Teaching+reading

Teaching children the skill of reading can be a challenging but extremely rewarding task. Depending on the school and its policy, teachers can use different kinds of phonics programs and plan reading and writing segments in different ways. Importantly, children need to be modelled reading from very early on and taught in a literary rich environment. According to Hill, early readers learn to attend to the alphabetic code and seek the meaning of texts best by taking on four key roles : code breaker, meaning maker, text user, and text critic ( Hill 2007). 'Code breaking involves understanding the alphabetic principle, phonetic awareness, letter knowledge and phonics. Meaning maker involves comprehending the text on a literal, interpretive and critical level. Text user involves identifying the purpose and text type or genre of a book or text. Different text types demand different kinds of reading. Text critics evaluate the author's intentions and biases as well as the truth or accuracy of the information (Hill p.189, 2007). One way encouraging a child in their reading is using the 'whole-part' phonics approach, which teaches the child to learn about word families made up of onset and rime. For example, 'sit' and 'pit'. A child may know the word sit ( 's' is the onset and 'it' is the rime.) but not the word pit. The teacher can then encourage the child to think about the word sit, cover the p in pit and and ask " what do the last two letters say?" Then the teacher can get the child to sound out the 'p' and put the 'p' and 'it' together, forming the word pit. this gives the student the skill to learn how to problem solve and to sound out words in an appropriate and strategic way.

A critical skill that teachers must have to further their students reading ability is, asking good questions. The key things that teachers need include during reading time are:

MEANING: some helpful prompts include:
 * What would make sense here?
 * How can we make this sentence make sense.
 * Look at the picture. What do you think it could say?
 * Would //house// really fit here?
 * Can you tell me what it means?

SYNTAX: some helpful prompts include:
 * Would you say //come// or //came//?
 * Does that sound right?
 * Do we say it that way?
 * Try //was.// Does that sound right?
 * Asking questions about word groups (nouns, verbs etc.)
 * What kind of word are you looking for here?
 * Would it be a name of something?
 * Could it be a word explaining how to do something?

VISUAL: some helpful prompt include:
 * Look at the first letter. What sound might it make?
 * Check the beginning of the word.
 * Check the end of the word.
 * It could be..........., but look at the letter at the start. (Hill 2007)

Every teacher sets up his or her classroom differently; some teachers have the tables in rows and do whole class activities. Other teachers use groups and have seperate working stations. Regardless of the set of the classroom, teachers need to have a time when they model reading to the children. According to Hill, there are three main steps that a teacher can use during a reading lesson:
 * **Before reading,** teachers tune the children into the book that is being read, They build the childrens existing knowledge and link it to the book.
 * **During reading,** teachers can use prompts to help the children with their problem solving and use information sources such as meaning, syntax and visual to help the children figure out letters, sounds and print.
 * **After reading,** teachers can have activities ready for the children to help reinforce what they have just read. (Hill, p.176-177, 2007)

Teachers need to use running records to help gage where a child is at in regards to their reading ability. Guided reading sessions are also brilliant ways for teachers to recognise the varied ability of readers within the classroom.