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Essential Components of Teaching Reading

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Dhakal, B.R. (2022). Essential components of teaching reading. N.R.Awaj, 4(4), 86-90.

Essential Components of Teaching Reading

-Basanta Raj Dhakal
Abstract
Teaching reading is one of the fundamental aspects of language teaching.
Learning to read opens several other doors to learning. Later, reading becomes the
foundation for learning and extends learning horizon. Therefore, teaching reading
remains indispensable. We learn reading skills in the early grades. Research carried out
so far have proved that teaching reading should involve certain components. One of the
widely quoted meta-analysis of reading research is the National Reading Panel (2000),
which has identified five essential components of reading which include: Phonemic
awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. This paper attempts to
introduce research proved, aforementioned five components of teaching reading.

Key words: comprehension, fluency, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary

Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken language words can be
broken into individual phonemes. Phonemes are the smallest units making up spoken
language which combine to form syllables and words. Therefore, phonemic awareness
refers to the student’s ability to focus on and manipulate these phonemes in spoken
syllables and words. National Reading Panel (2000) reports that teaching phonemic
awareness to children significantly improves their reading more than instruction that
lacks any attention to phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness focuses on the individual
sounds in spoken language. Students must demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables,
and sounds (phonemes) to develop phonological awareness.
Teaching of phonemic awareness is important in many ways. First, phonemic
awareness performance is a strong predictor of long-term reading and spelling success
(NRP,2000). Students with strong phonological awareness are likely to become good
readers, but students with weak phonological skills will likely become poor readers
(Blachman, 2000). It is estimated that the vast majority (more than 90%) of students with
significant reading problems have a core deficit in their ability to process phonological
information (Blachman, 1995).
Gillon (2004) claims that phonemic awareness performance can predict literacy
performance more accurately than variables such as intelligence, vocabulary knowledge,
and socioeconomic status. Furthermore, phonological awareness is one of the few factors
that teachers are able to influence significantly through instruction—unlike intelligence,
vocabulary, and socioeconomic status (Lane and Pullen, 2004). Some students enter
kindergarten with proficient phonemic awareness skills whereas others who have not
mastered these skills are from all socio-economic backgrounds and need explicit
instruction in phonemic awareness. Engaging and developmentally appropriate
instruction requires that all kindergarten students receive phonemic awareness instruction

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(Adams, 1990). Such instruction includes four developmental levels: Word awareness,
syllable awareness, onset-rime awareness, and phonemic awareness.

Phonics
Phonics is the relationship between the letters in written language and the
individual sounds in spoken language. Phonics instruction teaches students how to use
these relationships to read and spell words. The National Reading Panel (2000) indicated
that systematic phonics instruction enhances children’s success in learning to read, and it
is significantly more effective than instruction that teaches little or no phonics. Phonics
instruction involves decoding.
Decoding is the process of converting printed words to spoken words. Readers
use phonics skills, beginning with letter/sound correspondences, to pronounce words and
then attach meaning to them. As readers develop, they apply other decoding skills, such
as recognizing word parts (e.g., roots and affixes) and the ability to decode multisyllabic
words. Students also learn to apply decoding skills to irregular words that are almost
decodable.
Phonemic awareness and phonics are not the same, but instruction in phonemic
awareness and phonics tends to overlap. As students begin to transition to phonics, they
learn the relationship between a phoneme (sound) and grapheme (the letter(s) that
represent the sound) in written language. Phonemic awareness instruction improves
phonics skills, and phonics skills improve phonemic awareness (Lane and Pullen, 2004).
There are two approaches to phonics instruction: Systematic, explicit phonics
instruction and incidental, implicit phonics instruction. In systematic phonics instruction
sound/spelling correspondences are taught directly and systematically whereas in
incidental phonics instruction, sound/spelling correspondences are inferred from reading
whole words and introduced as students encounter them in text. Meta-analysis of reading
research conducted by NPC (2000) showed that students who received systematic and
explicit phonics instruction were better readers at the end of instruction than students who
received non-systematic or no phonics instruction. During phonics instruction regular and
irregular words are taught. Regular words are those which students can decode by
sounding them out (Eg. hot) and irregular words are the words students cannot
completely decode by sounding them out (Eg. said). Irregular words must be learned by
memory. phonics instruction also involves teaching high frequency words. Research tells
us that in order to become fluent readers, students need to learn to decode unknown
words accurately and automatically. Research findings show that those students who
have not developed automaticity by the beginning of second grade are at risk for reading
failure (Berninger et al., 2003, Berninger et al., 2006).

Fluency
Fluency is an important aspect of reading. Fluent readers are able to read orally
with appropriate speed, accuracy, and proper expression. Fluency is the ability to read as
well as we speak and to make sense of the text without having to stop and decode each

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word. The National Reading Panel’s research findings concluded that guided oral reading
and repeated oral reading had a significant and positive impact on word recognition,
reading fluency, and comprehension in students of all ages.
Students learn fluency by reading. Some students learn to read fluently without
explicit instruction and for others, however, fluency doesn't develop in the course of
normal classroom instruction and needs additional instruction. Research analyzed by the
NRP (2000) suggests that just encouraging students to read independently and simply
encouraging at-risk students to read doesn't result in increased reading on their part.
During sustained silent reading, at-risk readers may get a book with mostly pictures and
look at the pictures, or they choose a difficult book so they will look like everyone else
and then pretend to read. Even if at-risk students do read, they read more slowly than the
other students. In a 10-minute reading period, a proficient reader who reads 200 words a
minute silently could read 2,000 words. In the same 10 minutes, an at-risk student who
reads 50 words a minute would only read 500 words. This is equal reading time but
certainly not an equal number of words read. These students need to read more, but just
asking them to read on their own often doesn't work. The National Reading Panel has
suggested three strategies that improve fluency, comprehension and reading achievement.
They are teacher modeling, repeated reading, and progress monitoring. Teacher
modelling further includes teacher-assisted reading, peer-assisted reading, and audio-
assisted reading.

Vocabulary
We know that young children acquire vocabulary indirectly, first by listening
when others speak or read to them, and then by using words to talk to others. As children
begin to read and write, they acquire more words through understanding what they are
reading and then incorporate those words into their speaking and writing. Vocabulary
knowledge varies greatly among learners. The word knowledge gap between groups of
children begins before they enter school.
Vocabulary development is closely connected to comprehension. The larger the
reader’s vocabulary (either oral or print), the easier it is to make sense of the
text. According to the National Reading Panel, vocabulary can be learned incidentally
through storybook reading or listening to others, and vocabulary should be taught both
directly and indirectly. Students should be actively engaged in instruction that includes
learning words before reading, repetition and multiple exposures, learning in rich
contexts, incidental learning, and use of computer technology. Research supported
vocabulary learning strategies include: students friendly definitions, defining words
within context, using context clues, sketching the words, applying the target words,
analyzing word parts, semantic mapping, word consciousness.

Comprehension

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 Comprehension is the complex cognitive process readers use to understand what
they have read. Vocabulary development and instruction play a critical role in
comprehension. The National Reading Panel determined that young readers develop text
comprehension through a variety of techniques, including answering questions (quizzes)
and summarization (retelling the story).
The process of comprehending text begins before children can read, when
someone reads a picture book to them. They listen to the words, see the pictures in the
book, and may start to associate the words on the page with the words they are hearing
and the ideas they represent.
In order to learn comprehension strategies, students need modeling, practice, and
feedback. The key comprehension strategies include: using prior knowledge/previewing,
predicting, identifying the main idea and summarization, questioning, making inferences,
visualizing, story maps, retelling, answering comprehension questions, and using graphic
organizers.

Conclusion
Improvement of reading instruction through thoughtful application of research
evidence about learning to read process is the worthy goal. Reading research done in the
light of complete understanding of the school and classroom context can and does
provide educators with valuable guidance about effective instructional practice. We must
not however undervalue the professional experience and judgement of highly educated
and excellent teachers. Qualified and talented teachers are essential if effective, evidence
based reading instruction is to occur. Teaching is more than technical process. It is a
complex human process in which the teachers knowledge of reading and learning
processes intersects with his or her knowledge of the needs, interests and individual
characteristics of learners

References

Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Berninger, V. W., R. B. Abbott, K. Vermeulen, and C. M. Fulton. (2006). Paths to
reading comprehension in at-risk second-grade readers. Journal of Learning
Disabilities, 39, pp. 334-351.
Blachman, B. A. (2000). Phonological awareness. In M. L. Kamil, P. B. Rosenthal, P. D.
Pearson, and R. Barr (eds.), Handbook of reading research, 3, pp. 483-
502. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Blachman, B. A. (1995). Identifying the core linguistic deficits and the critical conditions
for early intervention with children with reading disabilities. Paper presented at
the annual meeting of the Learning Disabilities Association, Orlando, FL, March
1995.

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 Gillon, G. T. (2005). Facilitating phoneme awareness development in 3-and 4-year-old
children with speech impairment. https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461(2005/031)
National Reading Panel (US)(2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based
assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for
reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development.

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