Phonological Approach

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How To Teach A Child To Read And Write

The literacy rates among fourth grade students in America are sobering. Sixty six percent of all U.S. fourth graders scored "below proficient" on the 2013 NAEP reading test, meaning that they are not reading at grade level. Even more alarming is the fact that among students from low-income backgrounds, 80 percent score below grade level in reading (Students First, 2014). Educators can aid in ensuring that these staggering statistics do not continue on to our future generations. Preschool and elementary teachers have the power to combat these literacy deficits by creating a solid literacy foundation within their classrooms. The most important benefit of having a solid literacy foundation is its effectiveness …show more content…

The four-cueing systems that educators should incorporate within their classroom are phonological (sound), syntactic (structural), semantic (meaning), and pragmatic (social/cultural). According to Tompkins, these systems make it possible for children and adults to read, write, listen, and talk. For beginning readers and writers’ emphasis should be placed on the phonological system because it applies to phonics skills to decode and spell words (Tompkins, 2014). Ways that educators can apply the phonological system within their lesson is by pointing out rhyming words, decoding words when reading, dividing words into syllables, and pronouncing words. The syntactic system can be used in the classroom by adding inflectional endings to words, creating compound words, and teaching appropriate sentence structure. Educators can teach the semantic system by teaching students the meaning of a word, and studying synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms. The pragmatic system can be taught by varying language to fit a specific purpose such as reading and writing dialogue in …show more content…

Teachers can develop their own tests such as spelling tests or a Jeopardy game to assess students’ skills. It is important for teachers to make sure that they are providing a variety of different assessments in order to meet the needs of all of their students. Paper and pencil tests can be effective in assessing understanding, but they should not be the only method used because not all students are good test takers. Teachers can find creative ways to assess students such as portfolio products where students are able to write a poem or short story, illustrate a character from the story that the class is reading, or create a diorama of the habitat of an animal that they researched. Teachers can also assess students by having them act out scenes from a story or rewrite the ending to a book the class had read. In addition, teachers can have students create exit tickets or write a journal entry about one thing that they found interesting that they learned that day, or something that they felt they were confused with during that day’s lesson. These types of assessments allow the teacher to assess each student’s understanding and to assist them in adjusting lessons to meet the needs of their

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