In this essay I will address the importance of reading in a classroom setting and how teachers can engage learners and enable them to develop their knowledge and skills in reading. It is important that teachers allocate time for learners to encounter reading in its two forms, fiction and non-fiction, therefore I will address both of these forms and how both enable children to develop knowledge and skills.
Throughout my time in education, I have found that fiction is the most common form of text used in a primary schools as it is presented in many forms, including stories, pictures and poems. Fiction is considered important as it is a way of teaching phonic rules, specific words and spelling conventions. It also allows learners to develop analytical skills and inspires their imagination and creativity. Singer (1981) makes a critical link between how much children are exposed to reading and the development of their imagination, he says that, “children who have been exposed to a considerable amount of reading by parents show increased imaginativeness.” This argument has been developed further by University of Warwick who have carried out studies about the effect of parental involvement and the home learning environment on literacy. The results of the studies have shown that “children’s literacy levels are strongly linked to the education levels of their parents,” and that if a child’s mother read for her own enjoyment everyday then the odds of that child being rated below average in reading was reduced by 85%. (Hartas, 2012)
Teachers can help their pupils develop readings skills by setting a side a time each day to read to them and by setting up a classroom library. (Neuman, 2001) Through setting up a classroom library the teach...
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.... The importance of the Classroom Library. Early Childhood Today. 15 (5), 12.
Rumelhart, D.E. (1994). Toward an interactive model of reading . In: Ruddell, R.B.; Ruddell, M.R; Singer, H Theoretical models and processes of reading. 4th ed. Newark: International Reading Association. 864-894
Schnellert, L Datoo, M Ediger, K Panas, J (2009). Pulling Together: Integrating Inquiry, Assessment, and Instruction in Today's English Classroom. Canada: Pembroke Publishers Limited. 107-111.
Singer, J and Singer, D. (1981). Television and Reading in the Development of Imagination. Children's Literature. 9 (10), 126-136
Wolf, W. King, M.L and Huck, C.S. (1968). Teaching Critical Reading to Elementary School Children. Reading Research Quarterly. 3 (4), 435 - 498.
Wray, D and Lewis, M (1997). Extending literacy: Children Reading and Writing Non-fiction. London: Routledge. 30-91.
Fountas, I., C., & Pinnel, G. S., (2009). When readers struggle: Teaching that works. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
This detailed text provides an understanding of reading and writing through detailed case studies, reflective questioning and further reading; in addition to links with the Early Years Curriculum (EYFS)(DCSF, 2008) provide informative information accessible to both practitioner and parent. As pointed out by the authors, literacy relates to fifty % of the early learning goals, therefore highlights the importance by the practitioner to make the acquisition of literacy exciting and meaningful through a multitude of role play scenarios, stories, rhymes and oral language, thus providing opportunities for the child to put life experiences of literacy into context, while scaffolding existing knowledge.
Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Tenth edition. Edited by Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman Publishers, pp. 371-377, 2008.
Communication and Collaborative among educators and parents can increase the child’s reading skills. It is the educators and parent’s job to find effective strategies that promote children’s reading. By working together, students will achieve more in educational life and it will be the greatest memories for teachers and parents to celebrate. Reading build up everything we write learn in other content areas such as science, math, and so forth. If children cannot read, their educational life will not succeed and reading performance fall below grade level. Providing reading skills in the early age of children will encourage them to read and succeed throughout their educational life.
Jones Diaz, C. (2007). Literacy as social practice. In L. Makin, C. Jones Diaz & L. McLachlan (Eds.), Literacies in childhood: Changing views, challenging practice. (pp. 203-216).Marrickville, NSW: Elsevier.
The teaching of reading has gone through numerous transformations and controversy continues over what is the best reading instruction. However, there is overwhelming evidence that the use of authentic literature and time for children to read, discuss what they have read and hear fluent readers, are critical to success.
Peter hunt’s ‘Instruction and Delight’ provides a starting point for the study of children’s literature, challenging assumptions made about writing for children and they are trivial, fast and easy. Children’s literature is a conservative and reading it just to escape from the harsh realities of adulthood. It’s probably the most exciting for all literary studies, and a wide range of texts, from novels and stories to picture books , and from oral forms to multimedia and the internet , so it presents a major challenge and can be considered for many reasons. It is important because it is integrated into the cultural, educational and social thinking for the success of the publishing and media, and it is important to our personal development. Things that may seem simple at fist, how children understand the texts, how these differ from the
Reading provides and builds the reader’s imagination and empathy towards others. Tim Gillespie supports this argument with analysis and by saying that reading. “…is the cultivation
While I believe every child is a reader, I do not believe every child will be enthralled with reading all the time. All students have the capability to read and enjoy reading, but just like any other hobby, interest will vary from student to student. The students in my classroom will be encouraged in their reading, be provided with choice, taught how books can take you into another world but, my students will not be forced to read. This paper will illustrate my philosophy of reading through the theories I relate to, the way I want to implement reading and writing curriculum, and the methods I will use motivate my students to read and help them become literate.
Winch, G., Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy: Reading, writing and children’s literature (4th ed.). South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.
Every child deserves a positive, safe, nurturing, and stimulating learning environment where they will grow academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. My role as an educator is to provide my students with this type of environment as well as an education that will help them succeed academically and become life long learners. It is the responsibility of a literacy educator to provide students with this type of environment, but also to provide instruction that will help students become successful readers and writers. There are numerous programs and philosophies about literacy and reading. Through years of experience and research, one begins to develop their own creative approach on teaching these skills. After looking at different programs and seeing the positive and negatives of each, an integrated and balanced approach of literacy seems to be the best way to teach the differing needs of each student.
I think that it is very important for teachers to create literacy havens in their classroom. One way teachers can do this is by creating a classroom library that is full of different kinds of books. Another way teachers can support literacy in their classrooms is to put up English graphic organizers and to label different things in their classrooms. This will help their students learn how to spell and recognize different words. Thus, there are multiple ways that teachers can turn their classrooms into literacy havens.
Literature has been part of society since pen met paper. It has recorded history, retold fables, and entertained adults for centuries. Literature intended for children, however, is a recent development. Though children’s literature is young, the texts can be separated into two categories by age. The exact splitting point is debatable, but as technology revolutionized in the mid-twentieth century is the dividing point between classic and contemporary. Today’s children’s literature is extraordinarily different from the classics that it evolved from, but yet as classic was transformed into modern, the literature kept many common features.
Literature connects with the imagination of the child in a deep and profound manner, challenging them to question the world around them, making connections to their own lives, allowing them to become independent and critical thinkers. The Irish Primary Language Curriculum views children as “communicators, readers, writers and thinkers” (Department of Education and Skills, 2016, p.26) and encourages us as teachers to foster and develop these skills during processes of exploration and discovery. (Department of Education and Skills, 2016, p.20) Exposing children to high quality literature, in both the traditional and modern sense of the word allows us to do this.
Literature has an enormous impact on a child’s development during the early years of his or her life. It is important for parents and teachers to instill a love of reading in children while they are still young and impressionable. They are very naive and trusting because they are just beginning to develop their own thoughts, so they will believe anything they read (Lesnik, 1998). This is why it is so important to give them literature that will have a positive impact. Literature can make children more loving, intelligent and open minded because reading books gives them a much wider perspective on the world. Through reading, children’s behavior can be changed, modified or extended, which is why books are so influential in children’s lives while they are young (Hunt, 1998). Literature has the power to affect many aspects of a child’s life and shapes their future adult life.