Learning to Read

Learning to Read sections include: (click to view the section)

Thirteen Understandings About Reading

Reading as a Process

Reading Aloud

Environmental Print

Learning the Alphabet

Phonemic Awareness

In a recent collection of research on reading, Building a Knowledge Base in Reading (Braunger & Lewis, 1997), 13 "understandings" about learning to read are explained. These ideas are useful for parents, teachers, and others in deciding how to help children do well in reading.

1. Reading is a construction of meaning from written text. It involves thinking and the reader's feelings. Reading requires the use of many different tools-"sounding out" (phonics), sight words, context clues, knowledge of language patterns, and comprehension strategies. The reader's feelings about what he is reading (is it interesting?) and the situation (is she comfortable, threatened, or embarrassed?) also affect reading development.
2. Background knowledge and prior experiences are critical to the reading process. As we read, we base our understanding on what we already know. For example: Two children read a book about zoo animals. One child has recently visited the zoo and has read other books about the zoo, and the other has not. Which child will understand more?
3. Social interaction is essential to learning to read. As with many things we learn how to do, we tend to learn from others who have already mastered the skill or task. The same is true for reading. Children need to see others reading, they need to hear stories read, ask questions, and talk about what they read-at school and at home. Just like all forms of language, reading requires interaction among people.
4. Reading and writing develop together. Reading and writing are connected. Encouraging children to write at all ages (even when it just looks like scribbling) can help them read better and see the connections between reading and writing.
5. Reading involves complex thinking. Reading is a problem-solving activity. It involves thinking at different levels-from getting the gist to being able to compare what is read in one text with another and apply what is read in new readings.
6. The environment or surroundings at home and school should be filled with many experiences in reading and writing. Access to many different kinds of reading and writing materials-library books, magazines, newspapers, other resources, and supportive adults-all make a huge difference in learning to read. Children need to see adults reading so it seems important.
7. Children must be interested and motivated to learn to read. It is important for children to be able to select materials to read that are interesting to them on topics they care about and can relate to.
8. Children's understandings of print are not the same as adults' understandings. Children view the world through their own eyes, not adults'. As adults support children in learning reading skills it is important to adjust expectations to children's levels. Initially children become aware that print carries a message, and gradually realize that groups of letters stand for certain sounds, and that print matches spoken words. What children understand is affected by developmental level and prior knowledge.
9. Children develop phonemic awareness and knowledge of phonics through lots of opportunities and experiences. Phonemic awareness (the ability to hear separate speech sounds within words), and phonics (the connections between letters and sounds) are very important to learning to read. Many children will learn these skills as they are read to, and as they practice writing, sing repetitive songs, and work with the alphabet. Other children learn these skills best with explicit instruction.
10. Children need to learn many different reading strategies. Readers need to be taught how to pay attention to certain things (letter-sound relationships, context clues, and word patterns) depending on the type of text. Readers also need to learn how to self-monitor for comprehension.
11. Children learn best when teachers use a variety of strategies to teach reading. There's no evidence that there's one best way to teach reading. Rather, teachers must have a variety of ways to meet children's needs such as reading aloud, shared and independent reading, and guided reading practice.
12. Children need the opportunity to read, read, read. The more children read the better they get at it-at school and at home. One of the best ways to practice is for kids to read books and other materials they choose.
13. Monitoring and assessing how children are reading is important to their success as readers. Children's mistakes in reading can tell a lot about how well children are doing. Listening to a child read, asking questions, and observing are ways teachers assess regularly. Standardized tests provide another way of measuring children's progress compared with other students. Other tests show how well students are achieving compared to how they should be achieving at grade levels (for example, at fourth, seventh, and 10th grades). This type of assessment can give parents and teachers valuable information so that if a child is not performing at a particular level, help can be given to get the child "back on track."

Thank you to Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory for sharing these important understandings.

http://www.nwrac.org/pub/tipsforparents.pdf

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Reading as a Process

Just as children begin to learn to write at home when they scribble their first message, children also begin to learn to read as they pick up books and with it often upside down, begin to tell the story. Reading and Writing are equally important and both can develop at the same time. What this means to us as parents is that we need to spend equal time focusing on reading and writing with our children to encourage their development.

Reading is a complex process consisting of interactions between 5 elements including phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary and fluency and the strategies and skills children use to bring these elements together. In the following discussion, you will find information on these elements in the context of:

• Reading Aloud
• Environmental Print
• Learning the Alphabet
• Phonological Awareness

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Reading Aloud

Why is it important to read aloud to children?

• Provides a model of fluent and expressive reading
• Provides opportunity to enjoy books that children can understand but not read on their own
• Means of sharing large vocabulary with children and attaching meaning to the words through children's experiences
• Provides pleasure and motivation
• Develops book language
• Develops "concepts of print" - how books "work" (front/ back, left to right, etc)
• Develops a sense of how stories are constructed ("once upon a time"...)
• Provides experiences with a variety of language patterns, story structures, genres, characters and writing styles
• Prepares children to understand written language as different from spoken language
• Builds a wealth of information about a world outside their own
• Fosters the ability to listen
• Allows children to practice oral turn-taking
• Encourages children to observe and practice the comprehension strategies of fluent readers
• Provides model for the craft of good writing
• Resolves some problems for children through stories

With that much value, how could we not find the time to read aloud to our children!

How will reading aloud help my child in writing?

• Hear "book language" that is different from his/her way of talking.
• Learn how stories work (beginning, middle, and end)
• Hear the way "real" authors use language
• Learn about different types of text (fiction, non-fiction, how-to, reporting, poetry
• Increases vocabulary

What's important to know about reading aloud to my child?

Before You Read

1. Choose a book that you enjoy and feel that your child will enjoy! They need to see and hear YOUR enjoyment!
2. Read the book to yourself first. Be familiar with the entire book so there are no "unwanted" surprises!

As You Read

1. Seat your child close to you. Make sure he/she can see the illustrations comfortably. Your child needs to be able to see and talk about the illustrations during the reading. Eye contact during the reading is also important.
2. Talk about the front cover before opening the book. Help your child to link his experiences with what is pictured on the cover. Predict what might happen inside the book. Encourage your child to talk and think. (oral language development)
3. Consider having your child sometimes listen to the text on a page without seeing the pictures and THEN turning the book so she can see the pictures. This promotes active listening and more involvement with the language, then the pictures. This encourages and develops imagination.
4. Read with lot of expression and at a good pace. Bring the book to life with sound effects, changes in your voice, and gestures. Don't read too fast!
5. Highlight important words in the story by commenting on language, repetition, rhyme, and unusual vocabulary.
6. Communicate the meaning through your voice and in talk about the books.
7. Model the thinking that good readers do as they read.
   • "I wonder what they mean by ......"
   • "I wonder what is going to happen next ......"
   • "I wonder why ......"
8. Periodically stop reading and ask questions. You might ask,
   • "Has this ever happened to you?"
   • "Do you think ______is doing the right thing?"
   • "What would you do if you were _______?"
   • "Why did the character act that way?"
   • "What do you think is going to happen next?"
   • Check for understanding as you read. Sometimes children lose interest in a book not because they don't enjoy being read to but because they don't understand the book.
9. Involve your child in the reading. He might predict what will happen next, fill in missing words, or point to parts of the picture. Encourage him to ask questions or to talk about related experiences.
10. Think of the read-aloud as a conversation. (but don't make it SO conversational on a first read that the story itself is lost.)
11. Enjoy ! Enjoy ! Enjoy !!

After You Read

1. Help your child think about how what you are reading relates to his life. For example, "Remember when we were feeding the ducks, how they all came quickly to us just like in this book?".
2. Ask open-ended questions such as "What were you thinking when you saw the Big Bad Wolf blow down the first house?" Give your child time to answer.
3. For older children, model what good readers think, how opinions are formed and responses shared.
4. Your child might want to draw or make something in response to the story. Offer a variety of opportunities. Don't force a discussion ! This should not feel like a test !

Don't Forget....

• Read aloud as often as possible - carry books with you everywhere!
• Reread those books children enjoy over and over again!
• Sit so that you and your child are comfortable.
• Ask questions that require children to remember the story but also ask questions that require children to think and form their own opinions.
• Give your child time to respond.
• Encourage the conversation.
• Read books that you and your child enjoy.
• Read a balance of fiction and non-fiction, sometimes pairing books on the same theme.
• Invite other older children or adults to read to your child.

Relax...have fun..enjoy the wonder of books together !

What else can I do to encourage my child to read?

• Get a library card so you can visit your library regularly for story hour, to look at books, talk about books, and to read books checked out daily.
• Read stories your child enjoys over and over again.
• Make connections from his reading to what he is doing everyday. i.e. When on the playground, "Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man." Besides reading to children and providing time for children to read books of their own choosing, it is important to let children talk about a book, link it to their experiences, and somehow make it memorable. (Huck, Stirring the Waters , p. 120)
• Look for things your child might like to read. Consider his age, interests etc.
• Leave all sorts of reading materials including books, magazines and catalogs in conspicuous places around the room.
• Notice what attracts your child's attention when sharing a book even if it is the pictures. Build on that interest.
• Let your child see you reading for pleasure in your spare time or using books to find out information. Let him see reading can have a purpose other than pleasure.
• Take your child to the library regularly. Make use of the many services offered. Ask a librarian to suggest books for your child.
• Encourage older siblings to read to younger siblings.
• Play games that are reading - related such as games that use letter tiles or board games that require players to read spaces, cards and directions.
• Share your responses to books you are reading.
• Set aside a regular time for reading in your family.
• Read aloud to your child regardless of age. Even older children can learn from books that are too difficult for them to read on their own.
• Encourage your child to read aloud to you - an exciting passage, something interesting in the newspaper, a joke etc...
• Give books and magazine subscriptions as gifts.
• Set aside a special place for children to keep their own books.
• Introduce the use of a bookmark.
• Do not offer unrelated rewards or punishment for time spent reading.
• Limit TV viewing to make time for reading.
• Take advantage of all of the reading opportunities that surround us each day. (menus, signs, directions, food labels, recipes etc)

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Environmental Print

I have heard that environmental print is important to young children learning to read. What is it?

• It's the print we see all around us - the print in our environment.
• It's the print on commercial signs, billboards, and labels of all kinds, the logos of the products we use every day.
• It's the print we recognize not so much because of the letters or words, but because of the colors, pictures, and shapes surrounding the print.
• It's the first print a child recognizes as literacy skills begin to emerge.

Some examples of environmental print are:

• The stop sign at the corner
• The sign on a neighborhood gas station or grocery store
• The wrapper on a child's favorite candy bar
• The box of a child's favorite cereal
• The label on a jar of peanut butter
• The "exit" sign above a door
• The sign for a child's favorite fast food restaurant
• The name on the toothpaste tube

Why should parents draw attention to environmental print?

• Children can often read environmental print in context, surrounded by familiar shapes, colors, and pictures.
• Children can feel successful "reading" at an early age.
• This early success motivates young children to read more and more !

But is attention to environmental print and being able to recognize the McDonald's sign really reading?

• It is an initial stage of reading. It begins to draw attention to print.
• When children have become skilled at recognizing environmental print, they will move on to reading the words in the same form but without the color. Later they will be able to read the print in different contexts. It sets the stage for later success as children become involved in paying attention to print.

What are some of the things that I can do with my child using environmental print?

Environmental print is everywhere. It is as simple as pointing out the name of the cereal or toothpaste in the morning or a stop sign or any other print while riding in your car.

Environmental print can be collected from coupons in the Sunday newspaper, the front panel of boxes such as their favorite cereal, candy wrappers, magazines, McDonald's placemats.

Your child's collection of environmental print can be stored and used in a variety of ways:

Scrapbooks of environmental print made out of:

• Magnetic page scrapbooks
• Spiral notebooks
• Construction paper books (sheets of construction paper stapled together)
• Three ring binders with paper pages or plastic sleeves

"I Can Read" Bags

Gift bags can be labeled "I Can Read" (or child's name instead of "I"). This becomes a storage place for the child's labels and examples of environmental print he can "read".

Environmental Print Puzzles

Puzzles for children to assemble can be made easily from the box fronts of favorite cereals, brownie mixes, cake mixes, crackers etc. It is best to have two boxes from the same product. One will remain intact and will provide the picture of what the puzzle should look like. The other box will be cut apart using only the front panel. The panel will be cut into puzzle pieces. The intact box can be used to store the pieces ! Show your child how to assemble the pieces on top of the intact boxes and then eventually beside the box. Remember to draw attention to the words and letters on the box because this is the reason for this activity.

Concentration

Collect 5-10 matching pairs of print samples. The Sunday newspaper coupon sections are great for this. Use print familiar to your child. The purpose is not to "teach" words that are not already familiar to the child. Samples can be glued onto index cards to make them sturdier.

To play the game all of the samples are turned face down so the print cannot be seen. The child alone or taking turns with another child or parent turns over two of the cards at a time trying to find a matching pair. Once he finds a matching pair he should try to "read" what it says. If successful, the child gets to keep that pair and take another turn.

The cards can also be used to sort into categories such as cereals, candies, toys etc or by color or the presence of a certain letter such as all words which have an "A".

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Learning the Alphabet

How can I help my child learn letters of the alphabet in a fun way without drilling him/her?

Paste the Pasta -
When children begin to learn the alphabet and to notice print, they begin to pay attention to features of letters such as circles, straight lines, curved lines, tails, tall and short letters. . . This is a fun way to begin to look closely at features of things in their world that can set the stage for noticing the features of print.

Using a piece of 8 ½ x 11 blank paper, turn the paper horizontally and draw lines dividing the paper into 3-4 even columns. Provide a bowl of different kinds of pasta, showing your child how it might be sorted into the different columns by such features as size, shape, straight, curved etc. For a very young child, initially, give the child directions for the sort such as "sort by the same shape." Later on, allow your child to increase the challenge of the activity by thinking of other ways the pasta might be sorted.

Pasta can be dyed different colors by combining a tablespoon of alcohol with a few drops of food color in a jar and then adding the pasta and shaking. Lay out on paper towels to dry. If using color do several shapes and sizes in the same color.

The Alphabet Song -
Write the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet on a strip of paper. As you sing the alphabet song (Tune: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) point to each letter. Later, help your child point to the letters as you sing together.

Name Puzzle -
Write your child's name with a colored marker horizontally on the outside of a 5 x 7 brown envelope. For very young children use only the first name. Eventually use both first and last names, printing each in a different color. On a strip of paper write the names so that they match the names on the envelope. Leave space between each letter. Then cut into squares with one letter per square. When first using the activity have child match the letter squares with the letters on the envelope while you say the names of the letters together. Eventually remove the envelope so the child can try spelling his name and identifying the letters on his own. Small pieces of magnet strip can be put on the back of each square so the letter squares can be put on the refrigerator.

Alphabet Concentration -
On 26 small blank index cards, write the alphabet in upper case letters, one letter to a card. On another set of 26, write the corresponding lower case letters. Beginning with only 2 pair of cards (the matching upper and lower case is a pair) turn cards face down. Show your child how to turn over one card and identify it and then turn over another card to try to find the matching letter. If there is no match, both cards are turned back over and child takes another turn. Increase number of pairs that are used as child's proficiency with identifying letters increases. You might start with the letters in your child's name.

Alphabit Cereal Sort -
Using ALPHABITS cereal, sort the letters into the separate piles, identifying each cereal letter as it is put on the pile.

Sorting Letters with Different Print Styles -
Put together a collection of letters with different print styles by cutting letters from newspapers, magazines or using labels on various products (environmental print). You can also use different fonts from the computer and print out letters in largest font. Cut the letters apart. Use both capitals and uppercase but avoid cursive forms for now. Use for sorting, initially just matching letters and then sorting by features of the letters. The Sorting Circle described below can be used.

Letter Sorting Circles -
On a large piece of paper draw two large circles of equal size which overlap several inches in the middle. This can be used for sorting. To use for sorting by letter features label the right side with a straight line (for letters with only straight lines such as uppercase A), the left side with a curved line (for letters with only curved lines such as C and S) and the middle section with both a curved and straight line (for letters such as G,g). This chart can be put on the refrigerator and used with magnetic letters also.

Shaving Cream / Pudding Letters -
Place shaving cream or pudding on a cookie sheet or directly onto the table and allow your child to draw known letters in it identifying the letters as he "writes". (Shaving cream will leave the area clean and smelling good while pudding is just yummy!) As his familiarity increases, encourage writing of his name and eventually other words such as Mom, Dad, love, zoo, fun, cat, dog, I, a or other words important to your child.

Find the Letter -
Point out specific letters to your child anywhere and everywhere you see print! Ask your child to find specified letters anywhere and everywhere you see print. Also ask your child to point to a letter and identify it. Finding the first letter of your child's name is a good place to begin.

Alphabet Race -
Each person take a page of the newspaper or a magazine, With a pencil or highlighter, on the word GO, try to find an example of each letter of the alphabet. The first to underline all 26 letters wins. You could vary this with a vowel, consonant, or all capital letter race. You could also look for as many examples of one letter in a specified amount of time.

Alphabet Scrapbook -
Prepare a blank dictionary by stapling pages of paper together. 7 pages of paper folded and stapled in the middle makes enough pages for one page per letter of the alphabet.

1. Practice writing upper and lower case letters on each page.
2. Cut out letters in different fonts or styles from magazines and newspapers and paste them on the pages.
3. Draw or cut out pictures that begin with the corresponding initial sound.
4. Add sight words later on as they become known.

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Phonemic Awareness 

I hear about phonemic awareness being important. What is it? Why is it important?

Technically, phonemic awareness is an awareness that spoken language is composed of small units of sounds referred to as phonemes. It is the ability to hear (/m-a-n/) and manipulate sounds (/p-a-n/, /m-a-n/, /m-a-t/) in spoken words. It is also the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of sounds. (Yopp, 1992) Now what does this mean? As children are developing oral language, they hear speech as continuous streams of sound much like what adults hear when listening to an unfamiliar language being spoken. A child's initial understanding of language is attached to the meaning of words rather than the sounds of language. For example, if you ask a young child "which word is longer - butterfly or bus ?" generally a child's response is "bus" because the bus is so much bigger than the butterfly - he is not thinking about the sounds or syllables in the word but the "meaning" connected to the word. For children to begin using the sounds and letters that attach to them in a way that will help them to read, they must not only know what those letters and sounds are (this is phonics) but also be able to hear the sounds in spoken language - this is phonemic awareness. The word "cat", for example, has 3 sounds or phonemes - /k-a-t/. Phonemic awareness is what helps phonics instruction make sense and become useful ! It is also what enables children to write and spell before they know the conventional spelling of words. If they can hear the sounds in words, they can write many, many words by saying them slowly and writing a letter that corresponds to what they are hearing. We call this "invented spelling".

What can I do to help my child become "phonemically aware"?

There are a number of different kinds of phonemic awareness. These include:

• Recognizing and producing rhymes
• Hearing individual words and sentences
• Taking words apart into syllables and putting syllables together to make words
• Hearing individual sounds in words

Following are activities that support the development of each of these.

Rhyming: Being able to recognize and produce rhymes is an important first step towards hearing the much smaller sound units within our language that correspond to letters.

Opportunities to "learn to rhyme" that you can offer your child include:

• Reading aloud rhyming stories and emphasizing the rhymes with changes in your voice: whispering, singing, getting louder as you read the rhyming words.
• Reading aloud rhyming stories and asking your child to identify rhyming words he hears.
• Reading aloud rhyming stories and pausing before the second half of a rhyming pair of words, allowing your child to fill in the word.
• Following the reading of a rhyming story, pick some rhyming words from the story and ask your child to produce additional words to rhyme with the pair.
• Using homemade or commercial picture cards, help your child to match rhyming pairs of pictures.
• Playing rhyming "I Spy" in the car, at the dinner table or anywhere around the house, "I Spy" something that rhymes with lake (cake).
• Teaching your child nursery rhymes, poetry, songs that emphasize rhyme, rhythm and repetition.
• Finding household objects that rhyme such as bed and bread.
• Looking for magazine pictures that rhyme based on a particular word. Cut out the pictures and glue on a separate piece of paper. ( bat, mat, cat, hat ) Say all the words together once they are glued down.
• Playing Concentration or Go Fish card games using rhyming picture cards.

Sentences and Words: For children to be able to read and write, they must have an understanding of what a word is and that spoken sentences are made up of words. This understanding includes not only being able to point out a word in print but first being able to hear words as individual units of sound in our language.

Opportunities to learn that sentences are made up of words that you can offer your child include:

• Saying a sentence and asking your child to count with her fingers the number of words she hears. Begin with short sentences of simple words that have only one syllable and then begin using longer sentences with words having more than one syllable. Instead of clapping, your child might use counters such as beans to show how many words he is hearing.
• Giving your child a pair of words, one distinctly longer than the other, and asking him to identify the longer word (bus, butterfly ) .
• Asking your child to tell you a specified number of words on a specific topic such as "Tell me two words about something you like to eat."
• Saying a compound word, asking your child to repeat it and then saying only one of the two parts. Ask your child to tell you what part is missing. ( baseball - ball )
• Reading aloud and pointing out individual words in the story and the spaces that separate the words.

Syllables: Once children are able to hear and identify individual words, they are ready to listen for the even smaller units of speech, syllables. Opportunities you can offer your child to take words apart into syllables and put them back together include:

• Clapping the syllables in the names of friends, family and favorite storybook and TV characters
• Clapping the syllables in names of household objects
• Identifying an object that has a specified number of syllables in the name from a group of objects. For example, you have an apple, a banana, and a nut. Find the object whose name has 2 parts.
• Playing "I'm Thinking of Something"- ITOS that cleans and whose name has 3 parts : (dishwasher)
• Acting out action words according to how many syllables the word has. (The word "mopping" would have 2 actions.)
• Telling your child you are going to say a word in a funny way and you want her to tell you the word. Then say a familiar word syllable by syllable. "broc-co-li" and have her guess the word.

Beginning and Ending Sounds: Once children can hear the syllables in words they should be introduced to the idea that words and syllables can be divided into the smallest units of sounds of speech that they will eventually be able to connect with the letters in printed words. (This is phonics)

Activities should focus on both beginning and ending sounds, and being able to take the sounds of a word apart and put the sounds together to make a word. Children should also be given opportunities to manipulate the sounds in words to make new words. Remember these activities should emphasize sounds not letters.

Opportunities you can offer your child to "play" with these sounds include:

• Reading alphabet books and other stories with lots of alliteration (same beginning sounds)
• Listening to and singing songs that play with beginning sounds of words (The Name Game- Anna banna fo fanna fee fi mo mana)
• Playing "I Spy" with beginning sounds. (I spy something that begins like this /s /.)
• Identifying the beginning and then ending sounds of household objects.
• Identifying beginning and ending sounds of friends and family members names. (I'm thinking of someone whose name begins like this.....)
• Taking away and adding beginning sounds to a familiar word. "Say the word sat. Now say sat without the /s/." " Say the word at. Now add /f/ to the beginning. Fat. "
• Asking your child to tell you what word you would have if you blended the sounds:/h/ /a/ /t/.
• Asking your child to listen for and say the beginning sound in the following: hat, horse, home, hand. (Do the same with ending sounds.)
• Asking your child which of the following words begins differently: snake, slip, slide, fan. (Do the same with ending sounds.)
• Making an alphabet book by labeling a page for each sound and finding pictures that begin or end with the specific sound.
• Plan a vacation or a shopping trip and think of an object to pack or buy which begins with each sound of the alphabet.
• Play Concentration with picture cards available from the local teacher supply by matching beginning or ending sounds.
• Giving your child clues to describe a familiar object and the initial sound, asking her to guess what the object. (Don't give so many clues that she doesn't need the letter sound to guess.)
• Using counters such as beans show your child how to move a counter for each sound heard in a word.
• I went shopping. I went shopping and I bought a bag
  I went shopping and I bought a bag and a banana
  I went shopping and I bought a bag and a banana and a boat - Continue adding with objects beginning with the same letter.
• Asking your child to identify from several pictures the picture that has a specified number of sounds.