About Reading
Starting early
Most words are learnt incidentally, incrementally as we are immersed into the world of language. This language builds vocabulary as we communicate in the world. Vocabulary is important because it is a key component of reading for meaning…The greater the vocabulary, the more chance there is that readers will recognise words they attempt to decode (Konza 2006, p45).
By providing experiences where children can hear and use vocabulary, broadens their word knowledge base, assisting them to understand concepts, learn new words, and express themselves in different contexts, first as spoken language and then as written language including text and pictures.
Quality literature is one way of immersing children into the world of language from their very beginning of life. Words in books that replicate natural spoken language support the development of vocabulary, the intonation and rhythm of speech, the order and sequence of words.
Getting ready for school
Only a minute and a half of reading every day with children provides massive expose to about a half a million words by the time they are in their second year of school.
Sharing about the happenings in books is a great way to get them ready to understand what books are about. As well as developing their real world knowledge and oral language they learn:
- Where a story starts and where it finishes
- The parts of books like the cover, spine, title, pages, pictures and words
- What role the words and pictures play in communicating meaning
-Different types of texts structures found in fiction and non fiction books - How to work out what the words might say by thinking about what might make sense and draw on what they already know about the subject to help them make meaning from the text and the pictures.
Parents play a crucial role in their child's language development throughout the toddler years. Not only as they talk with their children, but as they share books, showing them how to work out the messages from both the pictures and the text. During these toddler years, this early reading time provides valuable reading readiness skills which positively impact on children's early school years and their school readiness as it fosters a love of reading from very early days.
Once children start school, reading with your child at home continues. In fact, it should increase. And as your child goes through primary school, they will move from learning to read where they use reading to learn.
Supporting children as they travel on the road to reading
Meaning is communicated through many different modes that are moving or still and through different mediums of expression. Text, film, pictures, drawings, symbols, sounds and spaces all communicate meaning and as such reading, writing, talking, viewing and listening all interrelate.
The way we access information changes with the type of text we are reading, why we are reading information and the way we read the information on the page. The level of difficulty and complexity changes for different types of texts and becomes more intense as children move throughout school. While there are many purposes and differences in the way, the content and the amount of time we read, reading is part of school from children's first day.
Community interest about literacy levels is at a high. Within the education community, literacy levels and appropriate methods of teaching and learning have been hotly debated. Australia is currently developing a new National Curriculum due for release in 2011 and the National Literacy and Numeracy Assessments are one way of providing information back to schools about students' strengths and needs. As education evolves with culture it is a part of, learning to read remains an essential part of everyday school and everyday life.
What we do know is that:
- Parents who help at home have an impact on their children's learning
- Childhood experiences and family environment have an impact on student achievement
- We learn to read using many different skills. While we all learn differently and at different rates, the more we read the better
- Early assessment of children in first years of schooling is being included to identify every student’s strengths and weakness and developing teaching and learning to suit those needs.
- ACER Committee Inquiry (2008) recognised the important role of parents in the years before their children started school as giving the best start for their children in literacy.
What is reading?
Reading is a key element of literacy and literacy is a key element to learning in all other subject areas of school and in society. As already said, reading is part of school from the very beginning and continues throughout children's school life and into their life after school.
Reading uses a number of skills that act together as we make meaning. Reading is about knowing the world. It is about having knowledge of events, topics and ideas that we can use to help us make sense of the messages that we are reading. These skills help us to understand what we are reading. This is often referred to as having a good general knowledge or 'domain' knowledge.
Reading is about understanding language and how language works. Understanding what words are important to remember to get the main idea as we read and how we link ideas together to make sense of the words we read. Understanding language is also about knowing the order of words, how words work together and change. For instance when words take a particular order in statements or questions, when words change tense or have different meanings in different contexts. These skills help us to predict what words might come next, if what we have read is making sense and how to check for meaning. These skills help to understand the intended message of the author and help us to work out what the words might say and mean.
Reading is also about sounds and letters. It is about understanding how the sounds we hear represent themselves as letters on a page. It is about understanding how the letters combine to make words. It is about understanding the patterns of letters that combine to make more complex words. These skills help us to understand the alphabetic code of reading to access the message on the page.
