There are many important components involved in learning to read, however, five main aspects stand out. These being early experiences with language and print, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary and fluency. All of these elements are important and depend on each other to generate the ultimate goal for reading which is comprehension. Teachers need to have a comprehensive understanding of the process of learning to read, intensive knowledge of effective strategies to help children thrive when learning to read
The reading process begins well before children start school where the introduction to language comes from parents providing a rich environment surrounded by suitable oral language experiences, exposure to a range of books, and the
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Phonological awareness is being able to distinguish the assembly of isolated sounds that make up words and experiment with adjusting the distinct sounds known as Phonemes to form new words (Emmit, Hornsby & Wilson, 2013). Elements of phonological awareness include practice with separating, manipulating and grouping together sounds of words, in addition to exploring words and sounds in an enjoyable way using rhymes (Matheson, 2005). Phonological awareness provides innovative processes for a broader vocabulary and the ability to sound out new words (University of Oregon, 2009). The decoding process that occurs allows readers the ability to then concentrate on the meaning of what they read and improve their reading development (Reid Lyon, 1998). When teaching phonological awareness to children, teachers should work in small groups that explore only a couple of concepts at a time for instance how the mouth moves when saying a variety of isolated sounds in comparison to these phoneme sounds blended to assemble a word (Learning Point Associates, 2004). In conjunction with the familiarity of phonemes and words in phonological awareness, it is imperative to integrate this fundamental feature of reading development with understanding graphemes, and the link to letters in print to their phonemes sounds with phonics (Fellows & Oatley, …show more content…
Phonics is imperative to learning to read because it allows for the reader to distinguish these associations in letters and words that they read to captivate comprehension (Walbank & Bisby, 2016). At the preschool-grade, knowledge of the alphabetic principles should be extensive and in-depth, however, too much focus can lead to over application of this skills having words read but not comprehended. The directional approach for teaching phonics should be precise, articulated well with graphemes organised in a logical and systematic way allowing plenty of time to recite the new skills received inherited obtained attained gained acquired (Learning Point Associates, 2004). Likewise, with phonological awareness the expertise of listening to the sounds in phonemes and words, phonics helps complete the process of sounding out to decode what has been read to eventually move onto the primary goal of learning to read being comprehension (Fellows & Oakley, 2014). Another approach is to teach phonics is the analytical technique in which the teacher guides students to observe phonemes and graphemes by scrutinising full words to bring forth another critical thinking skill required to understand what the text means (Ewing & Maher, 2014). This essential component combined with
Knowledge of onset and rime allows students to read unknown words based on existing word knowledge and the ability to build word families (Pinnell & Fountas, 1998, p. 236) based on rime sounds. The introduction of phonemes during phonological awareness occurs in the last level, where explicit instruction is used to teach students how to detect, segment, count, blend and manipulate separate phonemes (Yopp & Yopp, 2009, p. 3). Strategies to support phonological awareness includes counting and clapping out both sentences and syllables, rhyme riddles, guess which object (Yopp & Yopp, 2009, p. 8), segmenting words requiring students to blend back together and instruction of rhyme identification (Fellows & Oakley, 2010, p. 190). Rhyme identification can be explored through song and nursery rhymes, grouping words according to onset and rime (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, p. 331), rhyming games such as roll a rhyme (Fellows & Oakley, 2010, p. 190) and cumulative reading texts. Children not exposed to different forms of rhyming within the home environment will need explicit instruction in how to determine what a rhyming word and what it is. As the concept of rhyme is normally introduced before developing reading ability, students struggling with identifying sounds may benefit from picture cards to introduce the concept, allowing them to group and identify rime
Phonemic awareness is a vital role in literacy instruction. Many schools and districts adopt a commercially published basal reading program and it becomes the cornerstone of their instruction ( (David Chard, n.d.). We also know that through investigation and research it has shown us that word-recognition instruction and instruction in oral language skills related to word recognition were inadequately represented. (David Chard, n.d.) The same researchers have found that the reading passages that students are reading didn’t relate to the words they were learning. In order for students to read at grade level or above a supplemental program should be implemented. I have found that at my school we are lacking a phonics program that will reach different students abilities and make them successful in reading. My goal for this paper is to show my district that using a supplemental phonics program aside from our basal phonics program will prove beneficial to strategic readers who fall below grade level.
Learning to read is beginning to develop earlier in elementary grades. Students are expected to be emergent readers by the time he or she leaves kindergarten and enters first grade. If a child is not, he or she is labeled as being behind. According to Hughes (2007) emergent readers are using early reading strategies in consistently, read easy patterned text, retell text with simple storyline, and respond to text at a literal level. Hughes (2007) also says literacy develops in young children through play, daily conversation and interactions with text of all kinds. Many children come with emergent literacy skills; can recognize signs and labels, scribble letters, retell stories by pointing at pictures and talking about them, and some have varying degrees of phonemic and phonological awareness. This essay will define and explain implication for each theory in learning to read.
There are many components to building a student’s reading skill set. One skill that is introduced in preschool and developed through the primary grades is phonemic awareness. The term phonemic awareness is defined as the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes – individual sounds. The child becomes aware of how sounds are connected to words prior to reading. This awareness creates the understanding of how phonemes explains how the smallest part of sound creates a difference in sound to the meaning of a word. Therefore, the ability to dismantle words, and reassemble them, and then to alter the word into something different explains the concept behind phonemic awareness. It is the primary foundation in which other reading skill sets are according based.
Ehri’s Phases of Word Reading and Spelling Development has four different phases that are used to describe the progressive stages of a reader. The first phase is the Pre-alphabetic phase, in this phase there is no letter to sound consciousness only visual features of a word which the students use as a reminder of how to read the words. Phase two is the Partial Alphabetic. When readers are in this phase they use some of the letters in the word (mainly the first and the last letters) to attempt to pronounce the word. Phase three is the Full Alphabetic Phase. In this phase the readers are now able to use and understand the alphabetic connections in words. The readers are now able to map graphemes to phonemes of words that have been read to them
Although for awhile, phonics had lost some of its popularity, research has proven its usefulness when teaching children to read. Without explicit instructions in phonemic awareness and phonics a student is in danger of learning issues. The Headsprout Reading Basics program can prevent these issues from occurring through explicit instruction in phonemic awareness,
To measure children’s phonological awareness, teachers should look at children’s ability with different skills. For example, a child with strong phonological awareness is able to understand and can use, alliteration, the concept of spoken word, rhyme, syllable blending and syllable segmenting. Children start to read by listening others, and then recognizing sound in words, sounding words out for themselves and recognizing familiar words, so it is important for children to learn the phonological awareness because it can help kids to become a successful reader.
A doctor once said ‘the more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go’. That doctor was, of course, Dr Suess in his book 1978 book, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!. Reading is the orchestration of many skills. It is much more than simply decoding words. The National Reading Panel Report (A Closer Look, 2004, p. 1) summarised a child’s reading process and teachers’ effective reading instruction into five essential components. These five critical elements are phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Each element is individually important; however, each cannot occur independently of one an other. The most effective way to teach these elements is through a balanced
“Put Reading First” talks about the most important elements of reading such as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The article explains the purpose and importance of these concepts, due to the idea of how hard it is for some children to read. It also offers the idea of instructional strategies to use for the concepts. For example, Phonemic awareness is being able to hear, distinguish between the sounds being heard, and make sounds in spoken words. This involves understanding that some words have the same beginning sound or segmenting the beginning and ending sound in the words. The article also goes on about the individual breakdowns of the concept such as graphemes and phonemes. It then goes over the strategies
Essay – Discuss the role of phonological awareness in the development of early reading and spelling skills. Introduction: This essay will discuss the role of phonological awareness and how it contributes to the development of reading and spelling in children. Discussions will involve details regarding: 1) What is phonological awareness? 2) Why is phonological awareness important to children’s reading and spelling awareness?
Phonological awareness strategies play a vital role in the development of vocabulary and word consciousness. “It is a sound structure of language—that is, that language is made up of words, syllables, rhymes, and sounds (phonemes)” (Phonological Awareness). This awareness of sounds in a spoken language is a strong indicator of future literacy success. Strategies to promote phonological awareness provide opportunities to help students to hear and differentiate and segregate sounds in their oral language. Emergent learns can better discern rhymes and alteration and understand sounds through syllables.
Children can take more than one of these steps at the same time. This list of steps, though, gives you a general idea of how your child will progress toward reading.” (Helping your child become a reader) While these ideas may seem structured, it is also important to allow children to be creative and use their imagination. Although reading is imperative, too many arrangements and rules can turn a child off and lead to feelings of resentment, anger, and resistance. Reading should be set to the tone and pace of the child.
We learn literacy through phonological practices prompted in reading development to increase fluency and comprehension (Konza, 2006). Phonological awareness concerns itself with manipulation of sound patterns related to speech and intonation and has a relationship to phonemic awareness, being the smaller components of language such as individual letter sounds (Hill, 2012). Rose recommends that synthetic phonics are needed for ‘letter-sound correspondence’, learning how words are blended and broken up for spelling and finally being able to recognize words in print, as well as singularly (2006, p. 18). Understanding of these literacy components culminate to skills required to read (National Reading Panel, 2000). Oral language is casual and elusive in syntactical meaning, so in order for children to become effective readers they need to have exposure to formal and ‘decontextualized’ language properties (Konza, 2006, p. 35). Students will not be able to associate speech to written language
Learning to read is a valuable and important skill that children acquire from a very early age. Children gain an understanding of the different sounds in our spoken language from a wide range of different experiences and social interaction with their environment. For example, singing and saying rhymes, sharing books, making and listening to music, pretend play, listening to adults and joining in conversations etc ect. as mentioned by Vygotsky (1978)
Understanding phonics is an essential part of a child’s education, as the knowledge they develop will assist them to read and write. Educators must have an understanding of phonics to teach it effectively. Teachers need to support students to learn what sounds, letters make, which is a phoneme. Educators also need to assist students to make the connection with the letters and their names, which is called graphemes (Tompkins, Campbell, Green, & Smith, 2015, p. 142). Understanding that each letter makes a different sound and connecting this to the letter is known as phonics, which is required for reading and writing. According to Miskin (2016, p. 9) the English language has more than 150 ways to represent the 44 phonemes, which are represented using the 26 letters of the alphabet or graphemes. Australian educators need to implement a successful phonics program, which is engaging by involving different strategies that are suitable to student 's level. According to New South Wales (2009, p. 16) phonics must be taught in kindergarten and begins with songs, rhymes, and books. Synthetic and analytic are two different teaching strategies, which are used to teach students phonics. These strategies are very different to one another and are a similar method of the top down bottom up approach. Top down allows students to use prior knowledge by using the phonemes to make a word while the bottom up approach allows students to use what they already know or have seen in prior learning