Here is my research paper on How Children Learn To Read.
It is eight o’clock and finally time for bed. A mom helps her little three year old into
her big girl bed and makes sure the covers are all the way up to her chin just
the way she likes it. Then the mom
kisses her little girl’s nose and a child’s laughter can be heard throughout
the house. The mom smiles and grabs a
book from the nightstand. She begins to
read the story to a very excited three year old that has had a story read to
her as long as she can remember. Anne
looks forward to this special bonding time with her mom each night. This is how a child begins her journey to a
lifetime of reading.
Anne actually began her journey with reading while she
was still in her mother’s womb. Babies
can hear words being spoken while in the womb and can even recognize different
voices. Anne’s mom, like many other
expectant mothers, read to her while she was pregnant. Books, reading and words have been a part of
her life since the beginning. This could
be called Emergent Literacy. “Emerging literacy describes the gradual,
ongoing process of learning to understand and use language that begins at birth
and continues through the early childhood years.” (Collins and Koralek, 2013). Emergent literacy is basically exposing
children to the written word in any form at a very young age. Parents can simply point out words and
letters to their children, read rhyming stories to them, or have access to
paper and crayons for their children to use.
Anne’s parents did all they could to make sure she was immersed into
words. They realized how important
emergent literacy would be for their little girl.
The next step for Anne’s parents is to make sure she
begins to understand Phonemic Awareness. “… Phonemic awareness is the understanding
that words are created from phonemes (small units of sound in language).” (The
Five Essential Components of Reading, 2008). Basically Anne has learned that each letter in
the alphabet has a sound associated with it.
She has also discovered that certain sounds rhyme with other sounds. She discovered this because her mom and her
teacher at preschool read her nursery rhymes and Dr. Seuss books. Anne’s mom also makes sure that they have a
“rhyme time” each day when they practice rhyming words together. Her mom understands that many children make
it through elementary school without having a good sense of phonemic awareness
and she wants to make sure Anne is not one of them. Those children who struggle with phonemic
awareness will also struggle with reading and spelling throughout their school
years. Her parents realize that phonemic
awareness is an essential part of how children learn to read. It’s the foundation that Anne needs to be a
successful reader.
Once Anne begins kindergarten, the world of Phonics will
be introduced to her. Phonics connects the letters and sounds
together. It then connects the letters
to form words. Anne will learn how to
make these connections and will begin to learn how to read. This is a very crucial time in Anne’s reading
journey. If she were to struggle with
phonics, then the other components of reading will definitely be a struggle,
too. Her parents can help at home by
doing several things. They can team up
with her teacher and make sure they are on the same page. They can listen to Anne read daily and can
keep reading aloud to her. They can
revisit familiar books with Anne to boost her reading confidence (Teach Phonics
at Home, 2014). Learning phonics can be
a frustrating time for lots of children so any reinforcement from parents is
helpful to the teacher. Anne’s parents
will do what they can to ensure that she has the foundation of phonics so she
will not struggle with reading later.
When Anne is in first and second grade, she will begin to
work on Fluency. According to The
Five Essential Components of Reading (2008), “Fluency is a reader’s ability to
read with speed, accuracy and expression.”
This is a skill that is honed throughout a reader’s life but begins in
the early stages of reading. Anne will
need to practice oral and silent reading in order to improve her fluency. Johns (2012) tells us there are several
components to fluency which include: rate, accuracy, appropriate expression,
and comprehension. The rate simply refers to the speed of reading
and accuracy means that she knows the words quickly. When Anne is able to read with speed, then
she will be able to understand what she is reading. If she struggled with the rate and accuracy
of her reading then she would only be concentrating on the “words” in the text
and not looking at the big picture. Anne also needs to be aware of her
expression when she begins to read. She
needs to know how to pause after a period and to show more expression when
there is an exclamation point. Her
parents are already showing her how to do that now at three years old because
they are reading aloud to her. The best
thing Anne’s parents and teachers can do for her is to model how to read
well. When she comprehends, she
understands what she is reading. Fluency
and comprehension go hand in hand. If
Anne can read with great fluency but has no idea what she has read, then she is
missing an important component of the reading process. There are several things that Anne’s parents
and teachers can do to make sure she excels in fluency. They can read aloud with Anne and have her match
their voice while reading together. They
could also practice the same text several times until she is comfortable with
it. Finally, Anne’s teachers and parents
can give lots of encouraging support.
Building confidence is a big key to succeeding in fluency. Anne will succeed because of the
encouragement from those around her.
Vocabulary is
one thing that Anne has been learning and working on since she was learning how
to speak. As a toddler, she had to learn
that the red thing in the fruit bowl was an apple. That is the beginning stages of
vocabulary. Her parents have already
helped her expand her vocabulary when they say the name of objects that are in
their house. They have even taken it a
step further by labeling the toy bins in her bedroom. Now she recognizes the names of all her
toys. Her teachers at school have done
the same thing and it is helping to build her vocabulary. This will help her when she begins to read
because knowing vocabulary is a very important part to understanding what she
reads. National Reading Panel (2014) says
that “…Reading comprehension is a complex cognitive process that cannot be
understood without a clear description of the role that vocabulary development
and vocabulary instruction play in the understanding of what has been read.” In other words, Anne can’t have comprehension
without an understanding of the words she is reading. Once she begins reading books on her own,
Anne can make flashcards of words she might not understand. Then she can look up the meanings of those
words. Another way to practice vocabulary is to have her parents or teachers
tell her the meanings of unfamiliar words. Finally, Anne can use context clues
within the text to help her better understand the story. She might find this way more fun because she
acts like a detective trying to find clues to solve the mystery! She can choose several ways to learn
vocabulary as long as she works at it because vocabulary development is so
important to reading comprehension.
The final component to Anne’s reading journey is Comprehension. “The purpose of reading is comprehension –
getting meaning from written text.” (Texas Education Agency, 2002). Anne could read out loud beautifully but if
she doesn’t understand what the text is saying, she will struggle and begin
losing interest in reading. As stated
earlier, vocabulary and comprehension go hand in hand. Anne’s parents have already been working on
her comprehension skills, even at the age of three. When they read out loud to her, they always ask
questions about the story and ask her what she thinks might happen next. When Anne begins going to school, she will
work on strategies she will need to become a successful reader. She will be able to set reading goals, make
inferences or predictions, connect to her prior knowledge, and reflect on what
she has read (Texas Education Agency, 2002).
Her parents and teachers will continue to ask thought-provoking
questions to help improve Anne’s reading comprehension. When she feels confident in her reading
comprehension ability, she will become a successful reader.
As
Anne’s mother turns off the bedroom light and sets the bedtime story on the
night stand, she looks at her sleeping three year old with amazement. In just a few years she will be reading books
on her own and not needing her mom to read to her. But for now she will help Anne develop into a
successful reader. She will help build
phonemic awareness by reviewing sounds and work on phonics skills by practicing
putting those sounds together. She will
also help Anne build up her vocabulary by always talking about words and their
meanings. She will help Anne with
fluency and comprehension when she practices reading with her and asks
questions about the story they are reading together. Anne’s mom is amazed at how children learn to
read. She realizes that the process of
reading is made up of many components and when they concentrate on each part,
Anne will become a successful reader.
References
Collins, R. & Koralek, D. (2013). How Most
Children Learn to Read. Reading Rockets.
The Five Essential Components of Reading. (2008). K12Reader. Retrieved January 24,
Johns, J. (2012). Basic Reading Inventory. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing.
Ruddell, R. (2006). Teaching Children to Read and Write. Boston: Pearson.
Teach Phonics at Home. (2014). Scholastic.
Retrieved January 26, 2014, from:
Teaching Children to Read. (2014). National
Reading Panel. Retrieved January 26, 2014,
Texas Education Agency. (2002). What research Tells
Us About Reading, Comprehension, and
Comprehension
Instruction. Reading Rockets.
Retrieved January 22, 2014, from:
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