EDC231 - Teaching Language and Literacy in Junior Primary
Assessment 2 – Essay
Teachers must have an understanding of the importance of early, explicit and systematic phonics instruction as an essential foundation for teaching children to read.
It is broadly recognised that literacy is an essential skill and that a high degree of competency in this area will significantly enhance a student’s future prospects in life (Heckman, 2000). Phonics is the process of making the connection between sounds and letters when reading and spelling. For early students to be able to link knowledge of the spoken language to their own knowledge of written language they must first master the system of grapheme phoneme connections that link the written word with their own pronunciation. (NSW Department of Education and Training, 2009a). Coltheart (2005) submits that there is strong scientific evidence which suggests that student reading proficiency is improved significantly when grounded in direct, explicit and systematic phonics instruction. Krashen suggests that solely relying on phonics based approaches in teaching often results in children achieving highly in pronunciation tasks, but struggling in comprehension (as cited in Ewing & Maher, 2014). Given the fundamental purpose of reading is to construct and reconstruct the meaning of a text, (Emmitt, Hormsby & Wilson, 2014) it is suggested that whilst phonics is a foundational element to a reading program, it is most effective when a high level of emphasis is placed on meaning in conjunction with comprehension of text. It is vital that educators apply this theory throughout a variety of literacy tasks when teaching a student to read and that there is full cognisance of the importa...
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...in reading than alternative programs that involve unsystematic phonics or no phonics instruction (National Reading Panel, 2000). There is more to pacing instruction than simply plugging the student into a pre-built systematic program of phonics. That is, educators must adapt pedagogical strategies to fit what programs students are using, but use the mistakes a child makes to reveal opportunities for orthographic development (Bear, Invernizzi, Francine & Templeton 2012). It is important that teachers provide systematic, direct and explicit phonics instruction so that children master the essential alphabetic code-breaking skills required for foundational reading proficiency. It is however, equally vital that teachers provide an integrated approach to reading that supports the development of oral language, vocabulary, grammar, reading fluency and comprehension.
The DeFord Theoretical Orientation to Reading Profile, developed in 1985 by Diane DeFord, is a way to measure the philosophy and belief systems associated with instructional practices in the beginning of reading. The three systems include phonics, skills, and whole language (Vacca et al 2006). The bottom-up beliefs systems, associated with Behaviorism, place emphasis on letters, letter-sound relationships, and the understanding that the student, in order to comprehend the selection, must recognize each word in a text. There is importance placed on decoding, and skills are taught in a systematic and sequential format.
The Wilson Language program has a precise structure to function as an intervention and is able to assist second through twelfth grade struggling readers to learn the construction of words by directly instructing students to decode and encode confidently. Natalie Hill, a Wilson Language Program assessor, said, ‘“There is a frequent change of pace, students will see as well as hear, multiple opportunities for students to be engaged and participate in activities, extensive controlled text methods and materials to “see” critical word components, like vowels, digraphs, etc., stop “guessing habit”, reading and spelling taught simultaneously, hands on, multisensory methods, no glossy pictures”’ (Hi...
Six principles for early reading instruction by Bonnie Grossen will be strongly enforced. It includes Phonemic awareness, each letter-Phonemic relationship explicitly, high regular letter-sound relationship systematically, showing exactly how to sound out words, connected decodable text to practice the letter phonemic relationships and using interesting stories to develop language comprehension. Double deficit hypothesis which focuses on phonological awareness and rapid naming speed.
...dren developing early reading. As the guidance which comes with the Primary National Strategy framework states, schools “put in place a systematic, discrete programme as the key means for teaching high-quality phonic work” (DfES & PNS, 2006, p. 7). By teaching children to decode it helps them to develop their early reading and sets them up with skills to tackle almost any unknown word. There are many programmes which school choose to follow such as the government provided ‘Letters and Sounds’ or other schemes such as ‘Jolly Phonics’ or ‘Read Write Inc.’. Though there are many different companies’ schools can choose to follow the breakdown of how phonics should be taught is the same in all: phonics should prepare children to be able to decode any word they come across and teach itself in a multisensory way, one that interests the children and helps them to learn.
This article provides the rationale for introducing a phonics screening check in Australian schools, detailed explanations of its development, implementation, and result in English schools, and also recommendations for a phonic screening in Australia. Furthermore, the author has attempted to research and document a method that is believed can improve Australian children literacy level and their reading ability not only nationally but also internationally. By implementing the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check and demonstrate how systematic phonics is being taught across the country and in individual schools, it is believed that it can improve teaching methods. The article makes an exceptional initiation to implement new education policy scheme in Australia. Despite there was a lot of research in this teaching method, seeing the result and evaluation in the implantation in Australia will add new knowledge on this
The Wilson Reading System (WRS) is the chief program of Wilson Language Training and the foundation of all other Wilson Programs. WRS is an intensive Tier 3 program for students in grades 2-12 and adults with word-level deficits who are not making adequate progress in their current intervention; have been unable to learn with other teaching strategies and require multisensory language instruction; or who require more intensive structured literacy instruction due to a language-based learning disability like dyslexia. As WRS is a structured literacy program founded on phonological-coding research and Orton-Gillingham principles, it directly and systematically teaches the structure of the English
Balanced Literacy is an approach for teaching literacy that is widely used in classrooms across the country. It involves several methods of teaching and learning reading and writing, whole class instruction directed by the teacher with independent work in reading, writing, and oral language. By integrating a variety of approaches, a balance is achieved in which students learning to understand text (from a whole language approach) as well as how to read text (from a phonics approach). Effective phonics instruction focuses children's attention on noticing the letter/sound patterns in initial consonants and consonant clusters and in rimes.
When I met with my host teacher Miss. S, I was able to observe her class during their literacy times. In her class she has twenty three students, ten boys and thirteen girls. Of the twenty three students, two of the students are ELL, two have special needs services, two have ADHD and one of the two is on the autism spectrum, five students have reading intervention, and three are in speech. We talked about the different techniques for teaching words that she uses with her students.
During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing elementary phrases which were commonly taught in the second and third grade. With the motto, "Improve your child's reading and writing skills in just four weeks!" I was bound to become the next Mark Twain. The method of this course specialized in the improvements of word acquisition rates as well as reading speed; however, it lacked in the area of teaching comprehension. At a young age, I was instilled with the dire need to be highly educated and although I was unable to experience a fun and adventurous childhood like many other children, I am grateful for being raised with a greater knowledge and wisdom than that ingrained in many.
Four phases of reading development have been established (Ehri 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999) : pre-alphabetic, partial alphabetic, full alphabetic and consolidated alphabetic. These phases has led to the core understanding of children's reading development, apart from the pre-alphabetic phase phonological awareness skills are seen throughout the phases.
Literacy embraces reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Integrating all of these into a literacy program is key. Teachers must provide endless and ongoing opportunities for their student to read, write, listen, and speak.
As a teacher, you need to encourage all attempts at reading, writing, speaking, and allowing children to experience the different functions and use of literacy activity (The Access Center, n.d.). Moreover, it is crucial for educators to understand phonological awareness and phonics; know what constitutes good children’s literature and how to use it; know children who need additional assistance with beginning reading and writing (Cunningham et al, 2004 as cited in McLachlan et al, 2013, p. 112). Educators also need to plan effective activities to assist children experience reading aloud, listening to other children read aloud, listening to tape recordings, and videotapes so children have opportunities to integrate and extend their literacy knowledge (The Access Center, n.d.). Morrow (1990 as cited in The Access Center, n.d.) notes that classroom with greater teacher facilitation promote literacy behaviours, so it is educators’ role to provide literacy rich
The five key elements are one, Phonemic Awareness. This is when a teacher helps children to learn how to manipulate sounds in our language and this helps children to learn how to read. Phonemic Awareness can help to improve a student’s reading, and spelling. With this type of training the effects on a child’s reading will last long after training is over. The second key is Phonics. Phonics has many positive benefits for children in elementary schools from kindergarten up to the sixth grade level. Phonics helps children who struggle with learning how to read by teaching them how to spell, comprehend what they are reading, and by showing them how to decode words. The third key is Vocabulary. Vocabulary is important when children are learning how to comprehend what they are reading. Showing children, the same vocabulary words by using repetition will help them to remember the words. The fourth key is comprehension. Comprehension is when a child’s understanding of comprehension is improved when teachers use different techniques such as generating questions, answering questions, and summarizing what they are
In our schools today, literacy should not just be a task for the English or Reading teacher. Instead, literacy should be a shared venture by all teachers within all content areas. Teaching literacy in all content areas is important because a teacher with a solid understanding of teaching literacy in his/her content area will tremendously help all students achieve greater success on class assignments and standardized assessments. There are three main points that surround the idea of teaching literacy in all content areas. Teachers need the necessary skills and knowledge to teach literacy, once the necessary skills and knowledge are gained then there is justification for teaching literacy across content areas, and
“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