‘If youngsters do not learn to read in our literacy driven society, hope for a fulfilling and productive life diminishes.’ (Lyon, G.R.)
Right now, your eyes are tracking across this page from left to right and you are reading without much thought about the processes that are going on in your brain. Reading for you is easy. In fact, one could say that it is automatic – or, at least, it feels automatic. In fact, reading is far from automatic and there is no argument about the importance of reading.
As Year 12, 2020 are embarking on the next chapter in their lives, spare a thought for Kindergarten 2021, who are just starting their reading journey.
The idea that children were born to read is attractive, but research has established that the premise was wrong. Reading emerged only around 6000 years ago, which is too recent for the brain to have any specific system for that purpose. This means that, unlike speech, reading is not hard-wired into the brain. Rather, it must be explicitly taught so that pathways can be established between different parts of the brain that enable reading (vision, language and cognition).
This new ‘wiring’ gradually develops and the parts become integrated when a child is 5 to 7 years old. Hot-housing children to read before this will not have any long-term benefit as the necessary parts of the brain have not yet developed sufficiently. (As with any ‘rule’, there are always exceptions, for example, children who read at 3 years old and are self-taught.)
Research has identified five key components of reading, the sequence in which they should be taught and how they are interconnected. To move from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’, one must master all five elements.
1. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognise individual sounds. Children need to be able to hear sounds in words and understand that words are made up of the smallest sounds called phonemes eg ‘stamp’ is made up of five different sounds. There are 44 sounds in the English language and mastering all of these is an early predictor of successful reading.
2. Phonics is the relationship between letters and sounds. Children have to be able to match the sound with the letter (grapheme). They need to understand that the letter /a/ can be represented as:
This letter can make more than one distinct sound. There are 26 letters in the alphabet but 44 sounds: ‘g’ in garage is very different from ‘g’ in giraffe.
3. Fluency depends on phonemic awareness and phonics, which allow children to sound out and recognise words automatically. With fluency, children no longer need to use their working memory to decode, thus creating space for comprehension.
4. Children need a rich and broad vocabulary. A small vocabulary reduces comprehension and the desire to read. The more children read, the better their vocabulary. The better their vocabulary, the better their comprehension.
Most adults can surmise the general gist of the following sentence even if two words are unfamiliar: The anfractuous route did nothing for his mood and made him absquatulate.
In making such surmises repeatedly, we also increase our vocabulary.
5. Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. It relies on the reader being able to decode, recognise words instantaneously, and make connections between what they read and what they already know.
There is general agreement across all bodies of research and literature that these five skills need to be explicitly taught. Children will not learn to read by osmosis and the idea that learning to read is just like learning to speak is not accepted by any linguist, psychologist or cognitive scientist.
At Queenwood we teach reading using a program called Synthetic Phonics. ‘Synthetic’ refers to the synthesising or blending of sounds. This program is evidence-based and very explicit.
Traditionally, the teaching of reading has focused on learning the 26 letters alongside their names and sounds. This approach leads to complexities that confuse many children. For example, the sound the /c/ makes in the words cat, chop, Christmas, ceiling and social. In contrast, Synthetic Phonics starts with the foundation of the 44 sounds used in English.
Once the girls are able to hear and identify the phonemes (sounds) in a word, a letter is then matched to each phoneme, (grapheme). These are taught explicitly, moving from simple to more complex sounds and letter combinations, continually reinforcing and revisiting what has been previously learnt.
The Synthetic Phonics program is very specific about the order in which the sounds are taught. Combining individual sounds is called ‘blending’ and produces 40 words. So by halfway through the first term, girls in Kindergarten can read over 40 words. Imagine the confidence levels that come from this rate of progress!
Girls need to learn by sight a small number of irregular, high-frequency words essential for writing and reading. The first six ‘camera words’ are: I, was, are, the, to and she. This delineates the decodable from the non-decodable in the early stages.
Vocabulary is constantly being built from word lists and also from extensive reading.
Synthetic Phonics recommends that the girls are exposed to high quality literature each day. The more we read, the better our vocabulary. This premise is supported by our Just Read program, through which every girl from Kindergarten to Year 12 reads fiction each day.
Through explicit teaching of the key elements of reading, we aim to give girls early confidence that they can read well. Through our programs of extended reading for pleasure, supported by excellent role modelling at home, we aim to share with them the delight of reading. And together, we hope these skills and habits will shape their lives, giving them great pleasure and new insights into the world and its possibilities.
Mrs Angela Toohey
Head of Junior School