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The five pillars of reading instruction are an integral part of children learning to read and write. As students begin to have an understanding of these pillars they are able to transfer the knowledge for reading into their writing.

The following chart gives a brief definition of each of the five pillars. This chart was taken from the blog, Katelyn's Learning Studio (Hildebrand, K., 2020a)

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Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, manipulate and substitute phonemes (the smallest unit of spoken language) with the understanding that these small sounds make up words (Learns, N.D.).

Strong phonemic awareness is one of the strongest predictors of later reading success (Hildebrand, K., 2020b).  One activity I use in the classroom to encourage phonemic awareness is to read rhyming books to my students.  As we come across words that rhyme we practice taking out the beginning sounds to make the rhyming word we come across.  We do this with snap cubes that have letters written on them.

The ability to manipulate phonemes is an important part of writing. This skill is important to learning the mechanics of writing especially as it relates to spelling.

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Phonics is understanding the relationship between graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds) as they relate to written text (Hildebrand, K, 2020a).

Once activity my students enjoy in the classroom to reinforce phonics during instruction is to spell out their spelling list using play-dough. They can either practice by rolling the play-dough out and writing on it or by shaping the play-dough into letters to spell out their words.

As phonics is reinforced students have the building blocks to learn writing mechanics. When students are confident in phonics and their ability to apply phonics to spelling they have confidence to share through their own writing.

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Fluency is reading text accurately, quickly, and expressively, to oneself or aloud (Learns, N.D.).

Modeling is an important part of learning fluency.  Once activity I use in my classroom is to have my students read aloud in smaller groups (no reading groups this year). I try to change it up and have boys only, girls only, row 2, or maybe even call a shirt color to give these students practice reading aloud.  This activity encourages students to read with expression and at a good rate.

Fluency is an important part of writing. When students learn fluency in reading the mechanics they need for writing improves. Fluency effects writing structure. Students have a better understanding of sentence structure when they are fluent readers. Students can transfer the understanding of reading punctuation into their writing.

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Vocabulary is the compilation of words used in spoken language as well as written language (Hildebrand, K, 2020a).

One activity I use in the classroom to help students build their vocabulary is having a class dictionary.  We start each year with several sight words for each letter of the alphabet as well as some common words.  As we learn new vocabulary  during our stories or come across new sight words we add them to our dictionaries. The students are then encouraged to pull out their dictionaries whenever they have a writing assignment. This gives the students the ability to write without fear of of misspelling as well as giving students an arsenal of words to use so their writing does not sound the same or boring.

Building vocabulary is an important tool for writing.   As children build their vocabulary they are able to put their thoughts together in meaningful sentences and paragraphs.  Being able to express in print is an important lifelong skill (National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), N.D.).

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Comprehension is the understanding of text that is read (Learns, N.D.).

Comprehension is the what reading is all about (Learns, N.D.).  To encourage comprehension I challenge the students to ask questions before, during and after a story.  We will often use an anchor chart to accomplish this. Before we read a story I ask my students to think of questions based off the title of the story or the cover of the book.  We then pause during the story to see if our questions have been answered or if our questions have changed as we read.  At the end of the story I again ask questions to make sure students have a clear understanding of the story.  Then we discuss the story and how our questions changed as we continued to read.

Helping students gain understanding of what is read is essential component to writing (Welch, G., 2018).  The more connections students make to the text (text-to-text, text-to-self, or text-to-world) comprehension improves and when comprehension improves student writing is elevated (Welch, G., 2018).

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Hildebrand, K. (2020, January, 20a). The Big Five Reading Skills and Why You Need to Teach Them. Katelyn's Learning Studio. http://katelynslearningstudio.com/2020/01/reading-skills.html

Hildebrand, K. (2020, January, 27b). What is Phonemic Awareness. Katelyn's Learning Studio. http://katelynslearningstudio.com/2020/01/phonemic-awareness.html

Learns, N.D. The National Reading Panel: Five Components of Reading Instructions Frequently Asked Questions [PDF]. Retrieved from Learning Landscape Website http://www.learninglandscape.com/National_Reading_Panel_Reading_Instruction_FAQ.pdf

National Association for the Eduction of Young Children (NAEYC). (N.D.).  Learning to Read and Write: What Research Reveals. Reading Rockets.

Welch, G. (2020, July 19). Increasing Reading Comprehension Through Better Writing Assignments. The Current. https://thecurrent.educatorinnovator.org/increasing-reading-comprehension-through-better-writing-assignments.