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According to the National Reading Panel Report (NICHD, 2000), "There is a combination of techniques that are effective for teaching children to read" and write.  They are  as follows: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and  comprehension.

The Five Pillars of Reading Instruction also known as "The Big Five"  are interconnected and in many instances are taught in correlation with one another to provide effective reading and writing instruction to our students. Instruction is systematic and explicit and depends on the child's developmental stage and instructional needs after assessment.

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Phonemic awareness is the first step in phonological awareness.  It is  the ability to manipulate, hear, and identify the smallest unit of sounds (phonemes) in spoken word(s) and for that reason it is considered auditory.

Being exposed to books and writing activities, at an early age helps to reinforce phonemic awareness.  It can also be reinforced by playing games with your students such as

identifying rhyming words (cat & bat),

blending separate sounds /c/-/a/-/t/ = cat,

segmenting words into separate sounds cat=/c/-/a/-/t/

isolating and saying the first and the last sound in a word "The beginning sound of cat is /c/, the ending sound of cat is /t/"

substituting and deleting sound(s) in spoken words such as cat delete the c = at, now change the c to b =bat.

Phonemic awareness helps to break words apart during reading and create new words when writing.

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Phonics is concerned with "teaching letter-sound relationship as they relate to learning to read" (Sprague, 2019).  Phonics can be used in decoding text in reading and encoding text in writing.  If a child is having trouble with spelling a word he/she can begin with the beginning sound and then the next sound to attempt to spell a word correctly.  As they come to a common word(s) or an unknown word(s) while reading, they can use phonics to break words apart (segmenting phonemes, onset, root words, and rimes) into pieces, for example, c/a/m/e/l or cam/el so that they can assign the appropriate sound to each letter or combination of letters while reading or writing.  Journal writing and reading daily will help to reinforce phonics. A student connect letters to sound which in turn will help them to connect letters and sounds to print when using phonics.

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is being able to recognize words with ease, read with prosody (speed, accuracy, and expression) and to understand (comprehension) text.  When a student is able to read more words than not at an accurate speed without stopping to decode an unfamiliar word that student has become a fluent reader.

"Guided oral reading is one approach to helping children to become fluent readers"(NICHD). The teacher works with small groups on a text that students can read with support.  Problem-solving strategies are implemented to help learner read the text.  The ultimate goal is for the student to be able to read independently.

Readers' Theater  is a great way to motivate kids to read  and increase fluency.    Each student is given a script to learn.   After learning their script,  students perform the play.  Fluency is increased by reading and rereading their script and Readers' Theater  is a great motivator because it is fun and it provides a different way of learning new words and concepts to help when in writing.

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is the introduction of new words separately or in text.  Based on the understanding of the word, beginning readers are able to sound out words or see if it makes sense in the sentence.  The more common words that the student knows, the better he or she will read.

The best way to increase vocabulary is through wide reading and semantic mapping (a visual strategy like a graphic organizer or web of words) to help expand vocabulary and extend knowledge based on a student's prior knowledge or schema by displaying words in categories that are related to one another based on a certain topic or book  when students are reading or writing.  Books of interest to the students are inviting to the students. An example of semantic mapping is below.

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Comprehension is to understand, remember, or make meaning of what has been said or read in a passage or book.  The four other pillars help with comprehension.

Comprehension can be literal  explicitly stated, inferential implied from background knowledge and what they have read, or evaluative a combination of what they read with their own beliefs to form an opinion.

Literal comprehension is the most important of the three for students to learn. It provides a foundation for being able to answer other types of comprehensive questions.  If the literature is not understood, the student will not be able to make inferences or form an opinion about what they have read.

An activity to try while reading is to ask questions to evaluate comprehension.  To make learning fun have students to answer following questions during read aloud:  Do you agree with the author? Why or why not?  Why did you think that the character did that or How did the character feel when this happened?

Literary analysis can be used to take a closer look and to understand and interpret meaning and why the author made certain choices in their writing.  Students can express  their thoughts, feelings, or opinions in a writing journals or during group discussions.

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National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). (2020). National Reading Panel (Historical/For Reference Only). U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved  from
https://www.nichd.nih.gov/research/supported/nrp

Pinterest. (2020). Blending and segmenting.  Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/856317316640131246/

Primary Delight.. (2019). Nursery rhyme readers' theater.  Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/404620347775720910/

Sprague, C. (2019). Phonics. Retrieved from https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=44451908-2499-4376-9248-383732a5a6da%40sessionmgr4008&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=89164367&db=ers

Teacherspayteachers.com/. (2020). Semantic map. Retrieved from
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/211174966908070/