Learning to read

Learning to read

1. approaches

   • The phonics approach
     • Approach involves letters and letter combinations in terms of sounds. e.g cow =/c/ /ow/
     • it is useful for words such as latch which are pronounced as they are written
     • it is less useful for words like through which do not sound like they are written
     • it only focuses on sounds and letters rather that on the meanings of the words
   • the look and say approach
     • involves recognising whole words by sight alone rather than breaking them down into separate phonemes
     • focuses on the meaning of the words and teaches children to recognise common words like, and, see,went etc
     • relying on this method requires children to memorise a large number of words and doesnt give them the skilld to wouk out the sound or meaning of unfamiliar words.
   • the psycholinguistics approach
     • this approach sees reading as a natural development that comes from being in an enviroment where books are read valued and available.
     • it is an active approach to reading. the reader is given responsibility for working out what a word means rather than being told.
     • when children cant read a word they are encouraged to work out the meaning by looking at the rest of the sentence and other clues such as illistrations
     • encouraged to focus on meaning rather than work out symbols. makes aware importance of context
     • criticised as it leaves a lot to chance
   • schools tend to use a mixture of the approaches as some children respond better to one method than another
     • this also ensures that children develop a range of skills. The PHONETIC approach teaches them to recognise symbools while the LOOK AND SAY and PSYCHOLINGUISTIC approaches teach the importance of meaning and context.
       • It is important that children practise reading outside of school. some reseaqrchers see this as the most important factor in improving a childs reading ability.

2. Stages of reading

   • PRE SCHOOL (up to age 5)
     • kids take part in activities tat prepare them for readin e.d jigsaws and matching pictures
       • this helps them distinginguish between different sizes, shapes and patterens. in turn this prepares them for identifying letters and combinations of letters.
     • they can turn pages of books by themselves and verbally create their own stories verbally
     • they begin to identify some individual letters, such as the first letter of their name and begin to match sounds to letters
   • between 5-6 years
     • the increase the number of letter-sound matches that they know
     • they realise that in english, letters on a page move from left to right and top to bottom
     • begin to recognise frequently used words
   • between 6-7 years
     • can read stories they are familliar with
     • can use a range of readin stratagies
     • recognise more words by sight
     • to read unfamiliar words they brake them down and sound them out.
     • start to read with fluency
   • between 7-8 years
     • read more fluently and their vocab continues to increase
     • use reading stratagies accurately
     • they're better at working through individual sounds to read unfamiliar words.
   • JEANNE CHALL

3. Cues

   • Children use written cues to decode words and meanings within texts
   • Graphophonic
     • Looking at the shape of the words, linking these to familiar graphemes to interpret them.
   • Semantic
     • Understanding the meanings of the words and making connections between words in order to decode new ones
   • Syntactic
     • Applying knowledge of word order and word classes to work out if a word seems right in the context
   • Contextual
     • Searching for understanding in the situation of the story. Comparing it to their own experience or their pragmatic understanding of social conventions.
   • Miscue
     • Making errors when reading: a child might miss a word or substitute another that looks similar, or guess a word from accompanying pictures.

4. Reading Schemes

   • Lexical repition
   • Syntactical repitition of structures
     • usually subjective-verb-object order and simple sentances containing only one clause.
   • Simple Verbs
     • Single verbs used rather than verb phrases
   • One sentence per line
     • Helps children say complete phrases
   • anaphoric referencing
     • Pronouns refer to the name of characters already used
   • Limited use of modifiers
     • This makes graded reading schemes different from imaginative stories where adjective add detail and description
   • Text-image cohesion
     • the picture tells the story of the text on the page