“What is she teaching her!” was my reaction to the first journal my daughter, Margo brought home from her kindergarten classroom. I was terrified as I read “I luv makn piktrs” accompanied by a drawing or a girl, grinning ear to ear, painting a picture. A million thoughts ran through my mind: “How will she ever learn to read if she cannot sound out the word—she should be learning how to spell her words correctly? She will not be successful! How is this going to look if I’m going to be an English teacher and my own daughter cannot read? What is going on here?” I was of the notion phonics needed to happen first. Panic set in when I realized Margo’s teacher wanted nothing to do with the phonics approach to teaching reading; an approach I learned how to read by, my son learned how to read by(just the year before), basically, everyone I knew learned by phonics, or so I thought. I had been focused on the lack of phonics not the fact that my daughter could write a sentence and comprehend what she was reading and writing.
Margo’s teacher was using the whole language approach to teaching reading. “What the hell was the whole language approach?” I thought quietly to myself, “shouldn’t I know this by now?” I did not understand there were different ways to teach reading. Imagine my surprise, after reading Frank Smith’s comment in “Phonics” “The system of phonics is both cumbersome and unreliable, rarely producing an accurate pronunciation of the words not recognized on sight.” How could I have this so wrong? I had a lot to learn. Fortunately, over the past year, I have been able to witness the effectiveness of the whole language approach personally and professionally. I have gained insight and understanding of what the ...
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...e language classrooms students typically score higher on standardized testing, they develop vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and punctuation skills as well as or better than peer’s in more traditional classrooms. Students’ in whole language classrooms read for meaning versus reading for word identification, they gain a better sense of self as readers and writers, and all around become more independent readers, writers, and learners. I have seen first-hand how whole language works. My daughter has surpassed basic curriculum requirements and expectations for reading and writing, but the most significant benefit--she is enthusiastic about reading. Margo enjoys reading and will pick up a book or write a story at any moment of any day. In her own words, Margo says “I luv makn piktrs but I love reading books more.” She is wholeheartedly excited about reading and writing.
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
Fountas, I., C., & Pinnel, G. S., (2009). When readers struggle: Teaching that works. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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.
...r they had all received the same language instruction for three years (kindergarten, first and second grade). These finding conclude that English language proficiency at the time of entering school does not matter. A good early literacy program works for both L1 students and ESL students who enter school at the kindergarten age. Students at that age are very susceptible to learning new languages quickly. The ESL children had difficulties in kindergarten, but by second grade they had caught up and were right on track with the L1 students and some of them even surpassed the L1 students.
Dual language is a form of education in which students are taught to read and write in two languages. The majority of dual language programs in the United States teach in English and Spanish, although there are emerging programs that teach in Mandarin, Japanese and Hindi. The programs start of mostly in kindergarten sand 1st grade and continue throughout primary education, in addition some dual language programs depending on the grade continue through middle and high school. Even Hayward’s own Burbank elementary and Winton middle school are offering dual language programs. Each level of teaching uses a different language ratio in which class is instructed the classes start off with a 90:10 ration and later as years pass the ration becomes a steady 50:50 (Lindholm-Leary, Kathryn J,2001). The goals of dual language immersion programs are to get children to become both bi-literate and bilingual, in other words, they will be able to speak and write fluently in two different languages. Dual language programs are becoming more and more common most of them are in public school but there are some beginning to become present private and charter schools. Dual language education should be introduced in all elementary schools beginning in the Kindergarten to boost achievement for English language learners, benefits it will bring to the community, outstanding brain benefits and lastly cost efficiency in education across the United States.
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.
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.
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.
Reading is a complex process that’s difficult to explain linearly. A student’s reading capabilities begin development long before entering the school setting and largely start with exposure (Solley, 2014). The first remnants of what children are able to do in terms of reading are built from their parents and other people and object around them as they’re read to, spoken to, and taken from place to place to see new things (Solley, 2014). As kids are exposed to more and more their noises quickly turn into intentional comprehensible messages and their scribbling begins to take the form of legible text as they attempt to mimic the language(s) they’re exposed to daily.
When schools offer children quality education in their primary language, they present them two things: knowledge and literacy. The knowledge that children get through their first language helps make the English they hear and read more comprehensible. Literacy is developed in the primary language transfers to the second language. The reason is simple: Because we learn by reading, that is, by making sense of what is on the page, it is easier to learn to read in a language we understand. Once we can read in one language, we can read in general.
The history of the use of phonics dates back to the 1700’s. Backs then, children were taught to read through their memorization of the twenty-six-letter alphabet. Since many books hadn’t been written, their primary textbook was the Bible. Although there is no accounts for when whole language originated some believe that it was around the same time as phonics. The whole language reading method was widespread for thirty years, from around 1940 to 1970. From around 1970 to 1990, phonics was popular. Whole Language gained the most recent foothold around 1990. (Stahl 1996) Several times they have gone back and forth. The debate over whole language and phonics has gone on for years. Which way is best in teaching children how to read? The education world has been debating this issue for years and there still are no exact answers. In more recent year’s instruction specialist have argued that some sort of middle ground should be reached because it would give children the benefits of both. (Cromwell 1997) Some form of middle ground needs to be obtained if children’s needs are going to be met.
When observing and studying ELLs, there are many advantages and disadvantages in a classroom and school for these students. In the classroom, ELL students have many individual opportunities to develop their literacy, especially in small reading groups. English learners also, are pulled aside by an ESL teacher during class hours to focus on reading and writing skills of English. According to Netten, Droop, and Verhoeven (2010), reading is “an activity which benefits from practice” (414). Many of these students struggle to become literate at a young age, but the more practice they receive the better they will become when focusing on developing literacy. Also, ELL students have an advantage when learning two languages because this makes them bilingual. The goal of bilingual education is to develop
Mrs. Hamm discussed that she actually uses three different programs to help teach language and literacy to her students. The first program, which is actually her favorite of the three programs, is called “Read Aloud Library”, the second program is called “Language for Learning” and the third program is called “Reading Mastery”. Mrs. Hamm discussed the programs as being very helpful tools in helping children develop their reading skills. Mrs. Hamm integrates literacy in her classroom in many different ways. In the different programs, the students read one book together in which they work on for the week by breaking down the chapters so that children can retell the story and learn th...
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
Good reading skills are very important in learning languages. Reading improves spelling because as students learn to sound out letters and words, spelling comes easier. It helps to expand the vocabulary, since the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read. Students learn new words as they read and put them in their mind for later use. . They also unconsciously absorb the information about things like how to structure the sentences, how words are used in different contexts, and it gives a better understanding of the word usage and definitions than the cold facts of a dictionary. It improves a person’s vocabulary and knowledge without the person even knowing it. Even if students do not understand every word, they will hear new sounds, words and phrases which they can then try out, copying what they have heard. They can comprehend ideas, follow arguments and detect implications. Reading texts also provide good models for English writing. Krashen (2004) found that reading is extremely important in learning English, since it is the only way to “become a good reader, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammar” and the only way to “become a good speller”.