Importance Of Literacy In Reading

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Many recommendations made for the reasons students experience literacy difficulties/disabilities and struggle to learn to read, what research suggests is that there are two main contributing factors :1) ineffective instructional methods, and a 2) lack of knowledge by teachers have about the components of literacy. Binks et alt,2009)
Research by Binks et alt (2009) has suggested that struggling readers are more likely to learn and acquire reading acquisition if the teacher is competent, has concise knowledge of the different linguistic structure of language and literacy domains.
“The NRP (2000) identified training in phonemic awareness, systematic phonics instruction, fluency, vocabulary, and strategies for comprehension as necessary components …show more content…

Researchers have described the English language as an opaque orthography, made up of three layers: the basic layer comprises of the sound layer; increasing in complexity and variation is the patterned and meaning layer, and last but not least is the additional borrowed words from other languages. (Mesmer&Griffith,2006)
Phonics is important to teach as Mesmer& Griffith (2006) explains because it unlocks a large proportion of the English language, it does this through a number of ways. Phonics helps children, through strategies such as knowledge of the alphabet code and approximately 44 phonemes, to able to tackle word recognition through three different methods. Firstly, it allows the reader to break down and blend a word, an effective strategy to tackle unidentified words. Secondly ,it allows the reader to decode a word, until such time as it becomes fused into memory and prediction. Lastly decoding the word allows the reader to get a close match to the correct pronunciation, with the assistance of vocabulary the true meaning of the word can then be …show more content…

As cited in Coyne el at (2009) Whitehurst and Lonigan (1998) believe there are two types of reading comprehension domains, which are coherent and cross over, with understanding brought from other literacy areas. These are, inside –out components or decoding text, associated with phonemic awareness and phonics; and outside-in, or understanding text through prediction, inference, story –line and the ability to identify different text structures.
Coyne et al (2009) advocate that reading is a progressive skill, that some children don’t acquire naturally, sufficient skill across both types of comprehension domains is essential to becoming a fluent reader and grasp information, simply reading and decoding text is pointless if the meaning or comprehension of the words is lost.
Moore & Hammond acknowledge that the more effective teachers “identified a sequence of what needed to be taught, taught it explicitly, persistently reinforced what was being learnt and provided many opportunities for guided and independent practice. . ..”

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