What Are You Talking About?
PHONEMIC AWARENESS:
The ability to notice, think about, and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words.
Specific activities used to build phonemic awareness include:
*phoneme isolation (What is the last sound in bus?)
*phoneme identity - when children can recognize the same sounds in different words (“What sound is the same in pan, push, pile?)
*phoneme categorization (What word does not belong? - chair, door, doll
*phoneme blending: (What word is /d/ /o/ /g/?)
*phoneme segmentation: What sounds do you hear in desk? /d/ /e/ /s/ /k/ - four sounds
*phoneme deletion (What word is left when you hear train without the /t/? - rain)
*phoneme addition (What new word do you make when you add /s/ to the beginning of mall?)
*phoneme substition (I’m thinking of the word car. Change /c/ to /f/. What is the new word?)
COMPREHENSION:
The reason for reading. Good readers read for a purpose.
Text comprehension is developed by teaching comprehension strategies. Comprehension strategies may be taught through explicit instruction, cooperative learning groups (see guided reading, shared reading, partner reading, and literature studies) and by helping readers use strategies flexibly and in combination. Specific tools educators may use successfully to teach comprehension strategies include visual organizers (clusters, maps, webs, charts, etc. ), answering and generating questions, recognizing story structure (setting, conflict, character, outcomes, etc..) and summarizing (aids in the ability to identify main idea and remember what was read).
GUIDED READING:
This is a research based instructional approach which is child centered and designed for use within a variety of genre (math, science, fiction, non-fiction). Guided reading is a context in which a teacher supports each reader’s development of effective strategies for processing novel texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty.
Guided reading enables children to practice strategies with the teacher’s support, and leads to independent silent reading. (New Zealand Department of Education)
SHARED READING:
The shared book experience was inspired by the traditional bedtime story. The concept was originally developed by teachers of young children in New Zealand and was originally described by Don Holdaway in The Foundations of Literacy (1979). The traditional bedtime story experience generally involves only two people, parent and child. The process is recreated in the classroom using a big book on an easel (where it can be easily seen) and the comfortable environment of the “bedtime story” is emulated. The teacher introduces the text, allows time to observe the illustrations and predict what the story may be about. The teacher models the reading process by pointing to each word as he or she reads and engaging the children in repetitive text, upcoming words, phrases and predictions. The stories become a foundation for various language related activities that help children grow in all aspects of learning.
INTERACTIVE WRITING:
When children work in large or small groups to create a written piece they are practicing the cooperation skills needed to help children prepare for life. When writing together, often with an adult guiding the process, young readers and writers are able to practice various skills including, but not limited to, beginning spelling attempts, spacing between words, punctuation, story themes, or language patterns.
PARTNER READING: To foster independent reading the teacher may pair children with a partner. Children tend to sustain their interest longer when they are able to share their reading with a friend. It presents an opportunity for the children to encourage and guide one another as well.
INDEPENDENT READING:
Many studies have cited the importance of children of all ages spending a considerable amount of time reading to become good readers. Beginning at the earliest educational levels, teachers may provide time for children to read independently, even if this “reading” is primarily page turning and picture reading.
LITERATURE CIRCLES:
Literature Circles is a method of teaching the children how to study a book, discuss it with others and present the book to an audience.
Bibliography
Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA), Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read. Partnership for Reading, 2001.
Slaughter-Pollard, Judith. Beyond Storybooks: Young Children and the Shared Book Experience. International Reading Association, Inc., 1993.
Trelease, Jim. The New Read-Aloud Handbook., Penguin Group, 1989.
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© Gayle Berthiaume 2010 |
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