Kaelene McCaull, Head of P-6 and Director of Teacher Development
Last week, I discussed the science of reading and its five fundamental elements: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension.
Reading is a complex skill, and our reading programs at Kuyper teach these essential elements explicitly and systematically, progressively building students’ literacy competency.
Practice is fundamental to building reading skills. Students in K-2 at Kuyper use books called ‘Decodables’ to practise their reading. First, students learn the code for various sounds and then practise blending them into words. Then they tackle reading a ‘decodable’, which contains words comprised of the sounds for which they have learnt the code. Early readers start with short CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words like ‘cat’. The length of the words increases as students learn more of the sound combinations and the letters that represent them.
This approach puts the student in the driver’s seat by equipping them with skills to decode unfamiliar words in the text. Working out unfamiliar words independently gives students a greater chance of remembering them the next time they see them.
The two short videos below are produced by SPELDNSW and provide some great tips for reading decodable text with your child at home. The first video deals with reading regular words, i.e. words the student knows all the sounds for. The second deals with reading irregular words, i.e. words with unfamiliar spelling the student doesn’t recognise yet or less common sound combinations like ‘the’ and ‘says’.
Helping your child read regular words
Helping your child read irregular words
Once your child can confidently decode words, they need to keep practising reading these words to build their Fluency. In our lessons at school, we describe this as making our reading ‘smooth like talking’. You should expect your child to be able to read all the words in some of the readers they bring home. This practice will develop fluency. Fluent reading enables students to use their focus and cognitive energies to understand what they are reading rather than working out what each word says.
In addition to listening to your children practice reading their decodables at home, there are many other things parents can do to encourage and support the development of reading skills:
Read to your children
In particular, read books your child cannot yet read for themselves. This builds Vocabulary and develops interest and enjoyment in reading. As you read, predict what might happen next and discuss the sequence of events or reasons behind actions. For example,
“Why do you think they did that?” or “How do you think such and such a character will react?”
Ask questions
Check that your children have understood what they (or you) have read and encourage them to ask questions. This builds Comprehension, which is a much harder cognitive skill and will take lots of practice. If children ask a question not answered in the text, you could pretend to look for it and say something like,
“I don’t know. It doesn’t tell me in the book, but if I were the character, I would…”
Read Fiction and Non-Fiction
This helps children understand that we can read to learn about new things or things we are interested in. Some children prefer reading and hearing non-fiction books. All reading is beneficial.
Use and explore language
Talk about what you see happening in the world around you and look for opportunities to introduce new words into your discussion. This will allow your children to hear new words in context and ask you about their meaning. Students with a greater vocabulary better understand what they are reading.
Let them see you reading in real life
For example, reading a recipe or instructions and using a Google search to learn about something.
Celebrate your cchild’ssuccesses
Whether it be reading a new book, sticking with it when it is challenging, or as small as mastering one tricky word, success breeds success. Remember, mastery of reading is a lifelong skill that supports all students’ future learning in whatever subjects they are studying.
Building literacy skills truly is a home-school partnership. Please talk with your child’s teacher if you have any concerns or questions, but also share your child’s successes with us so that we can celebrate together.