Teaching Reading
Systematic Phonics Instruction is Best Method
This summary of the scientifically proven best method
for Teaching Reading is based on the research findings and reports of
the National Reading Panel (NRP) chartered by the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
For a general discussion of the NICHD's views on Teaching Reading, How Reading Works and
the Best Way to Teach Reading Click Here.
To read
an article on the findings of the NRP's findings on the most effective way to teach reading Click Here.
A more thorough documentation of NRP's findings, "Teaching Children to
Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature
on Reading and Its Implications for Reading and Reading Instruction"
along with other relevant NICHD publications can be downloaded from the
NRP official website by Clicking Here.
What is reading? Reading is the way a person gets information from written letters and words.
How does reading work? Reading is a complex, multi-part process.
Phonemic Awareness The words we speak are actually made up of
smaller pieces of sound called Phonemes.
The English language has about 50 phonemes. When someone says a word the
sound comes out as one continuous stream as demonstrated in the pictures
below.
Our brains must be able to separate the three sound
pieces (phonemes) of the word "b-a-g" as shown in the picture. Understanding
that words are made up of individual sounds is a key part of learning to
read. This understanding is called phonemic awareness.
This phonemic awareness can be taught and learned using
activities such as rhyming games. Another way to teach and learn this
phonemic awareness is to work with single phonemes in spoken words. Part
of this learning is realizing that a change to a single sound or phoneme
in spoken words can change the meaning of the word. For example changing
the g in bag to a t gives the word bat.
Phonemic Awareness is all about being able to discern the different
sounds (phonemes) of words.
The Alphabetic Principle and Phonics Another part of
learning to read is understanding that letters of the alphabet, either
by themselves or with other letters, stand for sounds or phonemes. This
knowledge is called the Alphabetic Principle as demonstrated in the
picture below.
When a child learns how to apply their knowledge of sounds in words
(phonemic awareness), together with their skills at recognizing letters,
and can use the letter-sound pairings to sound out printed words it is
called phonics.
To better understand phonics, think about how you read a made-up word
like "blit" or "fratchet". Even though you don't know the made-up word
or what it means, you can read and pronounce it by figuring out what
sounds the letters make, and then you can sound it out and pronounce it.
Vocabulary-Fluency-Comprehension As a child continues to
develop phonics skills, he or she improves reading skills by being able
to pronounce any word by sounding out the phonemes. Upon pronunciation he or she can recall the word
meaning from already acquired verbal vocabulary. Or, if it is a new word, your child can learn its meaning of by asking or looking it up.
As the child acquires increased vocabulary and ever improving phonics
skills his or her reading becomes ever more fluent and reading
comprehension is improved.
The Best Way to Teach Reading
The National Reading Panel (NRP)
of the NICHD has accumulated solid evidence from reviewing over 100,000
reading studies that the best way to teach reading is through
Systematic Phonics Instruction which includes:
- Phonemic Awareness
- The Alphabetic Principle
- Phonics
- Improving Vocabulary
- Improving Comprehension
For further discussion and simplification of the Systematic Phonics
Instruction which is the basis for our method of Teaching Reading on
this website Click Here.
Click Here for our Reading Lesson #1
Return from Teaching Reading to Homework-Help-Secrets
|
