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3. Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension

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3. Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension

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This article explains the seven strategies that an educator may use to teach students how to understand text.
1. Monitoring Comprehension
2. Metacognition
3. Graphic and Semantic Organizers
4. Answering Questions
5. Generating Questions
6. Recognizing Story Structure
7. Summarizing

This resource is essential as Fellowes and Oakley (2014) mentioned that reading is a difficult task to children who have trouble understanding text. They further elaborated that these children may lose their motivation in reading and avoid reading entirely which will result in them falling behind not in just reading skills but other subject areas. Through activities implemented in the curriculum along with discussions by the educators, it helps children increase their word and conceptual knowledge (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014)

In this article, Adler (n.d.) mentioned that comprehensions strategies are used to help readers make sense of text through a set of steps. Adler further explains that it allows students who are in control of their own reading comprehension to become purposeful and active readers.

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This resource provides educator the insights of the relationship between reading and phonological awareness. Also, how Phonological Awareness would allow child to attend to discriminate, remember, and manipulate sounds at the sentence, word, syllable, and phoneme sound throughout their learning process.

Correlational studies have shown strong concurrent and predictive relations between phonemic awareness and success in reading. It was shown that, children who had difficulty with
phonological awareness tasks such as blending sounds together to make words, segmenting words into sounds, and manipulating initial and final consonants typically remained in the bottom quarter of their class in reading years later (Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer, & Carter, 1974; Mann, 1984).

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Keith Stanovich, cognitive scientist and psychologist (1994)

What is Phonological Awareness?

When it comes to reading, you've probably heard of phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is a meta-cognitive skill (i.e., an awareness/ability to think about one's own thinking) for the sound structures of language. Phonological awareness allows one to attend to, discriminate, remember, and manipulate sounds at the sentence, word, syllable, and phoneme (sound) level. Examples follow for each level:

Sentence level: How many words are in the sentence, "She sells sea shells by the sea shore?"

Word level: Do these words rhyme: distribution and retribution?

Syllable level: What is the last syllable in the word "discrimination?"

Phoneme level: What is the final sound in photo?

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is an essential skill that underlies a child's ability to learn to read and spell. Phonemic awareness falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness; however, it only pertains to the phonemes (sounds) in words. Hence, exercises that pertain to the sentence and syllable are considered phonological awareness rather than phonemic awareness. Rhyming is also excluded from phonemic awareness, since it does not relate to the individual sounds in the word. Once again, phonemic awareness requires the knowledge that words are comprised of individual sounds that can be manipulated. Using phonemic awareness, one can match, blend, segment, and rearrange sounds in words (or nonsense words).

Without strong skills in phonemic awareness a child cannot begin to connect the sounds of our language to letters or letter combinations. A child must be able to isolate and blend sounds into word parts and words to learn to read and spell. For many dyslexics, this is a very challenging task as evidenced in their great difficulties in decoding and encoding.

We can assess children's initial attempts at phonemic awareness as early as the ages of 3 and 4. Children who do not play rhyming or alliteration games could be suspect for dyslexia down the road. Children with speech sound production problems (articulation) could also have difficulty learning to read and spell. We've a good list of tests, such as the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), to use to determine whether a child has difficulty hearing or processing the individual sounds of our language.

Explicit instruction in phonemic awareness is the only way to go for the children who are not getting it. The earlier the better. Phonemic awareness should first be taught without any letters using blocks or chips to represent the sounds and make them salient to the child. Children need to learn to hear those sounds without being confused by the letters that correspond with them. This is particularly important given that many times the same sound is represented by different letter combinations (think long a in cake, rain, hey, gray, and sleigh). Take words apart auditorily and then put them back together over and over again.

After children learn to isolate and manipulate phonemes, then we introduce single letters and letter combinations or families (e.g., -at, -up, -in., etc.), but not until we are confident that the child can take words apart and put them together using only what he or she hears. Play rhyming and alliteration games. Sing that old song "Hannah hannah, bo-banana, fee-fie-fo-fannah, me-mi-mo-mannah, Hannah!" You get the idea!

What is Phonics?

Phonics refers to sounds as they relate to graphemes (letters) or morphemes (prefixes, suffixes). Therefore, you can say that phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are exclusively auditory skills, whereas phonics maps the auditory patterns (i.e., sounds) with the corresponding visual representations (i.e., letters). Phonics uses letters, while phonological and phonemic awareness do not. Below is a table comparing phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics:

Involves sound (no written symbols)

Involves sound (no written symbols)

Involves symbols (i.e., letters) that represent sounds

There are 48 distinct sounds in English that have definite combinations in syllables, words, and sentences.

There are only 48 distinct sounds in English.

There are multiple ways to represent each sound (e.g., The "o" sound can be spelled a variety of ways in bow, boat, go, thorough, and cope.)

Comprises sounds, syllables, words, and sentences

Focuses on sounds in words

Addresses symbols for sounds, syllables, and words

More and more research is concluding that students with poor phonological awareness skills struggle with reading and spelling. In the brain, the angular gyrus and corresponding regions in the occipital and temporal lobes are responsible for phonological processing abilities. Neuro-imaging of dyslexic brains reveals disruption in this area of the brain. In other words, phonological processing deficits are a hallmark of dyslexia and require explicit and systematic instruction (as well as repeated practice) to build up these neuro-pathways.

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Upon completion of this section, you will: Understand that phonemic awareness is an essential skill that underlies a student's ability to learn to read and spell Know the basics of phonemic awareness so that we may help dyslexics and parents understand "Phonological awareness is the most potent predictor of success in learning to read."

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Phonological awareness will allow children to have an awareness of the sound structure of spoken language. In phonological, there are four different levels; word level, syllable level, rhyme level and phoneme level. The levels, however, are not developed in a fixed order and they do not represent stages (MOE, 2013). Phonological awareness consist of “rhyming and phonemic identification and manipulation” and it should be taught alongside with alphabets and decoding skills so as to create a meaningful instructions (McKinnon, 2017).

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Basics: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

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Before children learn to read print, they need to become aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of individual speech sounds, or phonemes. A child's skill in phonological and phonemic awareness is a good predictor of later reading success or difficulty.

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3. Ways Parents can use to build Phonological Awareness in Children

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3. Ways Parents can use to build Phonological Awareness in Children

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This resources offers parents ways and simple activities to build Phonological Awareness with children.

Through simple suggested activities like playing with words, rhymes and syllables, this allows parents to take learning beyond classroom and extend children's Phonological Awareness at home.

Rhyming and clapping of syllables is often taught first when it comes to the sequence to teaching phonemic awareness skills. With children able to listen, recognise and then generate rhyming words, then they can identify beginning sounds, final sounds, and medial sounds (Resources for Early Learning (REL), 2014).

Parent involvement is the number one predictor of early literacy success and future academic achievement (Burton, 2013). With parents to continue to scaffold children's phonological awareness at home, children can continue to extend their learning better even when they are out of the classroom.

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1. Word recognition skills: One of the Two Essential Components of Reading Comprehension

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1. Word recognition skills: One of the Two Essential Components of Reading Comprehension

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This resource provides a background of the importance of Word recognitions skills. With this resource, educators and parents will be able to identify the underlying elements of word recognition, have access to research-based instructional activities to teach phonological awareness, decoding and sight recognition of irregular sight words.

As extracted from the resource, children needs to be taught the elements necessary for automatic word recognition which consist of, phonological awareness, decoding, sight recognition or frequent and familiar words. Before teaching children to read, a critical early objective is to ensure that they are able to read words with instant or automatic recognition (Garnett, 2011).

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1. Teaching Practices for Reading & Viewing

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1. Teaching Practices for Reading & Viewing

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This resource provides a range of materials for educators that can be utilised to teach literacy.  The resource contains various practices of readings (e.g modelled reading, guided reading, etc.)

Reading  is an essential component as it lays the foundation for alphabets work, phonological awareness, as well as, phonics development (McKinnon, 2017).

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Kids in pre-K and kindergarten can play with words, rhymes, and syllables they hear in everyday speech to prepare for reading. This is called phonological awareness.

Parents and caregivers can introduce phonological awareness during reading, singing, or play activities.

Kids who struggle with these kinds of activities may be showing early signs of reading issues.

There are a few ways kids in pre-K and kindergarten can get ready to read. One way is by noticing and playing with the words, rhymes, and syllables they hear in everyday speech. This called phonological awareness .

Kids also start to tune in to the individual sounds or phonemes in words. This is called phonemic awareness. The more you can build on these early "pre-reading" skills, the more prepared your child will be for the challenge of learning to read.

Good phonological awareness starts with kids picking up on sounds, syllables and rhymes in the words they hear. Read aloud to your child frequently. Choose books that rhyme or repeat the same sound. Draw your child's attention to rhymes: "Fox, socks, box! Those words all rhyme. Do you hear how they almost sound the same?"

It also helps to point out repeated sounds. For example, if you're reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, ask your child to listen to the /fffff/ sound in fish. (Really stretch the sounds out at first.) Outside of story time, try pointing out other words that start with the /fffff/ sound, just like in the book.

Ask your child to pick out the rhyming words in books without your help. Ask, "Did you hear a word that rhymes with fox?" Teach your child nursery rhymes and practice saying them together. Or say four short words, like log, cat, hog, frog. See if your child can pick out the word that doesn't rhyme.

Make syllables easier to understand by clapping the "beats" your child hears in words. Let's say you choose the word elephant. Pause as you say each syllable - e-le-phant - and clap out each syllable together. You can also get your child up and moving by having your child stomp or jump with each syllable.

Guessing games such as "I spy" can be used to work on almost any phonological skill. Want to practice noticing what sounds word begin with? Try "I spy something red that starts with /s/." Want to work on rhymes? "I'm wearing something warm that rhymes with boat."

Singing in general is a great way to get kids rhyming. There are also good songs teachers use to focus on other kinds of phonological and phonemic awareness skills. "Apples and Bananas" is a fun one. You can search online for more songs about phonemic awareness or ask your child's teacher for recommendations.

Sound blending is an important skill for early readers. They need to put sound units - phonemes - together to be able to read a word smoothly. You can help your child start working on this by putting together sounds of different words. Ask your child to connect the beginning sound with the rest of a word. For example, say, "Start with /p/ and add /ig/. What do word do you hear if you put them together?"

Have your child work on hearing a word and taking it apart. Start by using compound words such as cowboy, baseball or firefly. Tell your child, "Say the word cowboy. Now take away boy. What word is left?"

You can also use LEGO bricks to make this point. Give your child two attached LEGO bricks to represent parts of the word. Then have your child physically take the LEGO pieces apart while removing part of the word.

8. Get creative with crafts.

Kids respond to hands-on learning. Try making a collage of items that start with the same sound using pictures from magazines. Sock puppets can be another fun way to work on these skills. Make one that likes to munch on words that start with a certain sound. Let your child have fun "feeding" the puppet different objects or pictures that start with that sound.

There are many resources and ideas online to work on phonological and phonemic awareness skills. Check out YouTube for teaching videos, Pinterest for games and crafts, or the app store for nursery rhymes, sound games, and songs.

Whatever you do, keep the activities short and fun. If your child finds one activity too difficult or boring, try something different. If you find that activities of this type are too hard, talk to your classroom teacher . Your district's early childhood department may also be able to help you get extra help.

There are many ways to include sound play in your daily routine with your child.

Kids who play with sounds, syllables and rhymes when they are young are gaining important reading readiness skills.

If these skills are really difficult for your child, you may want to seek extra support in this area.

About the Author

About the Author

Kelli Johnson, MA is an educational speech-language pathologist, working with students from early childhood through 12th grade.

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9 ways to build phonological awareness in pre-K and kindergarten

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Kids in pre-K and kindergarten can play with words, rhymes, and syllables they hear in everyday speech to prepare for reading. This is called phonological awareness. Parents and caregivers can introduce phonological awareness during reading, singing, or play activities. Kids who struggle with these kinds of activities may be showing early signs of reading issues.

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Abstract

After acknowledging the contributions of recent scientific discoveries in reading that have led to new understandings of reading processes and reading instruction, this chapter focuses on word recognition, one of the two essential components in the Simple View of Reading. The next chapter focuses on the other essential component, language comprehension. The Simple View of Reading is a model, or a representation, of how skillful reading comprehension develops. Although the Report of the National Reading Panel( NRP; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000) concluded that the best reading instruction incorporates explicit instruction in five areas (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension), its purpose was to review hundreds of research studies to let instructors know the most effective evidence-based methods for teaching each. These five areas are featured in the Simple View of Reading in such a way that we can see how the subskills ultimately contribute to two essential components for skillful reading comprehension. Children require many skills and elements to gain word recognition (e.g., phoneme awareness, phonics), and many skills and elements to gain language comprehension (e.g., vocabulary). Ultimately, the ability to read words (word recognition) and understand those words (language comprehension) lead to skillful reading comprehension. Both this chapter and the next chapter present the skills, elements, and components of reading using the framework of the Simple View of Reading, and in this particular chapter, the focus is on elements that contribute to automatic word recognition. An explanation of each element's importance is provided, along with recommendations of research-based instructional activities for each.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, readers will be able to

1. identify the underlying elements of word recognition;

2. identify research-based instructional activities to teach phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition of irregular sight words;

3. discuss how the underlying elements of word recognition lead to successful reading comprehension.

Introduction

Throughout history, many seemingly logical beliefs have been debunked through research and science. Alchemists once believed lead could be turned into gold. Physicians once assumed the flushed red skin that occurred during a fever was due to an abundance of blood, and so the "cure" was to remove the excess using leeches (Worsley, 2011). People believed that the earth was flat, that the sun orbited the earth, and until the discovery of microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses, they believed that epidemics and plagues were caused by bad air (Byrne, 2012). One by one, these misconceptions were dispelled as a result of scientific discovery. The same can be said for misconceptions in education, particularly in how children learn to read and how they should be taught to read.

In just the last few decades there has been a massive shift in what is known about the processes of learning to read. Hundreds of scientific studies have provided us with valuable knowledge regarding what occurs in our brains as we read. For example, we now know there are specific areas in the brain that process the sounds in our spoken words, dispelling prior beliefs that reading is a visual activity requiring memorization (Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, & Seidenberg, 2001). Also, we now know how the reading processes of students who learn to read with ease differ from those who find learning to read difficult. For example, we have learned that irregular eye movements do not cause reading difficulty. Many clever experiments (see Rayner et al., 2001) have shown that skilled readers' eye movements during reading are smoother than struggling readers' because they are able to read with such ease that they do not have to continually stop to figure out letters and words. Perhaps most valuable to future teachers is the fact that a multitude of studies have converged, showing us which instruction is most effective in helping people learn to read. For instance, we now know that phonics instruction that is systematic (i.e., phonics elements are taught in an organized sequence that progresses from the simplest patterns to those that are more complex) and explicit (i.e., the teacher explicitly points out what is being taught as opposed to allowing students to figure it out on their own) is most effective for teaching students to read words (NRP, 2000).

As you will learn, word recognition, or the ability to read words accurately and automatically, is a complex, multifaceted process that teachers must understand in order to provide effective instruction. Fortunately, we now know a great deal about how to teach word recognition due to important discoveries from current research. In this chapter, you will learn what research has shown to be the necessary elements for teaching the underlying skills and elements that lead to accurate and automatic word recognition, which is one of the two essential components that leads to skillful reading comprehension. In this textbook, reading comprehension is defined as "the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language" (Snow, 2002, p. xiii), as well as the "capacities, abilities, knowledge, and experiences" one brings to the reading situation (p. 11).

Learning to Read Words Is a Complex Process

It used to be a widely held belief by prominent literacy theorists, such as Goodman (1967), that learning to read, like learning to talk, is a natural process. It was thought that since children learn language and how to speak just by virtue of being spoken to, reading to and with children should naturally lead to learning to read, or recognize, words. Now we know it is not natural, even though it seems that some children "pick up reading" like a bird learns to fly. The human brain is wired from birth for speech, but this is not the case for reading the printed word. This is because what we read-our alphabetic script-is an invention, only available to humankind for the last 3,800 years (Dehaene, 2009). As a result, our brains have had to accommodate a new pathway to translate the squiggles that are our letters into the sounds of our spoken words that they symbolize. This seemingly simple task is, in actuality, a complex feat.

The alphabet is an amazing invention that allows us to represent both old and new words and ideas with just a few symbols. Despite its efficiency and simplicity, the alphabet is actually the root cause of reading difficulties for many people. The letters that make up our alphabet represent phonemes-individual speech sounds-or according to Dehaene, "atoms" of spoken words (as opposed to other scripts like Chinese whereby the characters represent larger units of speech such as syllables or whole words). Individual speech sounds in spoken words (phonemes) are difficult to notice for approximately 25% to 40% of children ( Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1998). In fact, for some children, the ability to notice, or become aware of the individual sounds in spoken words (phoneme awareness) proves to be one of the most difficult academic tasks they will ever encounter. If we were to ask, "How many sounds do you hear when I say 'gum'?" some children may answer that they hear only one, because when we say the word "gum," the sounds of /g/ /u/ and /m/ are seamless. (Note the / / marks denote the sound made by a letter.) This means that the sounds are coarticulated; they overlap and melt into each other, forming an enveloped, single unit-the spoken word "gum." There are no crisp boundaries between the sounds when we say the word "gum." The /g/ sound folds into the /u/ sound, which then folds into the /m/ sound, with no breaks in between.

So why the difficulty and where does much of it begin? Our speech consists of whole words, but we write those words by breaking them down into their phonemes and representing each phoneme with letters. To read and write using our alphabetic script, children must first be able to notice and disconnect each of the sounds in spoken words. They must blend the individual sounds together to make a whole word (read). And they must segment the individual sounds to represent each with alphabetic letters (spell and write). This is the first stumbling block for so many in their literacy journeys-a difficulty in phoneme awareness simply because their brains happen to be wired in such a way as to make the sounds hard to notice. Research, through the use of brain imaging and various clever experiments, has shown how the brain must "teach itself" to accommodate this alphabet by creating a pathway between multiple areas (Dehaene, 2009).

Instruction incorporating phoneme awareness is likely to facilitate successful reading (Adams et al., 1998; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998), and it is for this reason that it is a focus in early school experiences. For some children, phoneme awareness, along with exposure to additional fundamentals, such as how to hold a book, the concept of a word or sentence, or knowledge of the alphabet, may be learned before formal schooling begins. In addition to having such print experiences, oral experiences such as being talked to and read to within a literacy rich environment help to set the stage for reading. Children lacking these literacy experiences prior to starting school must rely heavily on their teachers to provide them.

The Simple View of Reading and the Strands of Early Literacy Development

Teachers of reading share the goal of helping students develop skillful reading comprehension. As mentioned previously, the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) is a research-supported representation of how reading comprehension develops. It characterizes skillful reading comprehension as a combination of two separate but equally important components-word recognition skills and language comprehension ability. In other words, to unlock comprehension of text, two keys are required-being able to read the words on the page and understanding what the words and language mean within the texts children are reading (Davis, 2006). If a student cannot recognize words on the page accurately and automatically, fluency will be affected, and in turn, reading comprehension will suffer. Likewise, if a student has poor understanding of the meaning of the words, reading comprehension will suffer. Students who have success with reading comprehension are those who are skilled in both word recognition and language comprehension.

These two essential components of the Simple View of Reading are represented by an illustration by Scarborough (2002). In her illustration, seen in Figure 1, twisting ropes represent the underlying skills and elements that come together to form two necessary braids that represent the two essential components of reading comprehension. Although the model itself is called "simple" because it points out that reading comprehension is comprised of reading words and understanding the language of the words, in truth the two components are quite complex. Examination of Scarborough's rope model reveals how multifaceted each is. For either of the two essential components to develop successfully, students need to be taught the elements necessary for automatic word recognition (i.e., phonological awareness, decoding, sight recognition of frequent/familiar words), and strategic language comprehension (i.e., background knowledge, vocabulary, verbal reasoning, literacy knowledge). The sections below will describe the importance of the three elements that lead to accurate word recognition and provide evidence-based instructional methods for each element. Chapter 4 in this textbook will cover the elements leading to strategic language comprehension.

Word Recognition

Word recognition is the act of seeing a word and recognizing its pronunciation immediately and without any conscious effort. If reading words requires conscious, effortful decoding, little attention is left for comprehension of a text to occur. Since reading comprehension is the ultimate goal in teaching children to read, a critical early objective is to ensure that they are able to read words with instant, automatic recognition (Garnett, 2011). What does automatic word recognition look like? Consider your own reading as an example. Assuming you are a skilled reader, it is likely that as you are looking at the words on this page, you cannot avoid reading them. It is impossible to suppress reading the words that you look at on a page. Because you have learned to instantly recognize so many words to the point of automaticity, a mere glance with no conscious effort is all it takes for word recognition to take place. Despite this word recognition that results from a mere glance at print, it is critical to understand that you have not simply recognized what the words look like as wholes, or familiar shapes. Even though we read so many words automatically and instantaneously, our brains still process every letter in the words subconsciously. This is evident when we spot misspellings. For example, when quickly glancing at the words in the familiar sentences, "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. Jack jamped over the canbleslick," you likely spotted a problem with a few of the individual letters. Yes, you instantly recognized the words, yet at the same time you noticed the individual letters within the words that are not correct.

To teach students word recognition so that they can achieve this automaticity, students require instruction in: phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition of high frequency words (e.g., "said," "put"). Each of these elements is defined and their importance is described below, along with effective methods of instruction for each.

Phonological Awareness

One of the critical requirements for decoding, and ultimately word recognition, is phonological awareness (Snow et al., 1998). Phonological awareness is a broad term encompassing an awareness of various-sized units of sounds in spoken words such as rhymes (whole words), syllables (large parts of words), and phonemes (individual sounds). Hearing "cat" and "mat," and being aware that they rhyme, is a form of phonological awareness, and rhyming is usually the easiest and earliest form that children acquire. Likewise, being able to break the spoken word "teacher" into two syllables is a form of phonological awareness that is more sophisticated. Phoneme awareness, as mentioned previously, is an awareness of the smallest individual units of sound in a spoken word-its phonemes; phoneme awareness is the most advanced level of phonological awareness. Upon hearing the word "sleigh," children will be aware that there are three separate speech sounds-/s/ /l/ /ā/-despite the fact that they may have no idea what the word looks like in its printed form and despite the fact that they would likely have difficulty reading it.

Because the terms sound similar, phonological awareness is often confused with phoneme awareness. Teachers should know the difference because awareness of larger units of sound-such as rhymes and syllables-develops before awareness of individual phonemes, and instructional activities meant to develop one awareness may not be suitable for another. Teachers should also understand and remember that neither phonological awareness nor its most advanced form-phoneme awareness-has anything whatsoever to do with print or letters. The activities that are used to teach them are entirely auditory. To help remember this, simply picture that they can be performed by students if their eyes are closed. Adults can teach phonological awareness activities to a child in a car seat during a drive. The child can be told, "Say 'cowboy.' Now say 'cowboy' without saying 'cow.'" Adults can teach phoneme awareness activities as well by asking, "What sound do you hear at the beginning of 'sssun,' 'sssail,' and 'ssssoup'?" or, "In the word 'snack,' how many sounds do you hear?" or by saying, "Tell me the sounds you hear in 'lap.'" Notice that the words would not be printed anywhere; only spoken words are required. Engaging in these game-like tasks with spoken words helps children develop the awareness of phonemes, which, along with additional instruction, will facilitate future word recognition.

Why phonological awareness is important

An abundance of research emerged in the 1970s documenting the importance of phoneme awareness (the most sophisticated form of phonological awareness) for learning to read and write ( International Reading Association, 1998). Failing to develop this awareness of the sounds in spoken words leads to difficulties learning the relationship between speech and print that is necessary for learning to read (Snow et al., 1998). This difficulty can sometimes be linked to specific underlying causes, such as a lack of instructional experiences to help children develop phoneme awareness, or neurobiological differences that make developing an awareness of phonemes more difficult for some children (Rayner et al., 2001). Phoneme awareness facilitates the essential connection that is "reading": the sequences of individual sounds in spoken words match up to sequences of printed letters on a page. To illustrate the connection between phoneme awareness and reading, picture the steps that children must perform as they are beginning to read and spell words. First, they must accurately sound out the letters, one at a time, holding them in memory, and then blend them together correctly to form a word. Conversely, when beginning to spell words, they must segment a spoken word (even if it is not audible they are still "hearing the word" in their minds) into its phonemes and then represent each phoneme with its corresponding letter(s). Therefore, both reading and spelling are dependent on the ability to segment and blend phonemes, as well as match the sounds to letters, and as stated previously, some students have great difficulty developing these skills. The good news is that these important skills can be effectively taught, which leads to a discussion about the most effective ways to teach phonological (and phoneme) awareness.

Phonological awareness instruction

The National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000) report synthesized 52 experimental studies that featured instructional activities involving both phonological awareness (e.g., categorizing words similar in either initial sound or rhyme) and phoneme awareness (e.g., segmenting or blending phonemes). In this section, both will be discussed.

A scientifically based study by Bradley and Bryant (1983) featured an activity that teaches phonological awareness and remains popular today. The activity is sorting or categorizing pictures by either rhyme or initial sound (Bradley & Bryant, 1983). As shown in Figure 2, sets of cards are shown to children that feature pictures of words that rhyme or have the same initial sound. Typically one picture does not match the others in the group, and the students must decide which the "odd" one is. For instance, pictures of a fan, can, man, and pig are identified to be sure the students know what they are. The teacher slowly pronounces each word to make sure the students clearly hear the sounds and has them point to the word that does not rhyme (match the others). This is often referred to as an "oddity task," and it can also be done with pictures featuring the same initial sound as in key, clock, cat, and scissors (see Blachman, Ball, Black, & Tangel, 2000 for reproducible examples).

Evidence-based activities to promote phoneme awareness typically have students segment spoken words into phonemes or have them blend phonemes together to create words. In fact, the NRP (2000) identified segmenting and blending activities as the most effective when teaching phoneme awareness. This makes sense, considering that segmenting and blending are the very acts performed when spelling (segmenting a word into its individual sounds) and reading (blending letter sounds together to create a word). The NRP noted that if segmenting and blending activities eventually incorporate the use of letters, thereby allowing students to make the connection between sounds in spoken words and their corresponding letters, there is even greater benefit to reading and spelling. Making connections between sounds and their corresponding letters is the beginning of phonics instruction, which will be described in more detail below.

An activity that incorporates both segmenting and blending was first developed by a Russian psychologist named Elkonin (1963), and thus, it is often referred to as "Elkonin Boxes." Children are shown a picture representing a three- or four-phoneme picture (such as "fan" or "lamp") and told to move a chip for each phoneme into a series of boxes below the picture. For example, if the word is "fan," they would say /fffff/ while moving a chip into the first box, then say /aaaaa/ while moving a chip into the second box, and so on. Both Elkonin boxes (see Figure 3) and a similar activity called "Say It and Move It" are used in the published phonological awareness training manual, Road to the Code by Blachman et al. (2000). In each activity children must listen to a word and move a corresponding chip to indicate the segmented sounds they hear, and they must also blend the sounds together to say the entire word.

Decoding

Another critical component for word recognition is the ability to decode words. When teaching children to accurately decode words, they must understand the alphabetic principle and know letter-sound correspondences. When students make the connection that letters signify the sounds that we say, they are said to understand the purpose of the alphabetic code, or the "alphabetic principle." Letter-sound correspondences are known when students can provide the correct sound for letters and letter combinations. Students can then be taught to decode, which means to blend the letter sounds together to read words. Decoding is a deliberate act in which readers must "consciously and deliberately apply their knowledge of the mapping system to produce a plausible pronunciation of a word they do not instantly recognize" ( Beck & Juel, 1995, p. 9). Once a word is accurately decoded a few times, it is likely to become recognized without conscious deliberation, leading to efficient word recognition.

The instructional practices teachers use to teach students how letters (e.g., i, r, x) and letter clusters (e.g., sh, oa, igh) correspond to the sounds of speech in English is called phonics (not to be confused with phoneme awareness). For example, a teacher may provide a phonics lesson on how "p" and "h" combine to make /f/ in " phone," and "gra ph." After all, the alphabet is a code that symbolizes speech sounds, and once students are taught which sound(s) each of the symbols (letters) represents, they can successfully decode written words, or "crack the code."

Why decoding is important

Similar to phonological awareness, neither understanding the alphabetic principle nor knowledge of letter-sound correspondences come naturally. Some children are able to gain insights about the connections between speech and print on their own just from exposure and rich literacy experiences, while many others require instruction. Such instruction results in dramatic improvement in word recognition (Boyer & Ehri, 2011). Students who understand the alphabetic principle and have been taught letter-sound correspondences, through the use of phonological awareness and letter-sound instruction, are well-prepared to begin decoding simple words such as "cat" and "big" accurately and independently. These students will have high initial accuracy in decoding, which in itself is important since it increases the likelihood that children will willingly engage in reading, and as a result, word recognition will progress. Also, providing students effective instruction in letter-sound correspondences and how to use those correspondences to decode is important because the resulting benefits to word recognition lead to benefits in reading comprehension (Brady, 2011).

Decoding instruction

Teaching children letter-sound correspondences and how to decode may seem remarkably simple and straightforward. Yet teaching them well enough and early enough so that children can begin to read and comprehend books independently is influenced by the kind of instruction that is provided. There are many programs and methods available for teaching students to decode, but extensive evidence exists that instruction that is both systematic and explicit is more effective than instruction that is not (Brady, 2011; NRP, 2000).

As mentioned previously, systematic instruction features a logical sequence of letters and letter combinations beginning with those that are the most common and useful, and ending with those that are less so. For example, knowing the letter "s" is more useful in reading and spelling than knowing "j" because it appears in more words. Explicit instruction is direct; the teacher is straightforward in pointing out the connections between letters and sounds and how to use them to decode words and does not leave it to the students to figure out the connections on their own from texts. The notable findings of the NRP (2000) regarding systematic and explicit phonics instruction include that its influence on reading is most substantial when it is introduced in kindergarten and first grade, it is effective in both preventing and remediating reading difficulties, it is effective in improving both the ability to decode words as well as reading comprehension in younger children, and it is helpful to children from all socioeconomic levels. It is worth noting here that effective phonics instruction in the early grades is important so that difficulties with decoding do not persist for students in later grades. When this happens, it is often noticeable when students in middle school or high school struggle to decode unfamiliar, multisyllabic words.

When providing instruction in letter-sound correspondences, we should avoid presenting them in alphabetical order. Instead, it is more effective to begin with high utility letters such as "a, m, t, i, s, d, r, f, o, g, l" so that students can begin to decode dozens of words featuring these common letters (e.g., mat, fit, rag, lot). Another reason to avoid teaching letter-sound correspondences in alphabetical order is to prevent letter-sound confusion. Letter confusion occurs in similarly shaped letters (e.g., b/d, p/q, g/p) because in day-to-day life, changing the direction or orientation of an object such as a purse or a vacuum does not change its identity-it remains a purse or a vacuum. Some children do not understand that for certain letters, their position in space can change their identity. It may take a while for children to understand that changing the direction of letter b will make it into letter d, and that these symbols are not only called different things but also have different sounds. Until students gain experience with print-both reading and writing-confusions are typical and are not due to "seeing letters backward." Nor are confusions a "sign" of dyslexia, which is a type of reading problem that causes difficulty with reading and spelling words ( International Dyslexia Association, 2015). Students with dyslexia may reverse letters more often when they read or spell because they have fewer experiences with print-not because they see letters backward. To reduce the likelihood of confusion, teach the /d/ sound for "d" to the point that the students know it consistently, before introducing letter "b."

To introduce the alphabetic principle, the Elkonin Boxes or "Say It and Move It" activities described above can be adapted to include letters on some of the chips. For example, the letter "n" can be printed on a chip and when students are directed to segment the words "nut," "man," or "snap," they can move the "n" chip to represent which sound (e.g., the first, second, or last) is /n/. As letter-sound correspondences are taught, children should begin to decode by blending them together to form real words (Blachman & Tangel, 2008).

For many students, blending letter sounds together is difficult. Some may experience letter-by-letter distortion when sounding out words one letter at a time. For example, they may read "mat" as muh-a-tuh, adding the "uh" sound to the end of consonant sounds. To prevent this, letter sounds should be taught in such a way to make sure the student does not add the "uh" sound (e.g., "m" should be learned as /mmmm/ not /muh/, "r" should be learned as /rrrr/ not /ruh/). To teach students how to blend letter sounds together to read words, it is helpful to model (see Blachman & Murray, 2012). Begin with two letter words such as "at." Write the two letters of the word separated by a long line: a_______t. Point to the "a" and demonstrate stretching out the short /a/ sound-/aaaa/ as you move your finger to the "t" to smoothly connect the /a/ to the /t/. Repeat this a few times, decreasing the length of the line/time between the two sounds until you pronounce it together: /at/. Gradually move on to three letter words such as "sad" by teaching how to blend the initial consonant with the vowel sound (/sa/) then adding the final consonant. It is helpful at first to use continuous sounds in the initial position (e.g., /s/, /m/, /l/) because they can be stretched and held longer than a "stop consonant" (e.g., /b/, /t/, /g/).

An excellent activity featured in many scientifically-based research studies that teaches students to decode a word thoroughly and accurately by paying attention to all of the sounds in words rather than guessing based on the initial sounds is word building using a pocket chart with letter cards (see examples in Blachman & Tangel). Have students begin by building a word such as "pan" using letter cards p, a, and n. (These can be made using index cards cut into four 3″ x 1.25″ sections. It is helpful to draw attention to the vowels by making them red as they are often difficult to remember and easily confused). Next, have them change just one sound in "pan" to make a new word: "pat." The sequence of words may continue with just one letter changing at a time: pan-pat-rat-sat-sit-sip-tip-tap-rap. The student will begin to understand that they must listen carefully to which sound has changed (which helps their phoneme awareness) and that all sounds in a word are important. As new phonics elements are taught, the letter sequences change accordingly. For example, a sequence featuring consonant blends and silent-e may look like this: slim-slime-slide-glide-glade-blade-blame-shame-sham. Many decoding programs that feature strategies based on scientifically-based research include word building and provide samples ranging from easy, beginning sequences to those that are more advanced (Beck & Beck, 2013; Blachman & Tangel, 2008).

A final important point to mention with regard to decoding is that teachers must consider what makes words (or texts) decodable in order to allow for adequate practice of new decoding skills. When letters in a word conform to common letter-sound correspondences, the word is decodable because it can be sounded out, as opposed to words containing "rule breaker" letters and sounds that are in words like "c olonel" and " of." The letter-sound correspondences and phonics elements that have been learned must be considered. For example, even though the letters in the word "shake" conform to common pronunciations, if a student has not yet learned the sound that "sh" makes, or the phonics rule for a long vowel when there is a silent "e," this particular word is not decodable for that child. Teachers should refrain from giving children texts featuring "ship" or "shut" to practice decoding skills until they have been taught the sound of /sh/. Children who have only been taught the sounds of /s/ and /h/ may decode "shut" /s/ /h/ /u/ /t/, which would not lead to high initial accuracy and may lead to confusion.

Sight Word Recognition

The third critical component for successful word recognition is sight word recognition. A small percentage of words cannot be identified by deliberately sounding them out, yet they appear frequently in print. They are "exceptions" because some of their letters do not follow common letter-sound correspondences. Examples of such words are "once," "put," and "does." (Notice that in the word "put," however, that only the vowel makes an exception sound, unlike the sound it would make in similar words such as "gut," "rut," or "but.") As a result of the irregularities, exception words must be memorized; sounding them out will not work.

Since these exception words must often be memorized as a visual unit (i.e., by sight), they are frequently called "sight words," and this leads to confusion among teachers. This is because words that occur frequently in print, even those that are decodable (e.g., "in," "will," and "can"), are also often called "sight words." Of course it is important for these decodable, highly frequent words to be learned early (preferably by attending to their sounds rather than just by memorization), right along with the others that are not decodable because they appear so frequently in the texts that will be read. For the purposes of this chapter, sight words are familiar, high frequency words that must be memorized because they have irregular spellings and cannot be perfectly decoded.

Why sight word recognition is important

One third of beginning readers' texts are mostly comprised of familiar, high frequency words such as "the" and "of," and almost half of the words in print are comprised of the 100 most common words (Fry, Kress, & Fountoukidis, 2000). It is no wonder that these words need to be learned to the point of automaticity so that smooth, fluent word recognition and reading can take place.

Interestingly, skilled readers who decode well tend to become skilled sight word "recognizers," meaning that they learn irregular sight words more readily than those who decode with difficulty (Gough & Walsh, 1991). This reason is because as they begin learning to read, they are taught to be aware of phonemes, they learn letter-sound correspondences, and they put it all together to begin decoding while practicing reading books. While reading a lot of books, they are repeatedly exposed to irregularly spelled, highly frequent sight words, and as a result of this repetition, they learn sight words to automaticity. Therefore, irregularly spelled sight words can be learned from wide, independent reading of books. However, children who struggle learning to decode do not spend a lot of time practicing reading books, and therefore, do not encounter irregularly spelled sight words as often. These students will need more deliberate instruction and additional practice opportunities.

Sight word recognition instruction

Teachers should notice that the majority of letters in many irregularly spelled words do in fact follow regular sound-symbol pronunciations (e.g., in the word "from" only the "o" is irregular), and as a result attending to the letters and sounds can often lead to correct pronunciation. That is why it is still helpful to teach students to notice all letters in words to anchor them in memory, rather than to encourage "guess reading" or "looking at the first letter," which are both highly unreliable strategies as anyone who has worked with young readers will attest. Interestingly, Tunmer and Chapman (2002) discovered that beginning readers who read unknown words by "sounding them out" outperformed children who employed strategies such as guessing, looking at the pictures, rereading the sentence on measures of word reading and reading comprehension, at the end of their first year in school and at the middle of their third year in school.

Other than developing sight word recognition from wide, independent reading of books or from exposure on classroom word walls, instruction in learning sight words is similar to instruction used to learn letter-sound correspondences. Sources of irregularly spelled sight words can vary. For instance, they can be preselected from the text that will be used for that day's reading instruction. Lists of irregularly spelled sight words can be found in reading programs or on the Internet (search for Fry lists or Dolch lists). When using such lists, determine which words are irregularly spelled because they will also feature highly frequent words that can be decoded, such as "up," and "got." These do not necessarily need deliberate instructional time because the students will be able to read them using their knowledge of letters and sounds.

Regardless of the source, sight words can be practiced using flash cards or word lists, making sure to review those that have been previously taught to solidify deep learning. Gradual introduction of new words into the card piles or lists should include introduction such as pointing out features that may help learning and memorization (e.g., "where" and "there" both have a tall letter "h" which can be thought of as an arrow or road sign pointing to where or there). Sets of words that share patterns can be taught together (e.g., "would," "could," and "should"). Games such as Go Fish, Bingo, or Concentration featuring cards with these words can build repetition and exposure, and using peer-based learning, students can do speed drills with one another and record scores.

Any activity requiring the students to spell the words aloud is also helpful. I invented an activity that I call "Can You Match It?" in which peers work together to practice a handful of sight words. An envelope or flap is taped across the top of a small dry erase board. One student chooses a card, tells the partner what the word is, and then places the card inside the envelope or flap so that it is not visible. The student with the dry erase board writes the word on the section of board that is not covered by the envelope, then opens the envelope to see if their spelling matches the word on the card. The ultimate goal in all of these activities is to provide a lot of repetition and practice so that highly frequent, irregularly spelled sight words become words students can recognize with just a glance.

Word Recognition Summary

As seen in the above section, in order for students to achieve automatic and effortless word recognition, three important underlying elements-phonological awareness, letter-sound correspondences for decoding, and sight recognition of irregularly spelled familiar words-must be taught to the point that they too are automatic. Word recognition, the act of seeing a word and recognizing its pronunciation without conscious effort, is one of the two critical components in the Simple View of Reading that must be achieved to enable successful reading comprehension. The other component is language comprehension, which will be discussed in Chapter 4. Both interact to form the skilled process that is reading comprehension. Because they are so crucial to reading, reading comprehension is likened to a two-lock box, with both "key" components needed to open it (Davis, 2006).

The two essential components in the Simple View of Reading, automatic word recognition and strategic language comprehension, contribute to the ultimate goal of teaching reading: skilled reading comprehension. According to Garnett (2011), fluent execution of the underlying elements as discussed in this chapter involves "teaching...accompanied by supported and properly framed interactive practice" (p. 311). When word recognition becomes effortless and automatic, conscious effort is no longer needed to read the words, and instead it can be devoted to comprehension of the text. Accuracy and effortlessness, or fluency, in reading words serves to clear the way for successful reading comprehension.

It is easy to see how success in the three elements that lead to automatic word recognition are prerequisite to reading comprehension. Learning to decode and to automatically read irregularly spelled sight words can prevent the development of reading problems. Students who are successful in developing effortless word recognition have an easier time reading, and this serves as a motivator to young readers, who then proceed to read a lot. Students who struggle with word recognition find reading laborious, and this serves as a barrier to young readers, who then may be offered fewer opportunities to read connected text or avoid reading as much as possible because it is difficult. Stanovich (1986) calls this disparity the "Matthew Effects" of reading, where the rich get richer-good readers read more and become even better readers and poor readers lose out. Stanovich (1986) also points out an astonishing quote from Nagy and Anderson (1984, p. 328): "the least motivated children in the middle grades might read 100,000 words a year while the average children at this level might read 1,000,000. The figure for the voracious middle grade reader might be 10,000,000 or even as high as 50,000,000." Imagine the differences in word and world knowledge that result from reading 100,000 words a year versus millions! As teachers, it is worthwhile to keep these numbers in mind to remind us of the importance of employing evidence-based instructional practices to ensure that all students learn phoneme awareness, decoding, and sight word recognition-the elements necessary for learning how to succeed in word recognition.

Summary

In order for students to comprehend text while reading, it is vital that they be able to read the words on the page. Teachers who are aware of the importance of the essential, fundamental elements which lead to successful word recognition-phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition of irregular words-are apt to make sure to teach their students each of these so that their word reading becomes automatic, accurate, and effortless. Today's teachers are fortunate to have available to them a well-established bank of research and instructional activities that they can access in order to facilitate word recognition in their classrooms.

The Simple View of Reading's two essential components, automatic word recognition and strategic language comprehension, combine to allow for skilled reading comprehension. Students who can both recognize the words on the page and understand the language of the words and sentences are much more likely to enjoy the resulting advantage of comprehending the meaning of the texts that they read.

Questions and Activities

1. List the two main components of the simple view of reading, and explain their importance in developing reading comprehension.

2. Explain the underlying elements of word recognition. How does each contribute to successful reading comprehension?

3. Discuss instructional activities that are helpful for teaching phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition of irregularly spelled, highly frequent words.

4. View the following video showing a student named Nathan who has difficulty with word recognition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpx7yoBUnKk (Rsogren, 2008). Which of the underlying elements of word recognition (e.g., phonological awareness, letter-sound correspondences, decoding) do you believe may be at the root of this student's difficulties? How might you develop a new instructional plan to address these difficulties?

References

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Endnotes

1: For detailed information on scientifically-based research in education, see Chapter 2 by Munger in this volume. Return

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After acknowledging the contributions of recent scientific discoveries in reading that have led to new understandings of reading processes and reading instruction, this chapter focuses on word recognition, one of the two essential components in the Simple View of Reading. The next chapter focuses on the other essential component, language comprehension.

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This source provides tips on teaching phonological awareness and also how educators can help students who struggles with it.

Some tips are, to conduct one to one interventions or in a small group of two to three children.

Study results has also shown that, using small group instructional setting was an effective way to increase preschool student's literacy skill levels (Abu, 2017).

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One of the key component of word recognition would be decoding. This resource explains the importance and benefits from word identification and decoding. It mentions that, decoding skills is required for children read and write. This resource also teaches parents or educators how to effectively teach word decoding.

With the decoding ability, the child may apply their knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words. With that, they can also better understand these relationships and also have the ability to recognise familiar words quickly and figure words they haven’t seen before (Reading Rockets, 2020).

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This resource offers various phonics documents and PDF which educators are able to download and use as a guide.

By tapping on children’s broad knowledge of reading and their favoured modes of learning, whole-to-part phonics provides an appealing option as children are fixate on the development of meaning in lieu of interpreting the text (Dombey, Moustafa, Barrs, 1988).

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Literacy teaching toolkit for early childhood | Victorian Government

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Practical advice for educators on learning and teaching language and literacy skills from birth to five years.

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Russak, S., Wong, R. (2019). How Phonics can give children a head start with reading English. British Council. Retrieved from https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/how-phonics-can-give-children-head-start-reading-english

Schickedanz, J. A. (1999). Much More than the ABCs: The Early Stages of Reading and Writing. National Association for the Education of Young Children, Washington, DC.

ŞEN, Ü. (2016). Video Self-Modeling Technique that Can be Used in Improving the Abilities of Fluent Reading and Fluent Speaking. International Education Studies

Sitthitikul, P. (2014). Theoretical Review of Phonics Instructions for Struggling/ Beginning Readers of English. PASAA: Journal of Language Teaching and Learning in Thailand.

Victoria State Government. 2018. Literacy Teaching Toolkit: Phonics (emergent literacy). Retrieved from: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/professionals/learning/ecliteracy/emergentliteracy/Pages/phonics.aspx

Victoria State Government. 2020. Literacy Teaching Toolkit: Phonological awareness. Retrieved from: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/professionals/learning/ecliteracy/emergentliteracy/Pages/phonics.aspx

Yaw, J., Skinner, C. H., Orsega, M. C., Parkhurst, J., Booher, J., & Chambers, K. (2012). Evaluating a Computer-Based Sight-Word Reading Intervention in a Student with Intellectual Disabilities. Journal Of Applied School Psychology.

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Teaching practices for reading and viewing

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Teaching Practices for Reading and Viewing

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This resource offers various activity which educator can use as a resource; to tweak the activities to in accordance to the class’s abilities.

Research have shown that children will have difficulty advancing from first grade reading and writing instructions should they not have a solid foundation of literacy knowledge and skills (Schickedanz, 1999).

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This resource provides more information in regards to fluency.  Educator will be able to find more information and resources. There are also articles to browse through as well as a section for parents. The resources also provides research briefs and videos should the adults be keen to dive deeper into ‘fluency’.

Fluent reading is seen as one being able to take in consideration the sentence flow and at the same time, taking note of the punctuation marks, emphasis and intonation without the need of re-reading and reiteration of words (ŞEN, 2016).

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Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression.Fluent reading builds stamina for reading lengthy or complex texts. Reading fluency serves as a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.

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[Return to Blogs]
Phonological Awareness: The Sounds of Reading

SRI International
Stephanie Nunn, REL Appalachia
Sara Rutherford-Quach, REL Appalachia

It is fun to sing if you sing with a Ying.
My Ying can sing like anything.
I sing high and my Ying sings low,
and we are not too bad, you know.¹

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is not only a beloved children's book, but it is also a good way for children to practice phonological awareness, a foundational reading skill. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of spoken words. It is an umbrella term that encompasses both the basic levels of awareness of speech sounds (such as rhyming, alliteration, and the syllables within words) and more advanced levels of awareness, such as identifying the beginning and ending sounds within words. The included segment of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish provides material for children to practice rhyming, onset-rime manipulation, and to a more limited extent, identifying the syllables within words.

Developing phonological awareness is an essential step in learning to read. REL Appalachia (REL AP) staff partnered with Goochland County Public Schools (GCPS) to use data to understand the factors that contribute to third grade literacy outcomes in GCPS and identified early phonological awareness as a key predictor of success. REL AP staff then provided coaching on the importance of phonological awareness for all learners and suggested techniques to support students who struggle with phonological awareness.

Teaching Phonological Awareness

The National Reading Panel report states that explicit phonological awareness instruction is highly effective for developing phonological awareness in children, which in turn prepares them to read words and comprehend text. Phonological awareness instruction teaches students to hear all the separable sounds within words and helps them hold these sounds in memory and do things with them (like separate them or delete them). Developing the ability to isolate sounds and then link those sounds to letters is a significant step in the process of students becoming proficient readers.

Research supporting the importance of phonological awareness to students' decoding and later comprehension also informs a systematic approach for teaching these skills. In the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Practice Guide on early reading, Foorman and colleagues lay out a developmental trajectory for beginning phonological awareness instruction and building students' phonological and phonemic awareness:

Helping Students Who Struggle

Students who struggle persistently with phonological awareness often benefit from smaller group (two to three students) or one-on-one intervention to help them isolate sounds in speech and link the sounds to letters. If teachers determine through ongoing progress monitoring measures [such as Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) 1-3 Quick Checks or other formative assessment practices] that a student is struggling to demonstrate phonological awareness after receiving instruction in whole and small group settings, it is important to provide differentiated instruction in an even smaller group or one-on-one.

To support struggling students during these instructional activities, effective teachers provide additional modeling and guided practice before allowing students to move on to independent practice. In addition, evidence shows that it is important for student fluency (their ability to read accurately, quickly, and with expression) and automaticity (their ability to see words and read them without thinking) that teachers provide additional opportunities for student practice with teacher supervision, support, and continuous feedback. Students may also benefit from mini-lessons, where information is broken down into smaller chunks. For example, when introducing word-building exercises, teachers can present sound substitution (such as changing cat to hat by changing the initial phoneme) and sound addition (such as adding /s/ to the end of cat to make cats) separately. Teachers can also consider using a narrowly focused activity when introducing and practicing a skill; for example, it is often helpful to use compound words when introducing syllables or to begin with two-syllable words before systematically increasing the syllable length. Using this technique to explicitly introduce smaller pieces of the skill can be an effective way to support struggling learners' mastery of these concepts.

Interested in learning more about effective early literacy practices?

The resources below provide more guidance and information on instruction to support children in phonological awareness and other key literacy skills.

______________
Footnotes:

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educational improvement; excellence in education; educational research; statistics; statistical data; statistical surveys; regional educational laboratory program; appalachia; rel; rigorous studies; fast response projects; no child left behind; regional laboratory home page; kentucky; tennessee; virginia; west virginia; implementing nclb; improving schools; raising achievements; mcrel

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Phonological Awareness: The Sounds of Reading

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Return to Blogs] SRI International Stephanie Nunn, REL Appalachia Sara Rutherford-Quach, REL Appalachia It is fun to sing if you sing with a Ying. My Ying can sing like anything.

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5. Teaching Tool Kit for Phonological Awareness

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5. Teaching Tool Kit for Phonological Awareness

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Lastly, this enriched resource contains a variety of teaching tool kits for parents and educators to tap on. These kits includes, materials to Phonological awareness skills, rhyme awareness, segmenting words into sounds, et cera.

Phonological awareness consists of words into syllables, rhyme awareness, alteration, onset rime segmentation, initial and final sound, blending sounds into words, segmenting words into sounds and deleting and manipulating sounds. The above mentioned competencies of phonemic awareness is a critical subset of phonological awareness (Victoria State Government, 2020). With this resource, parents and educators can extend their child's learning or evaluate their child with the interesting activities.

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​​​Phonological awareness is a crucial skill to develop in children. It is strongly linked to early reading and spelling success through its association with phonics. It is a focus of literacy teaching incorporating: recognising phonological patterns such as rhyme and alliteration awareness of syllables and phonemes within words, and hearing multiple phonemes within words.

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Literacy Instruction for
Students with Significant Disabilities

"Students who read only by sight or the recognition of sight words are not likely to read text with comprehension above very beginning levels. To achieve successful reading with comprehension, students must have the ability to decode unfamiliar words."
-Karen Erickson, Making Words for Students with Complex Instructional Needs

WORD IDENTIFICATION AND DECODING

What is word identification and decoding?

D uring word work, explicit instruction on the patterns of English spelling is provided. Students are taught how to use letter patterns to decode and spell new words when they are reading and writing.

At an emergent level, word work will focus on phonemic awareness with activities created to bring attention to rhyme (word endings), rhythm (memory), repetition, alliteration (word onsets), and predictability. For older emergent literacy learners, it is important to keep all activities age respectful.

Word work at a conventional level would include making words, word sorts and transfer, word wall activities and keyword decoding.

Which students would benefit from word identification and decoding?

All students benefit from regular and supported opportunities to work with words in structured and engaging ways. Students who know most of the letters most of the time would benefit from word identification and decoding through word work.

How can students benefit from word identification and decoding?

The purposes of teaching working with words are to:

help students become strategic in reading words

help students learn high frequency words needed for fluent, successful reading with comprehension

teach students the skills required to decode and spell words they will use for reading and writing

help students understand how words work.

How can we teach word identification and decoding?

Word identification and decoding can be taught through the use of:

making words

word sorts and transfer

word wall activities

keyword decoding

Every making words lesson has three parts. First students manipulate the letters to make words. This part of the lesson uses a spelling approach to help students learn letter sounds and how to segment words and blend letters. In the second part of the lesson, students sort words according to related words and rhyming patterns. During the transfer step, students are helped to use the related and rhyming words to spell new words.

The word wall is the focus at the end of every lesson, and is a critical component in helping students to use words they already know to help them read similar words they encounter in context or isolation. Word walls are visual displays of core words used to support students in their daily reading and writing. There are three levels of word wall lesson activities: introduce new word wall words, daily review of word wall words, and lesson review.

Making Words

Making Words (Cunningham & Hall, 1994, 1997) is an activity designed to teach students to look for spelling patterns in words and recognize the differences that result when a single letter is changed. Teachers guide students in manipulating their individual set of six to eight letters to create words. The six to eight letters can be arranged to form a "secret" word, but the teacher begins by guiding students through the creation of one-, two-, and three-letter words, and so on, through six- or eight-letter words from the set. The order is carefully selected to help students identify common spelling patterns and recognize the impact of changing one or two letters or the order of a set of letters.

As the students make the words, one student goes to the front of the room and uses a set of large letter cards to make the word for all to use for self-correction. The student also puts an index card with the word written on it in a pocket chart before quickly returning to their seat to make the next word. After all of the words have been made, the teacher guides the students in sort and transfer activities that help them focus on the spelling patterns in the words they have made. (Children with Disabilities: Reading & Writing the Four-Blocks Way, p. 119-120, 2006)

Sort and Transfer

In the sorting activity, the teacher begins by asking students to read all of the words that are in the pocket chart. The teacher then asks the students to group the words that rhyme and share a spelling pattern. She also asks students if they can sort the words based on any other similarities. Sometimes they sort the words for other features (for example, first or last letter, common vowel, length, meaning, or presence of a capital letter).

In the transfer step of the Making Words activity, the teacher writes other words on index cards. The teacher does not just ask students to read the words. Instead, the teacher asks them to tell which of the words they made would help them read the new word if they encountered it in text. Only after they have identified the correct spelling pattern and put the new word on the chart do they read the new word. (Children with Disabilities: Reading & Writing the Four-Blocks Way, p. 119-120, 2006)

Word Wall

The Word Wall is used in activities every day with new words added gradually and practiced repeatedly until they become words that students can read with automaticity, spell with accuracy, and use to read and spell unfamiliar words.

Beginning with lesson one and every tenth lesson after that, five words are added to the Word Wall. Words are displayed under the letter with which they begin and in the order they were introduced in the lessons (not in alphabetical order).

Students practice the words on the wall every day by clapping, chanting, and writing some of the words. They review the words using a variety of activities. Finally, teachers systematically support students in using the Word Wall in reading and writing activities throughout the day. (Children with Disabilities: Reading & Writing the Four-Blocks Way, p. 112, 2006)

Teachers who use a Word Wall successfully make the words on the wall easy for everyone in the classroom to see. Display the Word Wallin a highly visible location in the classroom and refer to it often to model identifying the key words and/or word patterns that give students the clues they need to decode unfamiliar words.

Portable word walls can be used by individual students so that they can add personal words as well as take them to refer to when in other classes.

Word Wall Activities
The interplay between writing and reading is especially important for the emergent reader and writer. We want to help students recognize high frequency words quickly and automatically while reading for meaning. Knowing them facilitates fluent reading and allows the reader to pay attention to new words.

Be a Mind Reader
The teacher thinks of a word on the wall and then gives five clues about that word. The students share a 'guess' for each clue.

Guess the Covered Word
Guess the Covered Word is an activity designed to teach students how to cross-check letter-sound-based decoding strategies with meaning. The teacher writes a sentence on the board covering one word in the sentence with two sticky notes. One note covers the letters preceding the first vowel (the onset) and the other note covers the rest of the word (the rime).

The teacher reads the sentence to the class, skipping the covered word, and asks the students to suggest words that would make sense in the sentence. The students provide guesses as the teacher writes them on the board. Then, the teacher removes the first sticky note to reveal the onset. The teacher then leads the students in checking each of their guesses to see which would still be possible given the onset that has been revealed. The students provide additional guesses starting with the revealed onset. When all of the words that fit both the meaning of the sentence and the letters have been guessed, the teacher removes the remaining sticky note to reveal the word. (Children with Disabilities: Reading & Writing the Four-Blocks Way, p. 122, 2006)

"The purposes of the Word Wall are to teach children to read and spell words with automaticity and accuracy, while teaching them strategies to use the known words on the wall to read

and spell unknown words." -Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver from Children With Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way

Keyword Decoding

Keyword decoding can be thought of decoding by analogy. The goal is to have only a single keyword representing each of the common spelling patterns.

Teaching Key Words
Identify a single word for each of the high frequency spelling patterns on the list (see Keywords Planning Form). Try to identify words that the student can already read and words that are meaningful to the student. You should eventually have 37 keywords, but you can start teaching the strategy as soon as you have identified 6-8 that the student can read.

Known Words to Use in Teaching the Using Words You Know Strategy
While the student is learning to read the keywords, they should be learning to use keywords they do know to read novel words. Two specific strategies that could be used to help students learn the analogy based approach include word sorts and compare/contrast.

It is important to have the keyword list available to the student during all reading and writing activities. If the student is trying to decode an unfamiliar or unknown word, they can be prompted by asking, "Do you have a keyword that would help you?"
From the article, Keyword Decoding, Center for Literacy and Disability Studies

Resources:

Systematic Sequential Phonics They Use by Patricia M. Cunningham

This book helps teachers provide activities in which students discover how words work. These activities include Making Words and Word Wall, which are included in each 5-lesson cycle. The Word Wall is a critical component of Systematic Sequential Phonics They Use. High frequency words are added as a part of every 5 lessons. Words are displayed under the letter in the alphabet in the order introduced. In addition to the classroom Word Wall, the students are given a take-home Word Wall each week that contains all the words on their classroom Word Wall. As a fun component to teaching phonics, students reinforce their learned skills with "Wordo", a variation to the popular Bingo game.
© 2000. 192 pages.
*Systematic Sequential Phonics They Use is only available in a digital version. Search online to find the best price!

Making Words
Based on Dr. Patricia Cunningham'sMaking Words, Dr. Karen Erickson has developed 50 phonics lessons to introduce and build decoding

skills for students with complex instructional needs. This resource also incorporates Dr. Cunningham's approach to building decoding and spelling strategies featured in her book, Systematic Sequential Phonics They Use.

Making Words was only available in the Don Johnson MEville to WEville with the Literacy Starters Curriculum package and through Bridges in Canada.

Where can I learn more about word identification and decoding?

Word Wall, Word Activities and Extension into Writing
This presentation highlights the importance of meaningful, purposeful communication in learning to read and write and connecting oral language to phonological awareness. Many interactive and engaging word wall and word activity examples are provided.
http://literacyforallab.ca/past-webinars

Working with Words
Alberta teachers demonstrate how they use word walls and related making word activities to build literacy skills of all students in their classroom, including students with significant disabilities. (Length: 7 minutes 2 seconds)

Video - Working with Words
Learning Guide - Working with Words

Support for Implementation

The resources found on this site were developed by the ERLC, a member of Alberta Regional Professional Development Consortia (ARPDC), as a result of grants from Alberta Education, to support implementation.

Learning for All | Copyright © 2016
Terms of Use | Contact Us

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Word identification and decoding | Literacy Instruction for Students with Significant Disabilities

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Literacy Instruction for Students with Significant Disabilities "Students who read only by sight or the recognition of sight words are not likely to read text with comprehension above very beginning levels. To achieve successful reading with comprehension, students must have the ability to decode unfamiliar words."

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As not all written regular words could be decoded or blended, these groups of words are categorized under - Sight words. Words that would have to be memorized or recognized by sight. This resource provides instructional tasks which allows educators and parents to teach and emphasize sight word recognition with children. This resource also has instructional materials for parents or educators as well.

Research shown that sight words plays a huge role in reading acquisition as well as the ability become lifelong learner (Hayes, 2016). Once a student begins learning sight words it will give them more confidence in their reading abilities and in turn will reduce frustration that comes with learning to read (Yaw, 2012).

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What is sight word recognition?

Not all written words are regular ones that can be decoded easily.

Some words are irregular or difficult to decode.

They must be memorized and recognized by sight.

Why is sight word recognition important?

Learning sight word recognition skills will help learners read:

Irregular words that can not be sounded out
For example, words such as: there, was, said, come

Words that are governed by more complex spelling rules that have not yet been taught
For example, words such as: boy, eat

Longer, more complex words that are of high interest to the learner
For example, words such as: Spiderman, Darth Vader, Hannah Montana, horse

Remember that learners should not only receive instruction in sight word recognition.

They also need instruction in decoding skills.

Instruction in sight word recognition supplements, but does not replace, instruction in decoding.

Sample goal for instruction in sight word recognition

When a target word is presented orally (said out loud), the learner will

select the appropriate written word from a group of written words with at least 80% accuracy.

Instructional Task

Here are the steps to teach sight word recognition:

The instructor

introduces the new sight word

shows a card with the word and says the word out loud

uses the word in a sentence

After practice with this sight word, the instructor provides review.

The instructor

puts out a group of written words as response options

says the target sight word out loud

The learner

listens to the spoken word

looks at each of the written words provided as response options

selects the target word

Or, here is another way to teach sight word recognition if the words are easily represented in images:

The instructor

introduces the new sight word

shows a card with the word and says the word out loud

shows a picture or symbol of the word

uses the word in a sentence

The instructor

puts out a group of pictures or symbols as response options as appropriate

shows the written sight word to the learner

The learner

looks at the target written sight word

determines the word

says the word, signs it, or matches it to the appropriate picture or symbol from a group provided or from a speech generating device (computer)

Instructional Materials

Here is an example of a group of sight words that might be provided as response options.

The target word is "the"

Response options are she, then, this, the

The learner must

listen to the target sight word spoken out loud -- "the"

select the correct written word - the - from the group of written words provided

Instructional Procedure

The instructor teaches sight word recognition using these procedures.

Model
The instructor demonstrates sight word recognition for the learner.

Guided practice

The instructor provides scaffolding support or prompting to help the learner

match the sight word to the spoken word, or

match the sight word to a picture or symbol of the word

The instructor gradually fades this support as the learner develops competence.

Independent practice

The learner listens to the target word and selects the written word independently.

The instructor monitors the learner's responses and provides appropriate feedback.

Student Example

Jackson is 5 years old in this video.

Jackson has Down syndrome.

He attends a regular preschool program; he has not yet started Kindergarten.

He uses speech and signs to communicate with others.

We started to work with Jackson and his parents to teach him literacy skills when he was 4 years old.

This video was taken after approximately 13 months (approximately 45 minutes a week) of instruction.

At this point, Jackson knows all of the letter-sound correspondences. He decodes regular words in books and he also recognizes many high interest sight words (for example, Nemo, Lightning McQueen).

Jackson is learning to recognize frequently occurring irregular words. In this video, a new sight word is introduced, the word, "the".

Janice

provides an array of sight words as response options

says one of the words (the)

Jackson

listens to the spoken word

points to the target written word from the choices provided

Jackson rapidly learns this new sight word

Over the next weeks, we introduced more sight words and continued to practice decoding skills.

After 15 months of instruction (approximately 45 minutes a week), Jackson was reading simple stories independently. His skills surpassed those of his typical peers. Click to learn more about Jackson's success learning literacy skills.

Pointers

Provide instruction in sight word recognition of a few high-interest words that are too difficult to decode early in the instructional process.

This will increase the learner's motivation.

Wait to teach sight word recognition of frequently occurring irregular words once the learner has learned to decode simple regular words.

As soon as the learner is able to recognize some sight words, target these words in shared reading activities along with decoding words. Doing so will:

Increase motivation to learn to read

Provide additional practice recognizing sight words

Enhance generalization of sight word recognition

Last Updated: February 19, 2019

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Not all written words are regular ones that can be decoded easily. Some words are irregular or difficult to decode. They must be memorized and recognized by sight.

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Practising Kindergarten 1 English language: 'Choose the sight word that you hear'

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Fun English language practice! Improve your skills with free problems in 'Choose the sight word that you hear' and thousands of other practice lessons.

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This resource is a fun free online game activity which allows educators or parents to strengthen and evaluate the child's sight word skills.

With this fun activity, it is an opportunity for children to learn through play. As children learnt best when they are having fun and enjoying activities, and children have fun when they are playing (Boon, 2015). Though this play activity, it allows children to make connections with things that are familiar to them easily.

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This resource includes a series of suggested lesson plan to conduct word recognition activities with the children.

This resource provides directional learning and precise teaching goals for educators to achieve. After which, it allows educators to better evaluate children’s level of understanding. From there, educators can adjust and amend the lesson ability to suit children’s level of understanding.

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FreeReading is an open-source instructional program that helps educators teach early literacy. FreeReading contains a 40-week scope and sequence that can supplement an early literacy core or basal program.

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1. Motivating and engaging students in reading

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1. Motivating and engaging students in reading

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In this article it shows the progression of the child's reading from motivation in primary grades to understanding texts in high school.

Primary Grades:
Some children enter school being more interested in reading than others. As parents read to them on a daily basis it allows them to acquire curiosity in reading which in turn builds their motivation and interest.
According to Morgan and Fuchs (2007, as cited in Cambria & Guthrie, 2010), reading skills and motivation to reading works hand in hand in primary grades.

Intermediate grades:
Some students becomes dedicated and interested. According to Guthrie, Coddington and Wigfield (2009, as cited in Cambria & Guthrie, 2010), there are positive effects on student's grades when they are able to affiliate their interest (what they like) and dedication (what they must).
At this point of time, dedication becomes the motivation for reading.

High school:
Student's dedication to reading becomes an attempt to understand texts. They desire to make connections between the different sections of texts and integrate them to their prior knowledge.

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Motivating and engaging students in reading

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Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers.

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2. Reading skills for academic study: Understanding Text

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2. Reading skills for academic study: Understanding Text

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This article describes the importance of understanding text as well as describes the essence of what it means to understand text in academic reading.

Fellowes & Oakley (2014) states that reading loses it's meaning without comprehension.

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Using English for Academic Purposes: Information and Advice for Students in Higher Education

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This resource has questions that adults can adopt to prompt children with regards to the book (E.g Prior to reading the book, while reading the book, looking at the book’s text, etc.). There are also tips to get children engaged in the story as well as a list of recommended books to read with the preschooler. McKinnon (2017) states that reading struggles can be averted if the school focuses on phonemic awareness, phonics and sight vocabulary.

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Why reading with your preschooler is important

Sharing stories, talking and singing every day helps your child's development in lots of ways.

You're getting your child familiar with sounds, words, language and, eventually, the value and joy of books. This all builds your child's early literacy skills, like the ability to listen to and understand words. It also helps her go on to read successfully later in childhood.

Reading stories stimulates your child's imagination and helps him learn about the world around him.

And reading is also a great time for you to bond with your child and share time together.

Sharing books with your preschooler

At this age and stage, reading with your child is all about spending special time together, and having fun by enjoying the language and illustrations in picture books. Here are some tips that can help you and your preschooler make the most of your reading time.

Looking at the book
Before you start, ask your child some questions about the book:

Who are the author and illustrator of the book?

What do you think this story is about?

Who might be in it?

What do you think will happen?

Reading the story

Vary the pace of your reading, as well as how loud you read. Changing your voice and expression for different characters can also be fun.

Encourage your child to use her finger to trace the words while you read them.

Let your child turn the pages of the book himself.

Ask your child some questions about the story - for example, 'What do you think happens next?', 'Why is the baby happy?' and 'Who has the ball?'

Chant or sing repetitive phrases and words together.

Looking at letters, words and punctuation

Point out the differences between letters and words, and the difference between a lower-case and capital letter. For example, 'There is a capital M. Can you see how it's bigger than this lower-case m?'

Point out different punctuation marks, including full stops, exclamation marks and question marks. Explain what these mean - for example, 'There is a question mark. When we see one of those, we know that somebody is asking a question'.

When you see words printed in bold or large font, point these out and explain how this changes the ways that we say those words. For example, 'Look at how big the word BOOHOO is. The baby must be crying very loudly'.

Ask questions about the names and sounds of letters.

Play 'find the letters and words' games, especially with the letters in your child's name.

Other reading activities

Help your child make up her own stories and drawings to go with them.

If your child can't read words yet, encourage your child to tell you a story based on the pictures in a storybook.

General tips for budding readers

Make a routine, and try to share at least one book every day. Sharing a book can be a nice way to start and finish the day. A comfortable and favourite reading place can be part of the routine.

Turn off the TV or radio so your child can focus.

Hold your child close or on your knee while you read so he can see your face and the book.

Try out funny noises and sounds - play and have fun!

Involve your child by encouraging talk about the pictures and repeating familiar words.

Let your child choose the books. Be prepared to read favourite books over and over again!

When your child sees you reading and writing, you're creating a home environment that helps develop literacy skills. Your reading and writing can be as simple as reading magazines or newspapers and writing shopping lists or messages for your partner or children.

What to read with your child

There are so many books to choose from that it can be hard to know where to start.

As a broad rule, young children often enjoy books that have good rhyme, rhythm and repetition. In fact, one of the ways that children learn is through repetition and rhyme.

In the preschool years (ages 3-5 years), your child might especially enjoy:

alphabet, shape, size and counting books

books that tell simple stories, especially ones with rhythm and repetition

books about families, friends and going to school

books with characters who are about the same age as your child and characters who have quirky traits

books that use humour and have a sense of fun - for example, a character who uses a funny word, or who is silly or even 'naughty'

books relating to particular interests - for example, books about dinosaurs, fairies, football or animals. Some preschoolers are very interested in non-fiction books, including books about the stars, the ocean, inventions, food and travels around the world.

Ebooks can be handy, especially if you're travelling or away from home. If your child wants to read ebooks, share them with your child and choose stories without distracting animations or games. Ebooks shouldn't replace paper books. It's important to balance screen time with other activities.

Here are some books for you and your preschooler to explore:

Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day by Judith Viorst

An Australian 1, 2, 3 of animals by Bronwyn Bancroft

An Australian ABC of animals by Bronwyn Bancroft

Are we there yet? by Alison Lester

Early learning big book of Australian nature by Steve Parish

The Hairy Maclary collection by Lynley Dodd

Koala Lou by Mem Fox

Let's get a pup by Bob Graham

Naughty agapanthus by Barbara Macfarlane

Olivia by Ian Falconer and others in this series

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish by Dr Seuss

Owl babies by Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson

Possum magic by Mem Fox

Squish rabbit by Katherine Battersby

The cat in the hat by Dr Seuss

The rice bag hammock by Shaeeza Haniff

The very hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle

The wheels on the bus by Penny Dann

Za-Za's baby brother by Lucy Cousins.

Why not visit your local library? It's free to join and borrow. The staff will be able to recommend books for you and your child to enjoy.

Or if your child attends child care, kindergarten or preschool, you could talk to his teachers or carers to get some ideas. Some preschools allow children to borrow books each week or to bring a special book from home to share with the group.

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Sharing stories, talking and singing every day helps your child's development in lots of ways. You're getting your child familiar with sounds, words, language and, eventually, the value and joy of books. This all builds your child's early literacy skills, like the ability to listen to and understand words.

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4. Nurturing Early Learners - Language & Literacy

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4. Nurturing Early Learners - Language & Literacy

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This resource has plenty of information with regards to reading and viewing. In the reading section, it contains information that are able to guide the educator.

Preschool education plays a vital role in developing literacy and prohibiting reading difficulties. Most children adopt an identical method and array of reading behaviours. Both skills and behaviour that are attained in the initial phrase acts as a support for subsequent proficiency and mastery. Both of which are the constituent which children grasp to apply to establish a more higher-level to grow into proficient readers (Brown, 2014).

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This resource has plenty of information and pointers to note if the child knows a lot about reading (e.g books are read from front to back). This website also offers tips such as re-reading the book multiple times as the child is mastering many skills with each re-reading.

As quoted from Brown (2014), “through active engagement in the reading process, children learn ways to use their growing knowledge and skills flexibly and in combination with all domains of development”. Brown (2014) also states that reading calls for the understanding, integration and the utilisation of knowledge and various skills.

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Moving Toward School and Reading

Preschoolers know many things they didn't know as babies. They don't read by themselves, but if they've been read to a lot, they know a lot about reading, such as:

Books are read from front to back.

Pictures should be right-side up.

Reading is done from left to right.

The language of books is different from spoken language.

Words have different sounds in them.

There are familiar and unfamiliar words.

Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

All of these are early literacy skills - important building blocks toward the day when they'll read by themselves. How can you support development of these skills? Keep reading aloud.

Picking many different books to read aloud will build your preschooler's vocabulary, and help your child learn about different topics. Your child will learn that:

Text are words written down.

Letters in a specific order form a word.

There are spaces between words.

This information will help when kids start learning to read in school.

When and How to Read

Many kids this age go to childcare centers or preschools. Read-aloud time can be a chance to slow down and spend time together.

Make time to read together at home too. Before bed works well, as do other "down" times in the day, like first thing in the morning or after meals. Your child will enjoy cuddling with you, hearing your voice, and feeling loved.

Kids between 3 and 5 years old want to show off what they know and love to be praised. Continue to choose some books with simple plots and repetitive text (e.g., "Brown bear, brown bear...") that your child can learn and retell. Encourage your child to "read" to you and praise the attempts.

Other tips:

Yes, read that book over and over again - and try not to sound bored. Your child is mastering many skills with each re-reading.

When looking at a new book, introduce it. Look at the cover and talk about what it might be about. Say the author's name and talk about what an author does.

Move your fingers under the words as you read to show the connection between what you are saying and the text.

When you come to familiar or repetitive lines, pause and let your child finish them. ("I do not like green eggs and....I do not like them, Sam....")

Ask your child to point out letters or words he or she might know. Sometimes point to words and sound them out slowly while your child watches.

Ask your child why a character did something.

Talk about the parts of the story - how did it begin? What happened in the middle? What did you think of the ending?

Ask what part of the story your child liked best and why.

While it's important to ask your child some hard questions, your top goal should be to enjoy reading and have fun. Don't make reading a book like a test your child needs to pass. Look at the pictures, make up new words together, and be playful and relaxed.

Also, remember that reading comes to different kids at different times. Some kids fall in love with books earlier than others. So if your child doesn't seem as interested right away, just keep reading and showing how wonderful it can be.

Remember these three key phrases: Read with me! Talk with me! Have fun with me! These three things can help your child on the road to reading success.

The Best Books for Busy Minds

Preschoolers like books that tell stories. They also can turn pages and sit still, so longer picture books are a good choice. Continue reading books with repetitive lines and familiar words, but also include those with a richer vocabulary and plots that are more complicated. Consider reading chapter books that take more than one sitting to finish.

Kids are curious and like reading books about other kids who look and act like them, but also want stories with kids who live in different places and do different things. Expose your child to many characters and talk about how they act and what choices they make. Include talking animals, monsters, and fairies to stimulate your child's imagination.

Reinforce positive feelings about something your child learned to do (kick a soccer ball, paint a picture) by reading books about kids who have done the same thing. Help your child talk about fears and worries by reading books about going to the doctor or dentist, starting a new school, or dealing with a bully.

For example, books about going to school - especially when kids are about to start preschool or kindergarten - are a great choice, as are books about making friends. And pick books that will challenge your child and help build skills. Alphabet books, counting books, or books with lots of new words are all good choices.

Pick nonfiction books that talk about something of interest to your child - owls, the ocean, dinosaurs, the moon - especially if the book has great illustrations. And don't forget poetry - preschoolers still love rhymes. This age group is starting to enjoy jokes, so silly poems or songs will be a huge hit.

Wordless picture books that tell a story only with illustrations are also great. After the two of you have been through a wordless book a couple of times, your child will most likely begin telling you the story - and may even be found "reading" the story to favorite stuffed animals or dolls.

Try homemade books too - photo albums with captions and scrapbooks excite preschoolers. When your child makes drawings, ask him or her to tell you what they are, label them, and then put them into a "book" that you can read together. Have fun creating book covers so that they will last for years.

Books aren't the only things your preschooler will love to read - magazines with lots of pictures also are enjoyable. And ask people your child loves to send letters, postcards, texts, or e-mails. Read these together and keep them in a special box where your child can look at them.

Other Ways to Encourage Book Time

Read-aloud isn't the only time your child can spend with books - preschoolers love to choose and look at books on their own. Keep books in a basket on the floor or on a low shelf where your child can reach them easily and look at them alone. Keep some books in the car and always have a few in your bag for long visits to the doctor or lines at the post office.

At this age, encourage independent reading by putting a reading lamp next to your child's bed so your child can look at books for a little while before going to sleep. And kids who have just given up naps can be encouraged to spend quiet time looking at books on their own.

Most important of all: Remember to let your child catch you reading for enjoyment. Turn off the TV, pull out a book, and curl up on the couch where your child can see you - and join you with his or her own favorite book.

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Preschoolers know many things they didn't know as babies. They don't read by themselves, but if they've been read to a lot, they know a lot about reading, such as: Books are read from front to back. Pictures should be right-side up. Reading is done from left to right.

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This resources gives an insight of what, why and how of Phonics. It offers some pointers in regards to the child’s age - from preschool age all the way to Primary One. Thus, this allows for adults to have a better sense of what the child should know/lack of.

Phonics helps children to decode words and that there are many ways to teach phonics (Sitthitikul, 2014).

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Phonics: using the sounds made by individual letters and groups of letters to read words.

Decoding: using your phonic knowledge to sound out and read words.

Grapheme: a written letter or group of letters, like 's', 'a', 'she' or 'air'. Some graphemes are single letters like 'a'; others are digraphs like 'ai'.

Digraph: two letters that make one sound together, like 'sh', 'ai', 'oo'.

Phoneme: the sound a letter or group of letters make - e.g. the word 'mat' has three phonemes, 'm', 'a' and 't'. The word 'through' is longer, but it also has three phonemes, 'th', 'r' and the 'oo' sound in 'ough'.

Sounding out: using your phonic knowledge to help you say each sound within a word, e.g. 'r-e-d' or 's-au-ce-p-a-n'.

Blending: running the sounds in the word together to read the whole word, e.g. 'r-e-d, red', 's-au-ce-p-a-n, saucepan'.

High-frequency words (also known as 'common exception words'): the very important, very common words which we use a lot, but which aren't always decodable using phonics. This includes crucial words like 'the', 'one', 'where', etc. Children are taught to recognise these words on sight - a few of these words are introduced and learnt at a time.

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How to teach your child phonics | tips and tricks for parents

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Phonics: using the sounds made by individual letters and groups of letters to read words. Decoding: using your phonic knowledge to sound out and read words. Grapheme: a written letter or group of letters, like 's', 'a', 'she' or 'air'. Some graphemes are single letters like 'a'; others are digraphs like 'ai'.

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Phonics act as a stepping stone that will  help them in their writing and spelling as they have the competency to decode words. By decoding words, it allows them to learn how to pronounce the letters and at the same time, learning what it means.

This resources contains various activities that educator can use to engage the children to learn phonics in a more fun and engaging way.

Studies have shown that young children excels in reading skills if they were taught using the phonics approach as compared to the whole-language approach. Phonics approach focuses on analytical skills while whole-language approach advocates for memorisation of individual words (Russak & Wong, 2019).

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14 Phenomenal Phonics Activities for Preschoolers

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Phonics activities are a tried-and-true method for building literacy skills in little learners. Take advantage of this handy list of our favorite educational and entertaining activities to try

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2. The Importance of Automaticity and Fluency For Efficient Reading Comprehension 

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2. The Importance of Automaticity and Fluency For Efficient Reading Comprehension 

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This resource indicates the importance of fluency for comprehension. It also highlights the relationship between phonemic awareness, phonics and orthographic reading.

It is highlighted by LaBerge and Samuels (1974, cited in Fellowes & Oakley, 2014) that when a reader has automaticity of word recognition, it allows the reader to be engaged in higher level thinking required for comprehension as they have sufficient attentional and cognitive capacity.
There are various important reasons why a child should be able to read fluently. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000, as cited in Fellowes & Oakley, 2014) mentioned that The National Reading Panel (USA) stated that readers who are fluent develop more positive attitudes towards reading and therefore, are highly likely to do more reading and in turn become better readers and learners.

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3. 5 Surefire Strategies for Developing Reading Fluency 

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3. 5 Surefire Strategies for Developing Reading Fluency 

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This article offers 5 different strategies/techniques in which an educator could use to help children in developing their fluency in reading. However, we must note that the child's needs should be assessed so as to be able to use the appropriate technique that would best benefit the child.

This resource is supported by Fellowes and Oakley (2014) as they mentioned the five-day cycle that Zutell et al. (2006) developed, which is a technique used to help children struggling with reading.
Both the resource and the five-day cycle possess similarities as both starts with the educator reading the book first then slowly progresses to the child reading plain text on their own.

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This resource provides a game for children to interact and learn about letter names and sound.

Phonics knowledge allows children to understand the link between sounds (phonemes) and letter patterns (graphemes) (Victoria State Government, 2018). With this resource, parents or educators can extend children's learning, as well as to evaluate them while they use the application.

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Talk to Me Alphabet is a fun activity to help young students practice their ABCs. Kids can hear letter names or letter sounds by using the keys on their keyboard or tapping on a letter. They can also choose to view the letters in alphabetical order or arranged like a QWERTY keyboard.

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7 Must-Have Resources to Improve Reading Fluency Right Now

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Help your students improve their reading fluency with sight word practice pages, phonics activities, poetry, and plays available from Scholastic.

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4. iPad Apps and Activities for Fluency Practice 

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4. iPad Apps and Activities for Fluency Practice 

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In this article it recommended 4 iPad Apps and activities that the students can conduct to practice fluency.

According to NEL (2012) All planned and unplanned interactions, experiences, transitions and routines that happens in a surrounding designed to develop children's holistic development is termed as Curriculum.
According to Ismail (2015), a child's understanding and reading ability is differs due to the differences in training and background of the child.
Children's way of learning has changed due to the rapid growth in technology as compared to early days when teaching and learning are conducted formally in classrooms (Agudo, et al. 2010, as cited in Ismail, 2015). He further elaborates that materials used for learning and teaching has changed from physical blackboards to sophisticated gadgets to support the teaching and learning of a child at any level.

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Fluency is one of the foundations of a solid reading program. All of my students have fluency goals - most of which are met during guided reading groups or when reading independently - but some of the students do need more fluency practice. There are several iPad apps and activities for fluency practice that I recommend.

Organizing the iPads for fluency practice

First you will want to figure out how your students will be using the iPad apps and activities for fluency practice in your classroom.

I would assign my students specific fluency activities that they needed to accomplish each day. Each activity would be approximately 5 minutes. Before we had multiple iPads, I set up a single iPad in a center for students to access. To make sure my students each had time to use the iPad, I created a fluency menu of the activities so students could choose an activity and do them in any order all week that way they would not be scrambling to use the iPad all at once.

The menu was a mix of iPad and non iPad activities. I highly recommend checking out the ideas in MsJordanReads Fluency Bootcamp post.

Even with more iPads on hand, I will still continue to use the fluency menu as I found it helpful for my students who needed that intervention.

4 iPad apps and activities for fluency practice on the iPad.

1. Ask Siri.

Students used several books of questions I had in the classroom and read the questions into Siri. I recommend both of these:

If you have used Siri before, you know how important it is to be clear and read with steady pacing and expression. To access Siri, students hold down the home key on the iPad. When the lines are wavy, they can speak into the iPad.

We found that Siri was able to answer most of the questions we asked from the books. If you do not have question books in your classroom, you can write various questions on index cards for students to use.

2. Read to a repeating Hippo.

Talking Baby Hippo is a free app that is similar to many other "My talking" free apps that do the same thing. We settled on this one because it had less ads and it seemed to be the most kid-friendly.

Basically students read passages into the app and the Hippo repeats it in a funny voice. Simple, but it a great tool to motivate students to reread. I used the Reading Resource Fluency Phrases described at the link.

I printed them and stuck them in a binder with plastic sleeves. Students selected a page and read that to the Hippo and the Hippo would repeat it. With students that read at a slow rate, you will notice that at first they will not be able to finish the page before the Hippo interrupts. However, usually by the second or third read they will be able to finish reading.

3. Use the dictation feature on Notepad

For this one, students used a page from their book or a passage I printed. They open the Notepad app - included with all iPads - and touch the microphone icon on the keyboard to dictate their passage into the Notepad. Just like with Siri, reading clearly at a steady pace is best so students will need to practice to get the hang of it. Students may need to reread sentences to get them just right.

You do need a newer iPad to access this feature. If you are not seeing the microphone icon on the keyboard, try opening the Settings app and selecting Settings > General > Keyboard > Dictation = ON.

4. Practice reading sight words with the free sight word app.

The Sight Words List app includes lists of common sight words. Students open the app and read words on the list. There are also games and the option to create your own lists.

How do you practice fluency in your classroom?

Advertising Disclosure: Erintegration may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website.

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IPAD APPS AND ACTIVITIES FOR FLUENCY PRACTICE

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Fluency is one of the foundations of a solid reading program. All of my students have fluency goals - most of which are met during guided reading groups or when reading independently - but some of the students do need more fluency practice. There are several iPad apps and activities for fluency practice that I recommend.

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This resource provides educators with a portfolio to gather the information of how much essential knowledge an educator possess on the topic itself. Therefore, giving the educator an opportunity to develop themselves (through attending courses) to be better able to deliver lesson plans to assist children in developing their phonic knowledge.

This is in line with the Association for Early Childhood (Singapore) (2010) Code of Ethics 2.4.5 "We are truthful in presenting professional qualifications, experience and affiliations" and Code of Ethics 2.4.6 "We share professional knowledge and experience with the early childhood fraternity by way of mentoring"
According to OECD (2009), professional development can be assessed in formal and informal ways. She further elaborated that the term "Professional Development" are activities that aid in the development of skills, knowledge and other characteristics as a teacher.

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Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension

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Comprehension strategies are conscious plans — sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension. These seven strategies have research-based evidence for…

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4. 5 Creative ESL Reading Comprehension Activities Your Students Will Love

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4. 5 Creative ESL Reading Comprehension Activities Your Students Will Love

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This article presents 5 interesting activities apart from worksheets, to enable students to test their understanding of words (written). In this article it highlights play activities to enhance a student's reading comprehension.

According to Mielonen and Paterson (2009), children learn the way language works and understand how to interact with people through play. They further elaborated that children will eventually learn to make connection between meaning of spoken language and written language.

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Do your ESL students sometimes struggle to understand what they've read?

Reading comprehension is notoriously difficult for students to learn and for teachers to teach. You have to make it interesting and effective. Otherwise, your students will lose interest and get discouraged from reading in English altogether.

In this post, I've compiled 22 awesome and effective ESL reading comprehension activities that your students will surely enjoy. Some are straightforward, while others require a bit of preparation prior to the main activity.

Contents

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

1. Pick the Right Word: Which Is It?

Most ESL reading activities designed to test comprehension look like this:
Sarah went to the (beach/park). There, she met a friend who went to (science class/summer camp) two years ago.
You can usually find exercises like this for free on K12Reader.com and Mr. Nussbaum.com, so you don't need to spend time making them on your own.

They're rather cut-and-dry as far as exercises go, but if you're new to giving out ESL reading comprehension activities or are looking for a safe option, you can always fall back on this one.

2. Picture Quiz: Brown Bear, What Do You See?

If you're looking for a more creative version of "Pick the Right Word," you can also craft an ESL reading comprehension activity that doesn't necessarily involve words and sentences (as strange as that might sound).

Instead of giving students two options to choose from or having them fill in the blanks, you can give them a bunch of pictures and have them do some matching.

Using the example above ( Sarah went to the (beach/park) ...), you can label several pictures as A, B, C and D. Picture A can be a beach, Picture B can be a park and so on. Students can then sort through the pictures, and write the correct letter corresponding to the correct image in the blank space.

3. Connect the Dots: This Word Goes With That Picture

Alternatively, you could also use "Connect the Dots" for the same exercise above. This works especially well with younger ESL learners, who'll be more appreciative of colorful pictures accompanying their learning activities.

Feel free to throw in an irrelevant picture or two to make the activity a tad more tricky and interesting. It'll also more accurately gauge whether your students actually understand the answers they're giving out or are just guessing them.

4. Sequence: Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together

Nursery rhymes like "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall" are engaging for ESL learners of any age.

For this activity, use pictures to retell the story and help your students remember the main plot points, characters and events of the text.
Preparation

Create copies of two stories. Make sure each is single-spaced and printed on a separate piece of paper. Label each story "Story 1" and "Story 2."

Make a worksheet of a bunch of pictures (related to the stories you've created) labeled with either numbers or letters. Make sure there are spaces or lines immediately below the pictures where your students can write their answers. Depending on your class's level, you can turn the labeling exercise into the perfect drill for practicing spelling and sentence construction.

Activity
If you need some inspiration for fantastic picture reading comprehension worksheets, try ESlFlow.com. There are also some interesting picture worksheets on Cal.org that focus specifically on health literacy for ESL adults.

You'll probably find that it's easier and more fun to find a story online, and download images from Google to make your own picture stories.

5. Story Retelling: Showtime!

Story retelling involves reading a text or story and then acting it out to other students. If you have students who love role play, they'll enjoy this one and similar activities.

Choose from any of these short stories for ESL students, print them out and make enough copies for the whole class.

Divide students into small groups. Make sure the size of each group matches the number of characters in the stories you're handing out.

Give each group a different story that they'll need to act out in front of the class.

Prepare (or have your students prepare) a list of short answers/multiple choice/true or false questions to engage the audience and evaluate how well the actors captured the events of the story.

Once everything is set, it's showtime!

6. Cause and Effect: Who Solves the Mystery?

Cause and effect questions help students think outside the box and better understand the ripple effect of events.

Text materials that have a mysterious plot or historical background are excellent choices, because they require students to understand the context of the mystery, the clues and the characters to fully appreciate the thrills of crime solving.

For example, you can read this interesting crime scene together with your students in class. Your objective with this activity is to answer the final question: Why isn't Inspector Coderre satisfied with Ms. Webb's version of the event?

Divide students into groups.

Create a cause and effect map to capture the first part of Ms. Webb's testimony, which ends right before the sentence, "The inspector was very sympathetic and told her that it was very natural to not want to damage somebody's property." For example, you can write something like "(effect) Ms. Webb could see the study room → it was well-lit. (cause)" or "(cause) Ms. Webb broke a small window → to get into the house. (effect)" It doesn't matter how you order the cause and effect-the point is to help students notice details in the story and make an effective analysis.

Ask the students to identify the part of the testimony that made the detective lose his sympathy. Analyze that testimonial section with another cause and effect chart. Do they notice any inconsistencies?

Discuss the students' findings in class or in small groups.

7. Following Directions: It's a Treasure Hunt!

You don't have to limit ESL reading comprehension activities to short stories. You can also facilitate hands-on activities to encourage your students to read, such as this treasure hunt game.
Preparation

Create a map. It can be hand-drawn or printed. Give unique names to the basic geographic features of the classroom/schoolyard, so students can navigate the "rainforest" or "dark caves" without getting lost.

Put together a clue sheet to help locate the treasure. It should be filled with hints, codes and even secret messages for students to decode. For example, if you hid a diamond playing card on the third shelf of a bookcase in the corner, you can give the following clue: It stands in a corner with lots of pages for you to read. The diamond is on the third floor and right under a fairy tale.

Activity

Hide different treasures (cards, small balls and beanies) in the classroom or schoolyard.

Divide your students into groups.

Give them the map and clue sheet to locate the treasure.

The first group that finds their treasure wins the game. But they're always welcome to join other teams to help them find their treasures, too!

8. Multiple-choice: Get It Right!

Multiple-choice is a classic, wonderful way to ease your students into new material. It's also excellent for building much-needed confidence before moving on to more challenging ways of checking reading comprehension.

You'll want to use "scaling" in your multiple choice questions-i.e., making each question slightly more difficult than the one before it. This way, your students will be challenged just enough to keep going.

To get started:

9. Short Answers: A Story Within a Story

In this activity, your aim is to get students to dig deeper beneath the surface of what they're reading. You want them to go beyond answering questions about the events and characters in the story, and talk about related topics as well.

For example, if a short story features lovers who are of the same gender, the students might want to formulate short answers about the concept of homosexuality. (Of course, if this is a taboo topic in the area where you're teaching, or your students aren't at the level where they can talk about such topics yet, you may want to pick an easier subject that's less emotionally charged or controversial.)

There are a lot of ways to go about this activity. You can:

Give students time to read the story in class.

Assign the story as homework.

Pair students up, and have them develop short answers together.

Have pairs read their short answers to other pairs.

10. Vocabulary Focus: Show and Tell

This exercise is a great way to put some of your students' newly learned words to good use. Plus, you don't have to search far for new words-the ones that appear in the assigned reading will do.

All you have to do is:

Pair students up.

Have them underline key words in the target text.

Have them look up any words they don't know.

Have students present their vocabulary terms to their classmates.

11. Decoding Idioms: Guess What the Phrase Means

Decoding phrases, especially idioms, can be tricky for most students. That's why it's a good idea to devote an entire activity to this concept alone.
Preparation

Scan the assigned or target text for idioms that may be difficult to decode based on context alone.

Compile these words and phrases, and print them on a worksheet.

Activity

Ask your students to read the collection of phrases, and have them write down or discuss what they think the phrases mean. Be careful not to use too many phrases, or you'll bore the life out of your students and discourage them from reading the assigned or target text further.

Once everyone is done, explain the phrases to the students. If you speak your students' mother tongue, you can also judiciously use the bilingual method of teaching English. Ask them if they have similar idioms in their language.

Challenge your students to write sentences using the new idioms, either in class or for homework. This allows you to check for comprehension and tweak accordingly.

12. Question Time: Prep for the Real Work

Often, ESL reading activities involve answering questions after the text has been read. For this activity, it'll be the other way around.

Pre-reading questions are great for reading comprehension because:

They orient the reader to the genre, topic and purpose of the text.

They allow the reader to activate their knowledge of related vocabulary, and glean the key words and phrases they should seek to understand in the reading.

They provide a focus for the reading of the text, so students know what information is important and what isn't.

They save a ton of time during reading comprehension tests.

Encourage your students to underline key words and phrases, and make notes and translations where necessary. This will help them avoid the common error of not answering the question as it's written on the paper. A little time spent going over their notes here can improve the overall accuracy and relevance of their answers.

13. Read and Repeat: Get Pronunciation Down Pat

Reading comprehension work gives you an excellent opportunity to get in some pronunciation activities for your ESL students. These will enhance their speaking and listening skills all at once.

For example, when working on a text in class, you can:

Read a sentence in the target text.

Have the students repeat the sentence after you, paying close attention to their pronunciation.

If you notice anything off about their pronunciation, give them gentle feedback.

Once you've worked through the entire piece, have the students read it back to you paragraph by paragraph. Again, take the opportunity to correct where necessary.

14. Paragraph Summary: Tell It Another Way

Similar to the short answer activity discussed earlier, paragraph summary activities can challenge your students and help them develop their unique English voices.

This activity could be done post-reading, but it's also an excellent way to ensure comprehension as you work through the text with your students.

Put students in groups.

Give them the text as you usually would.

Encourage your students to take notes, annotate and underline as they go. Ask them to talk about any personal connections that they have to the topic(s), or to put themselves in the shoes of someone featured in the text. Students will benefit from relating what they've learned to their own lives.

At the end of a paragraph (or suitable portion of the text), have the students summarize what they've read in their own words. They should be instructed to write it out in no more than four or five sentences. Encourage them to use different words and sentence constructions.

Have them present their summaries to the class. The presentations can last from 30 seconds to a minute each.

Answer any questions that arise.

15. Quiz Writing and Giving: Stump Your Classmates

A fun post-reading activity is to have a quiz based on the reading comprehension text.

Students generally get lots of opportunities to answer questions in class, but not as many to ask them. Try checking their comprehension by having them ask their classmates questions about the passage they've read.

I'll go into the specific quiz formats later, but the activity will generally go like this:

Put students in groups.

Have them create a quiz for the other groups.

Have the groups grade the quizzes.

Discuss the quiz questions and answers as a class.

The quizzes don't have to be in the usual pen-and-paper format. They can also come in the form of an:

Oral quiz. This gives the students an opportunity to use their new vocabulary in speech.

Game show quiz. Set up a game resembling "Jeopardy!," or choose from any other famous TV game show to model your quiz on.

16. True or False: Give Me a Thumbs-up (Or Down)

True or false is yet another standard classroom activity that can be made fun for your ESL classroom.

Take your featured text, and create a good number of "yes or no" questions about it. Each question should be relatively simple, covering the main topic, events, themes, characters and anything else described in the text.

Read the questions out loud while students follow along on a worksheet. Have the students respond to the statements by giving a thumbs-up for a true statement or a thumbs-down for a false statement. This allows you to easily spot the students who are struggling to understand the piece and support them accordingly.

For longer and more complex pieces, you can review the true or false statements at the end of each paragraph or page, instead of the end like you would with simpler pieces.

17. Puzzle Making: Cut and Paste

This could be done as a pre- or post-reading activity and works best in groups.

Photocopy the passage, and cut it into pieces. Chunks of one or two paragraphs are best.

Get your students to put the reading together.

You could also do a cloze reading exercise like so:

From the reading, choose topic sentences that you want your students to work on.

Using your word processor software (like Microsoft Word or Google Docs), type or copy-and-paste the topic sentences into a blank page.

From the sentences, cut the words you want your students to work on, and paste them at the bottom of the page. Replace the cut words in the sentences with blanks.

Let your students fill out the blanks using the words pasted at the bottom of the page.

Luckily, here are some ready-to-use cloze activities on different topics you can swipe from.

18. Taboo: Don't Say That!

Taboo is arguably the best game for practicing vocabulary and livening up your lesson. If you haven't heard of it before, it essentially involves a student explaining what the key word they're thinking of means without using the key word itself or synonyms of any kind.

Here's another variation:

19. Class Discussions: Talk It Out

Class discussions can take place before or after your ESL reading activities.

If you're doing it beforehand, your goal should be to engage the students and activate their current vocabulary, getting them to talk in broad terms about the topic they'll be reading.

For example, if the text will be about tourism, kickstart a discussion with questions like:

You can put these questions on a worksheet with ample space for brainstorming and forming opinions independently.

Alternatively, you could divide students into pairs or small groups to discuss the topic before reading the text. Since you're already familiar with the text they'll be looking at, you can skillfully and subtly steer the conversation into issues and areas related to the gist of the text to come.

If you're doing post-reading discussions, you can use questions from ESL textbooks, come up with your own questions or-if your students are at a high enough level-have them come up with the questions themselves.

Then:

For some fantastic ESL-oriented discussion questions on a variety of topics, click right here.

20. Class Debates: Fight It Out

If the passage is about something topical, you could use it to organize a debate.

There are many ways to structure a class debate, but the one I usually use is pretty simple:

1. One-minute argument

2. One-minute rebuttal

3. Questions

4. Summary

5. The facilitator (usually you or a capable student) gives feedback.

Suitable for intermediate to advanced students, a debate offers a platform to share opinions about a given topic. Often, with a little imagination, a reading comprehension topic can segue into a debate topic relevant to the students' own lives.

21. Class Presentations: In-class TED Talks

You know how watching a TED Talk often leaves you with a feeling that you've learned something new or even life-changing afterward? Recreate that format in class to further boost reading comprehension.

For example, if the class just read an article about the qualities of a good brand, the students could deliver two-minute presentations about their favorite brand and what makes it special.

To make the most of these in-class TED Talks:

22. Class Presentations Redux: Tell Me About [A Favorite Topic]

Then again, your students might feel intimidated at the thought of having to recreate presentations that are given by big-name personalities and watched by millions of people around the world.

In that case, it's okay to take a more down-to-earth approach to presentations. Give your students a bit more leeway with the format. Better yet, let them have the freedom to talk about any topic they choose.

This way, they'll make more of an effort to communicate their passion for something in English. They'll also have a solid incentive to brush up on the necessary vocabulary and express themselves in colorful ways. Watch them come alive as they talk about the things that matter the most to them.

Why Do ESL Reading Comprehension Activities?

Reading doesn't only teach ESL students grammar, word usage and sentence structure. It also enables them to acquire new information about the culture surrounding their target language.

Reading helps students see how English is communicated through writing. As you know, good writing and being a good reader go hand in hand.

Reading comprehension activities help students test their understanding of words in a written context. At the same time, they can get the most out of their reading assignments.

While you've undoubtedly used conventional tests to quiz your students, there are ways to make reading comprehension activities effective without relying on the same old methods.

For example, you can:

Have your students listen to ESL podcasts. Some of them have transcripts, so students could read those first, then listen to the episode afterward and combine listening and reading comprehension.

Use videos with subtitles in your classroom for a fun twist on reading comprehension. The key is to use videos that have subtitles, like YouTube and FluentU, the latter of which has authentic videos with accurate transcripts. Have students read the transcript first, then play the video in class.

Sure, there's a time for your students to read for pleasure outside the classroom. However, in-class reading comprehension activities maximize the benefits of reading by making it more relevant and personal to them.

Also, as their teacher, you'll have opportunities to clarify misunderstandings and ambiguities, as well as enhance students' vocabulary, word usage and interpretation skills.

With a few dashes of entertainment and creativity here and there, your ESL students will come to love reading in English beyond its educational benefits.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

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22 Effective ESL Reading Activities | FluentU English Educator Blog

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Need some new ideas for ESL reading activities to improve your students' comprehension? Check out our list of 22 ESL reading comprehension activities that will get students thinking about what they've read and remembering it! We've included activities such as treasure hunts, role plays and Taboo.

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5. What the problem looks like and how to help?

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5. What the problem looks like and how to help?

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It is essential to be able to identify the problem in different perspectives: Student, Teacher, Parent.
This resource provides a guide to how a student/teacher/parent is able to spot the problem with fluency as well as what can they do to help improve fluency.

Vygotsky mentioned that the through a person's interactions with the world it constructs the human mind and is also an attribute between the person and the object. (Verenikina, 2010, as cited in Adam, 2017). This supports the idea of this resource as it focuses on how the people around the reader can help in the reader's learning. Therefore, linking to Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development Theory, where a more knowledgeable other supports the learning of a person who needs help (Fletcher, 2018).

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Fluency is defined as the ability to read with accuracy, good speed, and appropriate expression. In order to understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud or silently. When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. Their reading is smooth and has expression.

Children who do not read with fluency sound choppy and awkward. Those students may have difficulty with decoding skills or they may just need more practice with speed and smoothness in reading. Fluency is also important for motivation; children who find reading laborious tend not to want read! As readers head into upper elementary grades, fluency becomes increasingly important. The volume of reading required in the upper elementary years escalates dramatically. Students whose reading is slow or labored will have trouble meeting the reading demands of their grade level.

What the problem looks like

A kid's perspective: What this feels like to me

Children will usually express their frustration and difficulties in a general way, with statements like "I hate reading!" or "This is stupid!". But if they could, this is how kids might describe how fluency difficulties in particular affect their reading:

I just seem to get stuck when I try to read a lot of the words in this chapter.

It takes me so long to read something.

Reading through this book takes so much of my energy, I can't even think about what it means.

A parent's perspective: What I see at home

Here are some clues for parents that a child may have problems with fluency:

He knows how to read words but seems to take a long time to read a short book or passage silently.

She reads a book with no expression.

He stumbles a lot and loses his place when reading something aloud.

She reads aloud very slowly.

She moves her mouth when reading silently (subvocalizing).

A teacher's perspective: What I see in the classroom

Here are some clues for teachers that a student may have problems with fluency:

Her results on words-correct-per-minute assessments are below grade level or targeted benchmark.

She has difficulty and grows frustrated when reading aloud, either because of speed or accuracy.

He does not read aloud with expression; that is, he does not change his tone where appropriate.

She does not "chunk" words into meaningful units.

When reading, he doesn't pause at meaningful breaks within sentences or paragraphs.

How to help

With the help of parents and teachers, kids can learn strategies to cope with fluency issues that affect his or her reading. Below are some tips and specific things to do.

What kids can do to help themselves

Track the words with your finger as a parent or teacher reads a passage aloud. Then you read it.

Have a parent or teacher read aloud to you. Then, match your voice to theirs.

Read your favorite books and poems over and over again. Practice getting smoother and reading with expression.

What parents can do to help at home

Support and encourage your child. Realize that he or she is likely frustrated by reading.

Check with your child's teachers to find out their assessment of your child's word decoding skills.

If your child can decode words well, help him or her build speed and accuracy by:

Reading aloud and having your child match his voice to yours

Having your child practice reading the same list of words, phrase, or short passages several times

Reminding your child to pause between sentences and phrases

Read aloud to your child to provide an example of how fluent reading sounds.

Give your child books with predictable vocabulary and clear rhythmic patterns so the child can "hear" the sound of fluent reading as he or she reads the book aloud.

Use books on tapes; have the child follow along in the print copy.

What teachers can do to help at school

Assess the student to make sure that word decoding or word recognition is not the source of the difficulty (if decoding is the source of the problem, decoding will need to be addressed in addition to reading speed and phrasing).

Give the student independent level texts that he or she can practice again and again. Time the student and calculate words-correct-per-minute regularly. The student can chart his or her own improvement.

Ask the student to match his or her voice to yours when reading aloud or to a tape recorded reading.

Read a short passage and then have the student immediately read it back to you.

Have the student practice reading a passage with a certain emotion, such as sadness or excitement, to emphasize expression and intonation.

Incorporate timed repeated readings into your instructional repertoire.

Plan lessons that explicitly teach students how to pay attention to clues in the text (for example, punctuation marks) that provide information about how that text should be read.

Browse our fluency library

Learn more about how to build children's fluency skills through our articles, tips for parents, video, FAQs, and research briefs. Visit our Fluency section

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Fluency is defined as the ability to read with accuracy, good speed, and appropriate expression. In order to understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud or silently. When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately.

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In this resource, it mentioned that assess a child's level of comprehension is important as well as to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

As according to MOE (2013), being able to understand text is a major goal in reading. Through asking questions or getting them to retell a story, it allows the educator to assess their level of understanding of the text given.
Through the assessment, teachers are better able to identify children who needs help and according to MOE (2013), provide scaffolding to the children to help children in their comprehension.

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Reading assessments can be a useful part a reading program, as long as their aim is to help students become fluent readers who understand what they read. Reading assessments done before a child begins reading have the benefit of placing the child at the appropriate reading level, so that they do not grow frustrated with lessons that are too difficult, or bored by lessons that are too easy. Reading assessments done later along the path of literacy can be used to aid comprehension, even as it assesses it. This helps the child identify his or her strengths, as well as weaknesses.

The most effective reading assessments help children assess what they do understand about a text, as well as what they do not understand. This is all done with the aim of a child becoming a fluent reader. Fluency is not just about being able to pronounce printed words on a page; it's about understanding the content and context of those words. Educators want children to be able read fluently, which is not just about how fast a child reads, but how they are able to show how much they understand what they are reading, by how they read.

Reading is a complex art-young readers must engage with a text on different levels in order to become adept, fluent readers who understand what they are reading. In order to be able to more fully comprehend what they are reading, students need to understand at the sentence level, the text level, and also at the larger and more over-arching story level. And any effective reading assessment should assess young readers on each of these levels, so that it is apparent to the parent, teacher, and most importantly, the child, just where they stand on their journey to becoming a fluent reader.

Researchers have found that there is no single comprehension strategy that can adequately assess and also build, or rather, grow comprehension in young readers. Instead there are a number of comprehension strategies that work together to improve a child's ability to read and understand a text. The most effective comprehension strategies help students do these five things:

Know how much they can comprehend

Students need to monitor their own comprehension when they complete activities and reread previously read texts, but which are shown to them in an incomplete format. This encourages students to use their memories and also search the text for meaning (including perhaps the missing meaning). In these activities, students have to understand what they read in order to be able to correctly complete the texts.

Use graphic organisers

At the sentence level, students are regularly asked to recreate sentences that have become muddled-putting them in order to make the text a meaningful and logical. This activity focuses students on the syntactical structure of a sentence and how it is put together to make sense.

Answer questions

At the text level, students need to answer questions about text in order to learn more about what they have read.

Ask questions

Students show that they understand a text not just by being able to answer questions about it, but also to generate questions about the text. Asking questions, such as 'who', 'what', 'when', 'where', 'why', and 'how" helps readers get meaning out of a text.

Recognise story structure

Students learn about story structure by completing sequencing activities and being able to reorder stories into their correct order.

ABC Reading Eggs uses all five of the strategies list above as a means of assessing the reading ability of the student but also to provide opportunities for students to be able to assess their own level of reading comprehension.

ABC Reading Eggs begins by offering a reading assessment that places students on a level appropriate to their ability. Later reading assessments help readers know how much they understand. ABC Reading Eggs also offers readers the opportunity to create their own stories. Writing stories within the ABC Reading Eggs Factory helps students learn about the structure of stories, and also shows parents their child's progress in their understanding of story structure by the stories that the child writes. As the child's ability improves, the stories improve and develop more depth.

ABC Reading Eggs uses a variety of comprehension strategies that are used both as a means of reading assessment of sorts, as well as a means of encouraging greater comprehension of a text. After every 10 lessons, students complete a 20-question, multiple-choice assessment test which, if they pass, rewards them with a printable certificate with their name, at either a bronze, silver, or gold level, depending on their score. This type of reading assessment rewards students by recognising their academic accomplishments, which motivates students to continue their work toward becoming better readers.

Testimonials

This program is great. My 5-year-old was struggling with learning to read at school. After a couple of weeks on this program I can see her progress. With her school readers she was memorising the words; however with Reading Eggs she is actually learning letters/sound combinations and the experience is fun. Today she said to me 'I want to use the computer every night before I go to bed. Learning is fun!' Two mornings ago we read four of your little books in bed. It used to be a struggle to read one of her school readers. Thanks again.

Reading Eggs is a comprehensive, well-integrated program, which I have found to be of great help in developing children's skills and interest in reading. Even the senior students wanted to have a go! Lynne Brehaut, Nungurner Primary

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Reading assessments can be a useful part a reading program, as long as their aim is to help students become fluent readers who understand what they read. Reading assessments done before a child begins reading have the benefit of placing the child at the appropriate reading level, so that they do not grow frustrated with lessons that are too difficult, or bored by lessons that are too easy.