It is extremely important to recognise that all children begin their schooling years at vaired levels of reading development. While some students begin prep having been exposed to literacy skills, other children may have not been provided with any exposure to reading, and therefore it is a completely new concept to them. Despite students diverse range of competencies, the process of reading remains the same.
There are 5 main points associated with the process of reading. When children are learning to read it is essential that they become aware of the 5 key notions related to reading. They are:
1. Using cues to identify unknown words
2. Recognising high frequency or sight words
3. Vocabulary or knowledge of word meaning
4. Fluency
5. Comprehension
As teachers, it is critical that we provide the students with strategies to negotiate difficult words, and processes to interpet print into concepts. As children read they need to use 3 essential cues to help them interpret words that they don't already recognise. The 3 cues that students can use during reading are:
1. Graphophonic cues (visual)
Using visual cues, students can work out the word that they are struggling with by assessing the way the word looks on the page, the letter combinations and sequences and any prior knowledge of what sounds those letter combinations make.
2. Semantic cues (meaning)
Using semantic cues, students can draw on their prior knowledge about the world and life experience, to try and predict what the word might be.
3.Syntactic Cues(grammatical,structural)
Syntactic cues help students guess what the word might be by looking at the grammatical of other words within the sentence.
When readers are problem solving, they use 4 sources of information to assess whether the word is correct.
1) Grapho-phonic- (visual) Readers use the letters, format and layout to assess whether the word looks right. They can ask themselves
" Does the word look right?"
2) Phonology- Readers listen carefully to the sounds that the word makes when they read it aloud. They can ask themselves
"Does the word sound right?"
3) Syntax- Readers decipher whether the word is correct based on the sentence structure and grammer. They can ask themselves
" Does the word sound right if you say it that way?"
4) Semantics- Readers use the illustrations and text to interpret meanings within the story. They can ask themselves
"Does the word make sense?"
As well as developing cues and strategies to decode words and formulate meaning from texts, there are a list of high frequency words or 'sight words' that students must learn and know. According to Hill (2012, p. 190-191) The most common 100 words make up about 50% of the words that we read and then there are 700 more common words that make up about 70% of the words that we hear.
It is vital that teachers provide children with the neccessary resources and knowledge to become independant, confident readers, As stated in Lecture 6, Deakin Warrnambool,Juel (1994) recognises,' Students who fall behind in first grade reading have a 1 in 8 chance of ever catching up to grade level. As all children learn best using different techniques, it is important to offer children a range of resources to aid in their reading development. An excellent early years reading development resource is Sunshine Online. It can be viewed at Sunshine Online
References
Redpath, Terri 2012, 'The reading process and reading development' ECL210, Week 6 Lecture, Warrnambool.
Hill, Susan 2012, Developing early lieracy, Asessing and teaching, Eleanor Curtain Publishing, South Yarra, VIC.
It is extremely important to recognise that all children begin their schooling years at vaired levels of reading development. While some students begin prep having been exposed to literacy skills, other children may have not been provided with any exposure to reading, and therefore it is a completely new concept to them. Despite students diverse range of competencies, the process of reading remains the same.
There are 5 main points associated with the process of reading. When children are learning to read it is essential that they become aware of the 5 key notions related to reading. They are:
1. Using cues to identify unknown words
2. Recognising high frequency or sight words
3. Vocabulary or knowledge of word meaning
4. Fluency
5. Comprehension
As teachers, it is critical that we provide the students with strategies to negotiate difficult words, and processes to interpet print into concepts. As children read they need to use 3 essential cues to help them interpret words that they don't already recognise. The 3 cues that students can use during reading are:
1. Graphophonic cues (visual)
Using visual cues, students can work out the word that they are struggling with by assessing the way the word looks on the page, the letter combinations and sequences and any prior knowledge of what sounds those letter combinations make.
2. Semantic cues (meaning)
Using semantic cues, students can draw on their prior knowledge about the world and life experience, to try and predict what the word might be.
3.Syntactic Cues(grammatical,structural)
Syntactic cues help students guess what the word might be by looking at the grammatical of other words within the sentence.
When readers are problem solving, they use 4 sources of information to assess whether the word is correct.
1) Grapho-phonic- (visual) Readers use the letters, format and layout to assess whether the word looks right. They can ask themselves
" Does the word look right?"
2) Phonology- Readers listen carefully to the sounds that the word makes when they read it aloud. They can ask themselves
"Does the word sound right?"
3) Syntax- Readers decipher whether the word is correct based on the sentence structure and grammer. They can ask themselves
" Does the word sound right if you say it that way?"
4) Semantics- Readers use the illustrations and text to interpret meanings within the story. They can ask themselves
"Does the word make sense?"
As well as developing cues and strategies to decode words and formulate meaning from texts, there are a list of high frequency words or 'sight words' that students must learn and know. According to Hill (2012, p. 190-191) The most common 100 words make up about 50% of the words that we read and then there are 700 more common words that make up about 70% of the words that we hear.
The first 100 words can be viewed: http://www.highfrequencywords.org/hfw100fp.pdf
It is vital that teachers provide children with the neccessary resources and knowledge to become independant, confident readers, As stated in Lecture 6, Deakin Warrnambool,Juel (1994) recognises,' Students who fall behind in first grade reading have a 1 in 8 chance of ever catching up to grade level. As all children learn best using different techniques, it is important to offer children a range of resources to aid in their reading development. An excellent early years reading development resource is Sunshine Online. It can be viewed at Sunshine Online
References
Redpath, Terri 2012, 'The reading process and reading development' ECL210, Week 6 Lecture, Warrnambool.
Hill, Susan 2012, Developing early lieracy, Asessing and teaching, Eleanor Curtain Publishing, South Yarra, VIC.