The five essential components of reading, also referred to as effective reading instruction, are derived from the National Reading Panel's report (Shanahan et al., 2005). These components, which are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, reflect key skills that children must develop for successful reading. Understanding how these skills are developed and how they interact in the brain is crucial for teachers, and we will learn together what these companies are and how we as educators can apply them to our classrooms.

Before children learn to read written text, they need to learn how the sounds in words work and understand that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes, which contain the smallest parts of sound in a spoken word that make a difference in the word’s meaning (like bat and mat). (Phonemic Awareness: An Introduction | Reading Rockets, n.d.)

One way we can implement this component is by utilizing music and singing songs and nursery rhymes, as the

rhyming can help children understand that these sounds in our language have meaning and follow certain patterns, and educators can have fun by exaggerating the rhyming words to highlight the different sounds in each.

*Regular read-alouds!

Start a consistent routine of reading a passage of a book together a day, and read slowly while pointing to each sound, to encourage your child to repeat them as well. This will help encourage your child's awareness of each sound in the words, as well as promote their love of reading.

*You and your child can write together!

Have your child help you "write" lists and other collaborative documentation while slowly sounding out the sounds you write. This can support your child's understanding that words are made up of different sounds, that work together to create meaning.

This is when children start to learn how to decode, which is the understanding of letter-sound relationships ythat decipher a printed word into speech. This is also known as “sounding out” printed word. 

(Basics: Phonics and Decoding | Reading Rockets, n.d.) 

*Find books with repetitive matching words.

Using books that utilize rhyming techniques and repetitive words, can help children become more aware of these letters and how they can transform a word, as these books show this consistently.

Some books examples of books are "Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type" by Doreen Cronin and "Fancy Nancy" byJane O'Connor

(Basics: Phonics and Decoding | Reading Rockets, n.d.)

*Find letters together by playing "I-SPY".

Families can create a list of letters or sounds for their children to find outside in their environment, whether that be on street signs, billboards, apartment buildings, or even license plates. This encourages your child to learn through play.

*Sound matching with pictures together.

Families can help support their children by using visual pictures to help with learn letters and their sounds. Using an ABC print out, this can help children by encouraging them to match them.

Fluency begins its development through repeated and guided practice in reading, where students expand their word recognition, which allows them to focus on their understanding of the text, rather than just decoding each word.

*Modeling fluent reading, then students reread.

One way teachers can understand each child's fluency development is by modeling the reading behaviors we want to see and by having each student re-read the text, and count how many errors they have. This not only provides children with opportunities to read aloud, by helps students learn from each other in real time.

(Fluency: In Practice | Reading Rockets, n.d.)

*Student–adult reading

This activity involves children reading one-on-one with their grown-up, which encourages them to model the parent's reading style, and adults can encourage the child to reread the passage until the reading is fluent. This can also prove beneficial for children who are ESL learners, as they can read dual language books in their home language, as well as English to work on their fluency in both languages.

*Audio-assisted reading

Children can listen to others, read the book via auditory assistant programs, like YouTube, while they read along with the audio. Adults can help by pointing to each word in the book as the reader reads it.

(Fluency: In Practice | Reading Rockets, n.d.)