve in their ability to read more expressively, with proper phrasing

Comprehension

• is the ability to understand, reflect on, and learn from text.

• To ensure that children develop comprehension skills, effective reading instruction builds on their prior knowledge and experience, language skills, and higher-level thinking.

Motivation to read

• is the essential element for

actively engaging children

in the reading process.• It is the fuel that lights the

fire and keeps it burning. • Children need to be immersed in a literacy-rich

environment, filled with books, poems, pictures, charts, and other resources that capture their interest and make them want to read for information and pleasure.

Reading As Language

• Knowing how to use all forms of language well — speaking, listening, reading, and writing — is an important goal for all children.

• And they need support from both school and home to be successful with language.

How children learn to read

• Children begin learning about reading by being read to and by their attempts to write.

• Early writing looks a lot like scribbling but it usually represents some thought the child had.

• Promote children's understandings of text by asking children what they are writing and even writing what they say below their scribbling and then reading it back.

http://www.nationalserviceresources.org/epicenter/practices/index.php?ep_action=view&ep_id=830

How children learn to read

• Reading and writing go hand in hand and it's important to have materials for writing in addition to books in the home.

• Reading involves thinking and problem solving. • Children will use several strategies for reading

within the same sentence. • When children reach a word they do not know,

they will probably try to "sound it out" and use context clues to try to make sense of the text.

Reading As Learning Language

• Children can learn the basic foundations of reading and writing in much the same way they learn to listen and speak — informally, at home, and in an unstructured way.

Reading As Learning Language• Many things must be taught to

children:

– Children need to learn strategies for figuring out unfamiliar words (decoding and context) and they need to learn ways for making meaning from text, also known as comprehension skills.

– Both the school and home environments that surround children are important to their success as readers and writers.

Many things must be taught to children:

– Classrooms should have all types of reading materials and lots of writing and examples of children's work on the walls — at all ages.

– Time must be devoted during the school day to reading in books, discussing them, and writing about these experiences.

– Newspapers, magazine subscriptions for children and adults, dictionaries, an atlas, and other informational reading materials add to the message that reading is important.

Ages and Stages

• According to the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory's, Tips for Parents About Reading (Davis 1997), effective practices to incorporate during the various stages of reading skills development can include the following:

Emerging Readers: Infants and Toddlers

• Reading begins at birth. Expect that infants and toddlers will want to

munch on books! They don't need to seem interested — reading to children when they are very young gives them valuable time hearing words and looking at pictures.

Provide books with heavy pages or "board books."

Read books over and over again. Make sure that child-care providers read and talk to your child.

These are the kinds of things that lay the foundation for becoming a reader.

Talk about the pictures and ask questions like, "Do you see the dog — where's the dog?" to help them find objects on the page.

Repeat nursery rhymes even if you aren't reading from a book.

Listen to children's music and encourage movement to the rhythm and singing along.

Have children help you use sound effects like "mooooo" or "arf-arf."

Make talking to your infant or toddler part of everyday life. Talk about what you are doing and say back what you think she's saying to you.

Link reading to real life — for example, toddlers quickly learn concepts of hot and cold. If there's a sun on the page ask, "What's hot in the picture?"

Take advantage of the public library

Developing Readers: Pre-K Through First-Graders

• Young children develop as readers as they begin to pay more attention to printed materials around them.

• They start to be able to recognize words and to read easy books with the support of adults and other children. – Read daily to children.– Reread stories and as children get to know the story pause

and let them finish the sentence. – Put magnetic letters on the refrigerator and spell out words

the child can copy like her name, "cat," "dog," "mom," and "dad."

– Read alphabet books and then help the child make his own by cutting out and gluing magazine pictures to separate pages.

– Have plenty of markers, crayons, pens, paper, and other materials on hand and encourage kids to make books, write, and draw.

Developing Readers– Ask the child to tell you a story about what she has

drawn. Write her words on the paper and read it back. Also, ask the child to retell a story.

– Encourage children to invent word spellings. They may look like nothing more than strings of letters but this is how children connect sounds to letters, and is important for learning letter sounds.

– Label furniture in room. Ask children to read words on billboards, cereal boxes, and signs.

– As the child begins reading aloud, let mistakes go as long as they don't change the meaning of the story. For example, if the sentence is, "She ran up the hill," and the child reads, "She is running up the hill," don't correct it. If she reads, "She rain up the hill," ask if it makes sense. When correcting, do it gently.

Transitional Readers: Second- and Third-Graders

• Transitional readers are making the transition from needing a lot of adult support as they read to being independent as readers.

• They start to read easier texts on their own, and become increasingly more confident with more difficult books and chapter books.

Transitional Readers: Second- and Third-Graders

• Follow the child's interests — if she loves sports, find fiction and nonfiction books that tie into this interest.

• Have the child help you with recipes from cookbooks or mixes. Ask them to read ingredients, measure, mix, and clean up!

• Help the child become a more fluent reader by having him read to younger children. This gives them practice and helps them share the fun of reading and books.

• Get blank books — or make them. Kids should be encouraged to write down what they think and feel about books they read.

Transitional Readers• Make thank you notes, birthday cards,

valentines, and invitations together. Use stamps, stickers, or cut-outs to decorate them and have the children write or copy the message.

• Play games that involve reading. Good choices are Monopoly, Concentration, Life, Careers, Risk, Clue, and many others.

• Play with words by rhyming, finding opposites, and naming synonyms or words that have similar meanings like hot and scorching. These types of activities give practice with thinking and vocabulary development.

• Continue to read increasingly harder books aloud to children.

Written Symbols

• To become effective readers and writers children need to:

• Recognize the written symbols letters and words used in reading and writing

• Write letters and form words by following conventional rules

• Use routine skills and thinking and reasoning abilities to create meaning while reading and writing

Written Symbols• The written symbols we use to read and

write are the 26 upper and lower case letters of the alphabet.

• The conventional rules governing how to write letters and form words include:– writing letters so they face in the correct

direction, – using upper and lower case versions, – spelling words correctly, and– putting spaces between words.

Routine Skills • Routine skills refer to the things readers

do automatically, without stopping to think about what to do. – We pause when we see a comma or period,– recognize high-frequency sight words, and– use what we already know to understand

what we read. – One of the critical routine skills is phonemic

awareness – the ability to associate specific sounds with specific letters and letter combinations.

Phonemic Awareness

• Research has shown that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of early reading skills.

• Phonemes, the smallest units of sounds, form syllables, and words are made up of syllables. Children who understand that spoken language is made up of discrete sounds – phonemes and syllables – find it easier to learn to read.

• Many children develop phonemic awareness naturally, over time.

Phonemic Awareness

• Simple activities such as frequent readings of familiar and favorite stories, poems, and rhymes can help children develop phonemic awareness.

• Other children may need to take part in activities designed to build this basic skill.

Thinking and Reasoning

• Thinking and reasoning abilities help children figure out how to read and write unfamiliar words.– A child might use the meaning of a

previous word or phrase,

– look at a familiar prefix or suffix, or

– recall how to pronounce a letter combination that appeared in another word.