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LEARNING TO READ
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There is no mystery in teaching children to
read - no magic and no hocus pocus - just a set of skills
that must be taught sequentially to help children become independent
readers. Some methods of instruction work better for some
children and other methods work better for others. Exclusive
emphasis on one method can lead to reading failure in children.
The benefits of reading well by a child are
that they will be confident with their school work, they will
better understand and they will study better, hopefully achieving
more.
If a child is a slow reader they don't learn
as quickly as their peers and day by day they can fall further
behind. Their confidence in their schoolwork plummets as does
their self confidence. Their behaviour can become disruptive
in the classroom and intolerable at home - all because of
frustration that is the inevitable consequence of a reading
problem.
Few children, if any, set out to ruin your
day by reading poorly. Most children with reading problems
are desperately trying to read accurately and please those
who are listening. Many have problems in areas that contribute
to reading difficulties - poor visual and auditory perception,
a.d.d. or poor self confidence - and they may be unwilling
to try in case they make mistakes. The job of parents and
teachers is to find ways of improving the situation.
The first thing to remember is that, when
it comes to teaching reading there is no single infallible
way of doing things. The prevalent method of reading instruction
for the past twenty years has flatly stated that all children
learn to read by 'sight' or 'whole word' methods. It doesn't
matter where you have been in that time, this method has predominated
to the exclusion of others.
The 'whole language' method, with the benefit
of hindsight, is directly responsible for reading problems
of a generation of school children. Whole language asks children
to read words as complete units. Think of the word 'could'.
Close your eyes and you can see it blinking on and off like
a neon sign. That is your visual memory at work. The theory
goes like this - if a child can learn to recognise 'could'
and retain it, the child will then be able to recognise the
similar words, 'would and should'. That sounds fine in theory
and many children learn to read quite happily this way. In
reality, however, over one-third of seven year olds lack visual
memory to enable them to learn using whole language methods.
Poor visual memory explains why a child can
read a word on one page and forget it on the next. The reliance
on visual memory is the reason why whole language causes so
many children to be unsuccessful in their early reading experiences.
Whole language encourages children to guess
at words. If children do not know a word, they are told to
look at the picture relating to it and guess at it. Older
children are told to try to read the word using contextual
clues from the other words around it. If they come across
an unfamiliar word they are told to skip over it and come
back to it later. If the word is an integral component of
the sentence then their understanding of the sentence is doomed
to failure.
When it comes to spelling, children are encouraged
to 'invent' words. Whole language believes that children will
learn to spell naturally over the years and does not bother
correcting spelling mistakes. A recipe for disaster. You don't
have to think too long to see that this is not a satisfactory
way of teaching a simple set of skills. Whole language is
at best a 'hit and miss' method that works well for those
it hits and not at all that it misses. At worst it is a recipe
for disaster for children with poor visual memory skills.
For those who prefer a systematic approach to learning, it
gives no reliable core of knowledge to fall back on when they
are asked to read and spell unfamiliar words. Children cannot
be taught to read effectively by guesswork. Whole language
puts the cart before the horse.
Children learn to read by using their knowledge
of the spoken language and applying it to the written word.
They use language from their environment to develop their
reading, writing and spelling ability. By contrast, the phonics
method teaches children to read from the bottom up. It teaches
children to 'sound out' words from the knowledge of the sounds
that letters make. It gives them a set of skills to use when
they encounter unknown words.
Whole language advocates say that it is a
waste of time to give children the mechanical ability to sound
out words and that children learn to read by reading. This
approach makes as much sense, the phonics people say, as throwing
a child in the deep end of a pool and saying, 'Learn to swim
by swimming'.
The evidence is now overwhelming that children
learn to read best if they are given systematic instruction
in phonics. The phonic method teaches children to assign sound
values to written symbols. In plain language they say a sound
when they see a letter. They are taught to blend sounds into
meaningful words and they go on to learn rules of generalisations
and more difficult letter-sound patterns. Finally, they are
shown how to divide words into syllables and into prefixes
and suffixes.
Children also need to be taught a core of
basic sight vocabulary words - words they must recognise immediately.
There are a number of these lists. They contain over two-thirds
of words used in beginning readers and over one-half of the
words in adult reading material. Children learn sight vocabulary
to improve fluency and to give them more time to concentrate
on unfamiliar words.
The whole language method has a lot to answer
for. A widespread introduction of phonics methods does not
mean reading problems will magically disappear. Children will
continue to have reading problems and will continue to need
remedial instruction. With a balanced and common sense approach
to the teaching of reading, the problems may not be so severe
and the numbers not so large.
Parents need to know why children do not learn to read successfully
Too many children cannot learn to read using the whole language
method
Research shows phonic instruction is the superior method of
teaching basic reading skills
Phonics allows children to acquire reading skills systematically
using a step-by-step approach.
The Phonics desk (pictured) can give a child a 500 word reading vocabulary prior to school.
That's alot!
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