EED 131

Topic: How Children Learn to Read

I. Introduction

The ​Simple View of Reading​ (SVR) offers one useful way to think about reading development.
According to SVR, good reading comprehension requires two broad sets of abilities: word recognition and oral
language comprehension. Each of these elements — ​word recognition​ and ​oral language comprehension​ —
includes a set of specific component skills.

Word recognition encompasses, among other skills:

● phonological and phonemic awareness

● phonics and decoding skills
● automatic recognition of common words
● the ability to read common phonetically irregular words

Oral language comprehension encompasses, among other skills:

● vocabulary knowledge
● background knowledge
● sentence (syntactic) comprehension
● understanding figurative language, such as metaphors, similes, and idioms

Word recognition and oral language comprehension are not equally important at all stages of reading
development. For typical readers, word recognition abilities tend to be especially important in the early stages
of learning to read, when children are learning phonics and developing the ability to read common sight words.
Word-recognition skills tend to set a limit on reading comprehension in these early grades, because even if
children have strong oral language comprehension skills, those skills cannot come into play while reading if
they are unable to read many words.

Once children become proficient at word recognition, their further growth as readers tends to revolve
more around language comprehension than word reading. For typical readers, this shift usually occurs around
third or fourth grade, when typical readers have developed accurate and relatively automatic word recognition.
At this point, children can focus more of their attention on reading for meaning. They can begin to use reading
as a tool for learning in content-area subjects such as history and science. Further growth in reading becomes
more about developing higher-level comprehension abilities than about improving word recognition, although
some growth in word reading still occurs. Jeanne Chall (1983) referred to this shift as the one from “learning to
read” (in K to 3) to “reading to learn” (in Grades 4 and up). Of course, struggling readers may continue to have
difficulties with word recognition well beyond third grade.

Reading experts like Linnea Ehri (1991, 2005), have identified the typical stages of reading
development. These phases are briefly described below, in the context of typical expectations for reading by
grade.
 Pre-K
At this stage, many children do not grasp the alphabetic principle and do not understand that printed
words need to be “decoded” with attention to letters and letter patterns. For example, a typical four-year-old
might recognize the word ​stop ​on a stop sign because of the red octagonal shape of the sign, but would not
recognize the word ​stop ​printed on an index card.

Ehri (2005) referred to this stage of word reading as pre-alphabetic. Many preschoolers do recognize
some letters, such as those in their names, and they may grasp certain important print concepts, such as being
able to identify the front and back of a book, or the fact that it is the print, not the pictures, that is “read.” These
important print concepts are more likely to be found in older preschoolers (ages 3 to 5) and in those who have
had ample exposure to literacy – for instance, from frequent parental or teacher read-alouds. Also, children at
this stage usually do have a rudimentary level of phonological awareness, such as the ability to rhyme or
appreciate tongue-twisters.

End of kindergarten
By the end of kindergarten, typical children recognize all or nearly all letters, both upper case and lower
case; they can name and give sounds for single letters, especially consonants. They may also know some short
vowel sounds, particularly if those are taught as part of the kindergarten curriculum, and they may be starting to
decode simple CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words (e.g., ​man, sit, hop​) — again, especially if these skills
are explicitly taught.

However, even when they have received some decoding instruction, typical children at this stage of
development lack knowledge of sounds for many common letter patterns (e.g., ​ar, ee, oo, oa, igh, tch​). They
may confuse similarly-spelled words such as ​boat a​ nd ​boot​ or ​meet​ and ​met.​ Often they rely heavily on the first
and last letters of a word rather than looking carefully at all letters in a word to decode it.

Ehri (2005) refers to this stage of word reading as partial alphabetic, because children rely only on
partial phonics cues in reading words. These characteristics are reflected in children’s spelling. Spelling errors
may involve omissions of or incorrect sequencing of sounds, for example, especially in the middle of words.
Because of their limitations in decoding, children tend to be very dependent on picture or sentence context to
help read words at this stage. Also, their oral language comprehension far exceeds their reading comprehension;
they can comprehend much more sophisticated texts in listening than in reading, because of their limited
word-recognition skills.

End of grade 1
Typical readers at the end of Grade 1 can decode a wide variety of unfamiliar one-syllable, phonetically
regular words, including words with closed syllable patterns (e.g., ​man, fish, block, stamp​), silent e (e.g., ​like,
same, spoke​), open (e.g., ​no, go, be, cry, by​), vowel r (e.g., ​car, star, her, shirt​), and vowel combinations
(e.g., ​tree, stay, broom​). Although at this stage typical readers do recognize some common words automatically,
without the need for “sounding out,” they still need to apply their decoding skills to many words, especially less
common or long words.

Ehri (2005) refers to this stage as full alphabetic, because children typically attend to all the phonetic
cues in a word. At this stage, children’s misspellings become more recognizable as the intended word because
all sounds are represented even if a word is not spelled correctly (e.g., ​garbij​ for ​garbage​). By the end of Grade
1, typical readers are much less dependent on pictures or sentence context to read words, because they have
increasingly accurate skills for decoding unknown words and do not need to rely on context cues as frequently.
However, children’s oral language comprehension still far exceeds their reading comprehension at this stage.

End of grade 2
Children have an increasing ability to decode unfamiliar long words, including words with
–consonant-le (e.g., ​stable, marble, needle​), phonetically regular two-syllable words (e.g., ​basement, invite,
mistake)​ , and some multi-syllable words, especially words in their oral vocabularies (e.g., ​butterfly, potato,
remember)​ . Typical readers at this stage (and continuing into Grade 3) consolidate common letter patterns such
as those associated with common prefixes, suffixes, and other word parts, to make word reading faster and more
automatic. Ehri refers to this stage of word recognition as consolidated alphabetic. This stage tends to be one of
rapid fluency development in text reading for typical children. Children’s increased knowledge of common
letter patterns also is reflected in their improved spelling of words.

Grades 3 and 4
By the end of Grade 3, typical readers have largely mastered basic word decoding skills, including skills
for decoding most multisyllabic words, except for unusual words (e.g., words of foreign derivation such
as ​rendezvous,​ or technical words such as ​photosynthesis​). Typical readers can decode most unfamiliar words
quickly and easily and also recognize most common words automatically (“by sight”). Thus, their reading
fluency (i.e., their ability to read text quickly and easily as well as accurately) is generally well-established by
this point, at least in grade-appropriate texts.

In Grades 3 and 4, the comprehension and vocabulary demands of texts used in school escalate
substantially. Vocabulary and morphemic knowledge become especially important to reading comprehension
and also to spelling.

For example, if children know the meanings of common morphemes, such as that ​geo​ means ​earth o​ r
astro​ means ​star,​ they can use this knowledge to help infer the meanings of a variety of semantically related
words, such as ​geology, geologist, geological, astronomy, astronomer, astronomical​, and so on. Also, the
spelling of morphemes is generally stable across a variety of words, so if children can spell common
morphemes, this knowledge will improve their spelling as well as their vocabulary development.

At this stage, children increasingly use strategies to aid reading comprehension. These strategies include
summarization, questioning, and inferencing, along with “fix-up” strategies for when comprehension fails, such
as rereading or looking a word up in a dictionary. Students also learn to vary their approach to reading
depending on the purpose for reading (e.g. studying for a test vs. reading for pleasure) and their knowledge base
about the topic (they to read more carefully if the topic is unfamiliar and difficult). Typical readers also are
sensitive to differences in text structure, recognizing that fiction and non-fiction texts are organized differently,
and they can use their knowledge about text structure to aid comprehension. For example, in an informational
text, the key idea of a paragraph often is contained in the first or last sentence; and headings and subheadings
may highlight important ideas.

Because typical readers are usually skilled decoders at this point, they can devote more of their mental
resources to comprehension. The gap between reading comprehension and oral language comprehension begins
 to narrow. Limitations on reading comprehension begin to revolve more around limitations in oral language
comprehension, vocabulary, and background knowledge, than around word reading.

Middle and secondary levels

Reading is used as a tool in a wide variety of content area subjects such as science, social studies, and history.
Comprehension strategies and speed of reading continue to develop. At this stage, typical readers are
developing higher-order comprehension abilities in reading, such as integrating information from a variety of
sources, reconciling differences in viewpoints across texts, and appreciation of literary symbolism and theme.

According to Biemiller (1999), even for typical readers, oral language comprehension and reading
comprehension do not become fully comparable until about Grades 7 or 8. For adolescents and adults, reading
comprehension may sometimes exceed oral language comprehension, as when students are reading complex
narratives or dense informational texts, such as a science chapter on DNA. However, oral language remains an
important avenue for learning even in the upper grades, particularly for students who have reading problems.
For example, a high-school student with dyslexia may be able to develop content knowledge and advanced
comprehension abilities much more easily through listening than through reading, because of ongoing
difficulties in decoding or reading fluency.

For typical students at this level, especially those who are avid readers, reading becomes an increasingly
important source of new vocabulary and background knowledge. Unusual words are encountered much more
commonly in text than in spoken language, even the everyday conversation of college-educated adults. Good
readers tend to receive more exposure to these unusual words and to new background knowledge, because they
usually read much more than do poor readers. In fact, differences in volume of pleasure reading between good
and poor readers are massive. For example, Cunningham and Stanovich (1998) estimated that fifth-graders at
the 90​th​percentile of reading achievement read the same number of words in ​two days​ of out-of-school pleasure
reading, as students at the 10​th​ percentile read in an entire year! These differences in reading volume make an
independent contribution to growth in reading and language skills (Mol & Bus, 2011), and can further widen the
gap in achievement between good and poor readers. Avoiding this dynamic is one reason why early intervention
for reading problems is so important.

II. Executive function and reading

In recent years, a growing body of research has highlighted the role of executive function in learning to read.
“Executive function” refers to a group of cognitive processes that we use to set goals, make a plan, pay
attention, control our behavior, and ensure that tasks are completed and goals are achieved. These functions
include:

● Impulse control:​ ​the ability to stop or change behavior that is not appropriate to a given situation; to think
before acting
● Emotional control:​ ​the ability to moderate emotions through rational thinking
● Flexible thinking: the ability to quickly switch focus and adjust to a new task or situation
● Working memory: the ability to hold information in memory while completing a task
● Planning and organizing: the ability to plan for and organize current and future task demands
● Organization: the ability to create and manage systems for organizing materials and spaces
● Task initiation: the ability to begin a task and independently generate ideas, responses, or problem solving
strategies
● Self-monitoring or self-regulation: he ability to monitor one’s performance in relation to a standard of what is
needed or expected
Executive function issues can be a major factor contributing to reading difficulties. A student who has
trouble paying attention in class will have a harder time learning basic skills such as phonemic awareness and
decoding. A student with poor impulse control may tend to impulsively guess at an unfamiliar word instead of
taking the time to look at the letter patterns and try to sound it out. And even students with strong decoding and
comprehension skills may still struggle to become good readers as a result of executive function difficulties.

For example, a student may be able to make inferences when the information needed to make an
inference is in close proximity. But if the necessary information is widely separated, the student may struggle to
infer not because of a lack of language comprehension skills but because of inadequate working memory. That
is, the student cannot hold the required information in memory while reading. This same student may have
difficulties following multi-step directions. Please see the articles listed below for more information about
executive function.

III. The Language Teaching Methods

1) Grammar Translation Method

This is also known as the classical method. Classes are taught in the mother-tongue and is focused on
making students learn the grammatical rules of the 2​nd​ language. Students are expected to apply these rules by
translating sentences between the target language and the native language.

2) The Direct Method

This is premised on the principle that 2​nd​ language learning should be more like first language learning.
It requires a lot of oral interaction, spontaneous use of the language, no translation between the first & second
languages and little or no analysis of grammatical rules.

3) Audiolingual Method

This method is based on the behavioristic theory that advocated conditioning and habit-formation
models of learning that involved mimicry drills and pattern practices. However, this method does not teach
students to achieve long-term communicative proficiency as language was not really learned through a process
of habit formation and overlearning.

4) Community Language Learning

Learners in a classroom are regarded as a “group” in need of therapy and counseling. The group of
learners (clients), having first established in their native language an interpersonal relationship and trust, are
seated in a circle with the teacher (counselor) on the outside of the circle. When one of the students want to say
something to the group or to another individual, he/she says it in the native language (Cebuano) and the teacher
translates the utterance back to the learner in the 2​nd​ language (English). The learner then repeats the sentence as
accurately as possible. Another student responds and the utterance is translated by the teacher. The student who
is responding repeats what the teacher said. The rest of the conversation continues in this manner.

5) Suggestopedia

This grew form Bulgarian psychologist, Georgi Lozanov’s view that the human brain could process
great quantities of material if simply given the right conditions for learning, among which are a state of
relaxation and giving over of control to the teacher. Baroque music was central to this method because Lozanov
believed that the soft playing of Baroque music increase alpha brain waves and decreases blood pressure and
pulse rate so one can take in tremendous qualities of material.

6) The Silent Way

This method capitalizes on discovery learning. It is based on the following learning theories: Learning is
facilitated…
● if the learner discovers or creates rather than remembers and repeats what is to be learned
● by accompanying physical objects
● by problem solving involving the material to be learned

7) Total Physical Response

This is anchored on the “trace theory” of learning which claims that memory is increased if it is
stimulated or “traced” through association with physical activity. This method demands listening and acting.
The teacher is the “director” and the students are the “actors.” This is how it is usually applied: The teacher
gives a command (e.g. Stand up) and students execute the command. No verbal response is necessary. The
commands may eventually progress in complexity (e.g. Draw a circle on the board) and even turn into questions
(e.g. Where is the board?) and the students just point. Eventually, students would feel comfortable to attempt
verbal responses to questions and then finally ask questions and the process continues.

8) The Natural Method

In this method, it is believed that learners would be benefited if production is delayed until speech
emerges. The goal is the achievement of basic personal communication skills in everyday language situations
such as conversing with friends, shopping, listening to the radio, etc. This method involves three stages:

● Preproduction stage – the development of listening comprehension skills

● Early production stage – this is usually marked with errors as students struggle with the language. The
teacher focuses on meaning not form. Therefore, the teacher does not make a point of correcting errors
during this stage (unless they are gross errors that block meaning entirely)
● Extending production into longer stretches of discourse involving more complex language games,
role-plays, open-ended dialogs, discussions, and extended small work.

9) Communicative Language Teaching

The primary goal of CLT is for students to acquire proficiency through pragmatic uses of the target
language in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. To make that happen, teachers make informed use of
authentic materials and contexts. Principles related to CLT are: (1) learner-centered teaching, (2) cooperative
learning, 3) interactive learning, (4) whole language education, (5) content-centered education, and (6)
task-based learning.
Source: ​https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101-course/introduction-how-children-learn-read