Early+years+readers



"There are many ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all." Jaqueline Kennedy (The Literacy Company 2011).

//__Introduction﻿ __//

Learning to read is a developmental process and all children develop this skill at different levels. Hill (2006, p. 3) states 'all children learn at different rates and some require more support than others. To support a child's reading ability many areas are assessed and these include; the knowledge to pick an appropriate book for the child's reading ability, assessing comprehension and an understanding of where the child is situated on the VELS framework. It is also very important to have an understanding of how children feel about reading and if they have access to, and use reading materials at home. By understanding these things an appropriate literacy program can be made to suit the the child and hopefully expand their reading abilities.

//__Childrens attitutudes towards reading __ ﻿//

From the information collected from the five children they were found to be at different areas of development and they also had differerent attitudes towards reading. The following table has been made from the information gained during an interview with the five children that asked how they felt about reading, if they are read to at home and the sort of books that interest them. The table shows that four of the five children had a good attitute towards reading and enjoy it at home and at school. All of the children are read to at home except one of them. There is a variation in the type of books they all like;Sam enjoys Paul Jennings and funny stories including joke books, Harry prefers information books and picture books that have limited writing. Charlie enjoys The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and Sarah enjoys The Bad Book. It is interesting to note that the child who is not read to at home still has a good attitude to reading yet the child who prefers picture books and does not enjoy reading as much at home.





The phases of literacy development are used as the benchmarks of understanding literacy and are used to plan for future development of 'learning to read, write and gain word knowledge' (Hill 2006, p. 5).

Sam and Sarah are both in the transitional phase of reading development which means they both read fluently, they are beginning to use expression and are learning how to read diificult words by using strategies such as sounding out and chunking. Harry, Charlie and Nathan are both in the early phase and are reading word-by-word with little or no expression yet reading mainly high frequency words, often skipping difficult words instead of attempting them. In the reading phases of development this table shows that the children are at two different levels but in the //__[|VELS]__// framework they are all at different progression points although still progressing towards Level 2.

//__Reading Fluency Rubric__//

The reading fluency rubric is used to 'monitor the child's development of reading fluency' (Hill 2006, p. 168), by looking at the rate the text is read, if the words are read in phrases or word-by-word, if there is pausing at commas and full stops, emphasis on appropriate words and the expression used when reading. To assess the childs fluency, all five children were asked to read a book aloud and the observer noted the level for each area of fluency. Sam and Harry are both in Grade 1. Sam was level 2 in each area where Harry was Level 1 in three of these areas. Charlie and Nathan are both in Grade 2. Charlie's levels are exactly the same as Harry who is in Grade 1. Nathan's fluency was of higher standard with the emphasis placed on words and expression at Level 4. Sarah was in Grade 3 and she was mostly in Level 3 for all areas with her rate, pausing and intonation on the border of level 2 and 3. As shown by this table the childrens fluency when reading is varied and not consistant with the grade they are all in.

__//Assessing Comprehension//__

As well as assessing fluency, comprehension also plays an important role in the ability to read. All of the five children were given three questions after reading their chosen book to see how well they comprehended what they had just read. Hill (2006) refers to comprehension as 'understanding the meaning of what is read from the print, illustrations, layout and design' (Hill 2006, p. 190). The three types of questions used were; When answering these three types of questions all of the five children answered them well when the book was read to them. After reading a book independantly Sam had trouble answering the literal and interpretive questions yet confidently answered the inferential questions. Sam had a similar outcome when he read independently. He answered the literal question and inferential questions but struggled with the interpretive question. Information on the resposes of the other children when reading where not available. From the information shown it seems the children are comprehending the story better when it is read to them and having a little more trouble with comprehension when reading the book independently.
 * Literal - which asks the reader to recall actual information that has just been read (Hill 2006, p. 193).
 * Interpretive - which asks the child to read between the lines of the text to answer a question (Hill 2006, p. 194) and
 * Inferential - which asks the reader to create a response beyond the text by making up a new ending or relating to their own experiences (Hill 2006, p. 194).

__//Identifying suitable texts//__ To choose a text that is suitable for a child's reading ability many schools have levelled texts. These are organised by the difficulty of the words, the amount of text compared to illustrations and the complexity of the story. (Hill 2006, p. 171). The readers are assessed and then grouped accordingly to their level of difficulty. There are a few different options to grouping texts and different schools have different processes. The following shows some of the process of identifying suitable texts.


 * [|PM readers] - PM readers are grouped according to colours. For ex[[image:brave_triceratops.JPG align="left"]]ample the book 'Brave Triceratops' is colour
 * coded as green and it is directed at a reading age of six at a reading level of 12. The colours vary for
 * different reading abilities and text types.

[|Choosing a 'good fit' book] - Choosing a 'good fit' book is another technique that can be used to find a suitable reading text. The child or teacher can use these techniques to see if the book is right for them. By opening a book to the middle page the child can look at the book and these use the 'IPICK' technique to see if the book checks the boxes and is a good match for their reading ability.

A similar technique is the '5 finger test'. The child opens the book to a page and attempts to read a page. If they come across one tricky word the book is too easy, if there are two difficult words the book is just fight. If they come across three or more difficult words the book will be a challenge to read and would be more suited to guided reading or a good attempt if the child wants to challenge themself.

ABC Reading Eggs - This is an interactive website that has online reading games and activities that teach reading skills through games, puzzles, songs and stories. It would be a great resource at school but also invaluable for learning at home with parents as it has rewards and charts the child's progress.

'﻿Teachers will get the best results if they know a lot about their children - their favourite football teams, favourite cartoon characters and songs, as these may be the very vehicle to make the link between spoken and written language' (Hill 2006, p. ix).