Key questions
- How do children learn to read?
- What do teachers need to know to teach early reading?
- What is the role of phonics and phonemic awareness?
- How does reading instruction adjust as readers develop?
Reading is a complex process of making meaning from texts. As readers engage with texts, they decode the orthography of the language, they draw on known and new vocabulary, they consider the ways that text unfolds and links together, and they consider how this text might be used in their learning or lives. Meaning making in reading draws on students’ knowledge about the world and the topic. This knowledge is not restricted to discrete skills areas such as ‘vocabulary’ or ‘grammar’. Rather, children bring existing knowledge to the text and integrate this with such aspects as text structure, grammatical choices and illustrations to build literal, inferred and evaluative meanings.
In early reading contexts, children’s motivation for reading often begins with reading for social purposes, that is to participate in what they see other people doing as reading activity. They seek to join with others in meaning-making, enjoying access to other people’s worlds, and to the rhythm and prosody of language. Through early years instruction they become familiar with specific reading skills.
Essential elements for early reading include oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. These elements are interconnected, meaning progress in one area relies on the development of the others. Therefore, early reading skills should be taught in a systematic, integrated, and cumulative fashion.
Fundamental decoding skills for accessing meaning in the early years are:
- phonemic awareness, i.e. the awareness of sounds that make up spoken words
- phonics, i.e. the relationship between letters and phoneme
- the ability to syllabify, segment and blend individual sounds to form words.
These skills comprise an essential fundamental decoding strategy which is extended as children learn and develop orthographic, morphemic, grammatical and text knowledge, allowing for multiple pathways to decode the ‘deep’ orthography of English. Decoding needs to become automatic as quickly as possible, in order for attention to be focused on meaning making.
Expert teachers employ a wide range of teaching strategies based on a deep knowledge of how children learn to read and the needs of learners. Teachers support meaning-making by helping to build field and contextual knowledge about texts; bringing to consciousness and explaining the inferences they are intuitively making which may be culturally unfamiliar to students; building vocabulary with depth and repetition; and, explaining how text structures and grammatical structures contribute to meanings and communicative intent. Within this rich contextualisation of why we read, teachers pay particular attention to decoding, using explicit teaching and facilitating sufficient practice such that students become increasingly automatic decoders.
While students’ decoding skills continue to strengthen, teachers involve early readers in many joint readings of high-quality, authentic literature, and exposure to texts written for different purposes, engaging students in deep discussions about the meanings in the text and illustrations, at the same time supporting fluency and vocabulary development. Regular reading by children of simple texts, including decodable texts, and commercial reading schemes have the essential purpose of practising decoding skills. Such texts work in parallel with rich authentic texts. All this work also supports students’ developing ability to write effectively.
For developing and fluent readers, instruction shifts to a stronger focus on comprehension, while still supporting development of fluency and vocabulary. Some students will continue to require decoding (phonics) instruction in the middle and upper grades and teachers need to ensure they are supported to read grade appropriate texts.
Key Points
- Teachers need a deep knowledge of how language works in texts and how it develops from oral to written modes.
- Teachers need to know how to children learn to read, and how to support young and emerging readers with a range of teaching strategies.
- Teachers need to adapt the focus of teaching instruction for developing and fluent readers.
- Effective teachers use specific and explicit instruction in meaning-making and decoding in varied and meaningful contexts.
Further reading:
References
Buckingham, J., Wheldall, R., & Wheldall, K. (2019). Systematic and explicit phonics instruction: A scientific, evidence-based approach to teaching the alphabetic principle. In R. Cox, S. Feez & L. Beveridge (Eds.), The alphabetic principle and beyond (pp. 49-67). Primary English Teaching Association Australia.
Cain, K., & Oakhill, J. (2011). Matthew Effect in Young Readers: Reading Comprehension and Reading Experience Aid Vocabulary Development. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 44(5), 431-443.
Castles, A., Rastle, K. & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5-51. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1529100618772271
Djonov, E., Torr, J., & Stenglin, M. (2018). Early language and literacy: Review of research with implications for early literacy programs at NSW public libraries. Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie University.
Duke, N. K., Ward, A. E., & Pearson, P. D. (2021). The science of reading comprehension instruction. The Reading Teacher, 74(6), 663–672. https:// doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1993
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Konza, D. (2014). Teaching reading: Why the” Fab five” should be the” Big six”. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(12), 153-169. http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2014v39n12.10
National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: A scientific synthesis of early literacy development and implications for intervention. National Institute for Literacy. https://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/NELPReport09.pdf
National Reading Panel (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report.pdf
Rowe, K. (2005). Teaching reading: The report of the national inquiry into the teaching of literacy. Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training. https://research.acer.edu.au/tll_misc/5/
Scarborough, H.S. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. In S.B. Neuman & D.K. Dickinson (Eds), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 97–110). Guilford
Shanahan, T. (2021). Decodable readers in the context of teaching ‘Set for Variability’ skills. LDA Bulletin, 53(2)