While STEM (and more recently STEAM) have been gaining focus and traction, we ignore balance in our curriculum at our peril.
STREAMS reflects the necessity of Reading (literacy) and Social skills in a child’s education.
In today’s post, the focus will be on Reading. Chiefly, the question as to why so many children are failing to acquire this fundamental skill.
Background
Children are born naturally hard-wired to speak. Surrounded by spoken language, in an environment of reciprocal interaction, and without a language disorder, most children acquire speech easily. Reading is not acquired in the same way. It must be actively taught.
Knowledge Deficits
The difficulty with this is many teachers do not know how to teach reading well. The science of reading is not taught to many trainee teachers. Reading instruction may be perceived as the remit of those working in early years and not beyond. Furthermore, studies point to little engagement from qualified teachers with evidence-based research, so new information is not widely disseminated.
Numerous reasons are cited for this: lack of time, lack of support from management, difficulty accessing the journals in which the research is printed, a disconnect between the academic language in which the research is presented and the everyday language of the classroom, a failure to understand the research properly, a sense researchers fail to understand classroom dynamics and the practicalities around implementation of some findings, a failure on the part of researchers to engage with teaching practitioners to share their findings, and a belief that what is happening in the classroom is already best practice.
More broadly, many countries do not make best use of the available research to inform their approach to the teaching of reading. ‘Balanced Literacy,’ the recommended approach in many countries, adds a little phonics to the ‘whole-language’ approach, but the precise definition of ‘Balanced Literacy’ is unclear. Little consistency exists in its structure or implementation. As to whether it is analytic or synthetic phonics (or a mixture) that is bolted on is often not specified. Much is left up to individual teachers, and effective instruction very much relates to an individual’s knowledge, skill, and attitudes.
Against this background, children continue to fail.
If a teacher believes reading is a process occurring naturally in the presence of exposure to books, responsibility for a child’s failure to read may often be attributed to lack of family support, especially if the child comes from a household lacking in reading material. Wealthier parents of children struggling to read can access interventions for their children. Poor children receiving poor teaching is a disaster with devastating life-long ramifications.
The correlation between low literacy levels and the prison pathway is well known.
It needn’t be so, for the components of effective reading instruction are known.
Essential Components of Reading Instruction
Proficient reading encompasses 5 core elements – phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension – as outlined in the report of the National Reading Panel (2000). Because of the link between poor oral language and low reading attainment (Snowling, 2005), Konza (2014) argues for the inclusion of oral language and early literacy experiences on this list of essential components. The rationale for this is encompassed under phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary below.
Phonemic Awareness
Oral language is the cornerstone on which reading proficiency is built; knowledge of lots of words supports the recognition of individual phonemes (sounds) within them. In turn, these phonemes can be manipulated, deleted, substituted, or transposed. Good skill in such activities indicates a good level of phonemic awareness.
Phonics
Children must understand the relationship between phonemes and graphemes, i.e., they must learn sound-letter relationships and spelling patterns such that they are enabled to decode (segment and blend sounds) and encode (spell) words. Development of this knowledge is supported by a child’s concept of print, i.e., the idea that the lines on a page represent spoken words, and, later, the notion that those lines on the page are made up of words and those words are made up of letters.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary must be considered in terms of oral and print vocabulary. Oral vocabulary includes a child’s receptive and expressive language, while print vocabulary refers to the words the child comprehends in reading and uses in writing. Oral vocabulary is significantly easier to acquire than print vocabulary as it is supported by contexts and clues. Children require multiple exposures to a word before it is embedded. Conversation, read-alouds, and silent reading all support vocabulary acquisition.
Fluency
Fluency is developed through guided oral reading. Children must be given ample opportunity to read aloud and to receive feedback thereon. Knowledge of high frequency words supports the development of fluent reading.
Comprehension
Students must be able to assess whether or not they are reading for meaning. In order to garner meaning from a text, pupils must be taught a range of techniques and strategies to support them to recall information, generate questions, and summarise their reading.
Keep an eye of the blog for information and activities designed to boost these elements of reading and add set children up for success.
References:
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available at: https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report.pdf
Konza, D. (2014). Teaching Reading: Why the “Fab Five” should be the “Big Six”. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(12). http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2014v39n12.10
Snowling, M. (2005). Literacy outcomes for children with oral language impairments: Developmental interactions between language skills and learning to read. In H. W. Catts & A.G. Kamhi (Eds.), The connection between language and reading disabilities (55-75). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.