What is reading?
At a very tender age, when I first learned to read words, I was excited because I was now a reader but was I really reading or just lifting words off paper? Even though this is necessary for reading, reading is more complex than just recognizing words. The reader has to make sense of the words base and their context. While engaged in reading, the prior knowledge is activated along with personal connection, ideas, and opinions. Unfortunately, children will develop reading problems if they do get the necessary stills that will allow them to function on a higher level and succeed in life. Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010) mentioned that it is said that “Children must learn to read so that later they can read to learn” (pg. 4). Therefore reading is the foundation that children need to be successful in life.
Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010) advised that to help children read better and develop a love for reading, fall on the laps of the teaching professionals since they are the planner and implementation of instructional services (pg. 3). It is understandable that even though there are different levels of readers, the ultimate goal is for teachers to create good readers in children. Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010) iterate that reading is making sense of text. The reader generates his or her own mental version of what is been read (pg. 13). In my field experience, I have seen children who could read any word off paper but had no opinion of what is going on in the story. I have also experienced teachers getting frustrated when their students are not able to decipher or decode words in context or make connection to text. Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010) talked about the three elements of reading. There is the reader, the reading material and the reading situation. The reader brain is super active while making sense of the material and creating a version that will fit into the reader scheme (pg. 13). As I think back on Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner’s observation, I can remember reading about a Niagara Falls at a young age in Jamaica, West Indies and not knowing what Niagara Falls looks like, I construction in my mind that it looked like Dunn’s River fall in Jamaica. Years later I realized Dunn’s River Fall cannot be compare to Niagara Falls.
Even if a parent reads to his or her child often, the child’s cognitive development is likely to be affected by his or her teacher. If the teacher does not succeed in inspiring the child, then it is likely that the rate of cognitive development will be lower than a child with a successfully inspiring teacher, regardless of parent to child reading rate.
Support from parents has proven to be of extreme importance in the literacy success of a child. This often begins with the simple ritual of “bedtime stories” in the home. Studies show that children who are read to as infants perform better in literacy later in life. From a young age, children begin to understand the workings of the written word if they are exposed to it frequently. Babies who are nowhere near having the mental capacity to read and comprehend a book are still able to “follow along” when their parents or caregivers read to them. These children understand that each segment of writing represents a word and they are even able to recognize when a text is upside-down because they are accustomed to the appearance of writing. This puts the child significantly ahead when the time comes to learn to read.
Growing up in working class family, my mom worked all the time for the living of a big family with five kids, and my dad was in re-education camp because of his association with U.S. government before 1975. My grandma was my primary guardian. “Go to study, go to read your books, read anything you like to read if you want to have a better life,” my grandma kept bouncing that phrase in my childhood. It becomes the sole rule for me to have better future. I become curious and wonder what the inside of reading and write can make my life difference. In my old days, there was no computer, no laptop, no phone…etc, to play or to spend time with, other than books. I had no other choice than read, and read and tended to dig deep in science books, math books, and chemistry books. I tended to interest in how the problem was solved. I even used my saving money to buy my own math books to read more problems and how to solve the problem. I remembered that I ended up reading the same math book as my seventh grade teacher. She used to throw the challenge questions on every quiz to pick out the brighter student. There was few students know how to solve those challenge questions. I was the one who fortunately nailed it every single time. My passion and my logic for reading and writing came to me through that experience, and also through my grandma and my mom who plant the seed in me, who want their kids to have happy and better life than they were. In my own dictionary, literacy is not just the ability to read and write, it is a strong foundation to build up the knowledge to have better life, to become who I am today.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you'll go.” This quote by Dr. Seuss explains the importance of reading. Knowing how to read is very important to be successful in life. In 2009,a nationwide study by the National Center for Educational Statistics recorded that sixty-seven percent of 4th grade students, seventy-five percent of 8th grade students, and seventy-four percent of 12th grade students were not reading at a proficient level. This will cause many problems as the child progresses through life and later on to adulthood. According to the National assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), forty-three percent read at the lowest 2 literacy level ("Who Needs Phonics"). They will not be able to apply to jobs, stigmatized in society, and may result in their children being illiterate also. In order to decrease the alarming rate of seven million illiterate children and give them a chance to have a better life is by integrating a method to teach them how to read better.
When children are taught to read at an earlier age, their emotional and mental development is positively impacted. The exposure of literature to young children helps them become smarter and allows them to understand more about the world. They learn simple yet valuable lessons that allow them to make wiser decisions and display better behavior around others. Psychologist Raymond Mar held a study in 2010 on children who read books when they are younger. Mar’s results showed that reading boosted their “theory of mind” and understanding of people’s feelings. This shows that children can benefit when properly taught to read books at a younger age. It also aids children in school and increases their intellectual engagement. Kids can develop the skills to question the emotional and mental aspects of books when they start reading at a younger age. Overall, children can be greatly influenced when they read at a younger age and their mental and emotional development is affected by the positive impact of
This literature review was compiled to investigate the question: what effective strategies in reading can be utilized by parents to second grade students to assist and improve their children’s reading fluency? When a child was a baby, both mother and father read aloud short story, poetry and nursery rhymes to make them feel the spirit of learning to reading. According to Lawson (2012), “The parental practice of readi...
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.
Reading is not just reading words on a paper. It is a process that uses many resources in the brain and the use of strategies. Teachers have to use all six areas of reading to help students learn how to read, what strategies to use when reading, how to interpret a text and many more. Reading is a complex process and this paper will describe the six areas of reading.
No one can truly say that they do not like to read, because if you do not like to read that just means that you have not found the right book for you. I have never been a fan of reading, growing up I would only read when I was forced to. When I found that one author I learned that it is not that I did not enjoy reading, it is that I never found the author that spoke to me.
As I was reading this article, I remembered my struggles with learning to read when I was in elementary school. I used to dread when the teacher would call on me to read aloud to the class. At the time, I couldn’t read as fast as the other students and would struggle to sound out words. However, this problem became a thing of the past after my parents and teacher became aware of it. My parents worked with me every night to improve my reading level. Some nights I would follow along with my finger on the page to get familiar with the words as they would read aloud. Other we would change positions and I would read aloud while they followed to make sure I was getting all the words and pronouncing them correctly. I still believe that without the help of my parents and teacher I would still be struggling with reading today. I believe that children need to be read to for them to hear how words should be pronounced. Just reading with your child every night is important. From these experiences, they learn how to pronounce words on a page and their meaning behind them.
Reading is one of the most difficult and important forms of learning. While we often think of reading as one thing, our brains are actually engaging in a number of tasks simultaneously each time we sit down with a book. (Learns, 2015) There are five components to the process of reading: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, reading comprehension and fluency. These five components work together to create the task of reading. As children learn to read they must develop skills in all five of these areas in order to become successful readers. Reading or learning how to read is a combination of all the components. The combination of each of the five components makes it difficult to teach them one at a time or in a particular order. It is more important to use the individual child’s knowledge and stage of development as a starting point for instruction. However, since there is a constant give and take among the components, one will sometimes be emphasized over another. (Learns, 2015) The term zone of proximal development comes to mind when discussing the components of reading. Vygotsky is one of the most well-known psychologists in the educational world. The zone of proximal development is the
Throughout the years there have been debates about a child’s ability to learn in early childhood, researches and doctors have been focusing this debate on the child’s ability to be literate. These researchers and doctors have been focusing whether a baby, as early as 8 months, can learn to read. Recently, they have decided that babies cannot learn to read due to the fact they are too young. They argue that these babies are indeed learning but that they are just not learning how to read. On the other hand I argue, that babies may be too young to read but that we should still teach them to be literate. While this claim may go against what most researchers and doctors may argue, I still believe that if we continue to teach our children to be
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.
“The single most important activity for building knowledge for their eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children,” a report from 1985 by the commission
How can what we know about the development of readers inform reading comprehension instruction? Reading instruction typically starts in kindergarten with the alphabetic principle, simple word blending, and sight word recognition. Texts read by early readers usually include very little to comprehend. As children develop reading ability, they are able read more complex texts requiring greater comprehension skills. Separate and explicit instruction in reading comprehension is crucial because the ability to comprehend develops in its own right, independent of word recognition. The ability to read words and sentences is clearly important, but as readers develop, these skills are less and less closely correlated with comprehension abilities. (Aarnoutse & van Leeuwe, 2000) While no one would argue that word blending and sight word reading skills be omitted from early reading instruction, vocabulary and listening comprehension may be at least as important in achieving the even...