How to Teach Reading
Teaching students to read is an important part of the primary grades. Teachers begin focusing on the basic of reading as early as pre-school.
Over the years, there have been two main thoughts regarding teaching children to read: whole word and phonics.
Whole word reading programs focused on teaching words as a whole instead of focusing on the parts of a word. Part of this type of reading program had students learning to spell with “inventive spelling”, allowing children to spell however they wish until they have learned the word and can spell it correctly.
Teaching phonics involves teaching the specific letters, sounds and combination’s thereof in order to then read words. This method of teaching reading looks at words as small pieces instead of complete chunks.
Today educators hold to the idea that a combination of both methods is better than one or the other.
During those first year or two of teaching students how to read, it is impossible to tell whether or not a child has a reading disability. This is because all students have strengths and weaknesses as they begin learning the basics of reading.
When teaching students how to read using a combination of whole word and phonics instruction, a teacher is able to focus on several reading concepts at once. The two main pieces of this type of curriculum will include the following.
Site vocabulary: this is vocabulary that the child can recognize and read instantly. There is no sounding out or decoding necessary as the child simply knows the word “on site”. This is best used for words that cannot be “sounded out” and as students become more familiar with reading, other words will be added to this list.
Basic phonics: what sounds each letter and combination of letters make. These words are able to be sounded out as they follow basic phonics rules. This skill is invaluable to each child as they are able to then apply previous knowledge to unknown words through adulthood.
Continue Reading: Recognizing and teaching students with a reading disability.
