Reading

1. Reading Anna Kristjana Egilsdóttir April 10 2006

2. History of reading • Normal reading was considered reading out loud, silent reading out of the ordinary • Ambrose’s silent reading is the first definite instance recorded in Western literature • Claudius Ptomely remarked that sometimes people read silently when they are concentrating hard, because voicing the word is a distraction to thought Alberto Manguel

3. How Children learn to read • A process that takes place from birth • An ability that enables other forms of learning to take place • It is a skill that can be extended almost infinitely Cedric Cullingford

4. How to help them start • By reading to/with them • Talking to them • Rhymes and word games • Introducing new vocabulary • Pictures

5. The process • Children learn to read from the moment they make sense of language • Reading brings together the abilities of visual and auditory discrimination that children explore from birth • The sense of meaning that language engenders

6. Teaching methods • In the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s two methods were used to teach reading • Phonics • Whole words Both teach children the relationship between sounds and letters

7. The difference between these methods are: • The phonic method centers on teaching through sets of phonic rules • “silent e” marks the long vowel in bite as distinct from the short vowel in bit • The whole word method centers on carefully prepared texts which would enable children to discover the relationship • Sentences like: “The fat cat sat on the mat” or “Nan can fan Dan.”

8. In the past fifteen years the two methods that have been used are: • Whole language • Offers a comprehensive philosophy for teaching • Phonics • Phonic rules • Whole language is also concerned with helping children to understand the relationship between sounds and letters, the difference lies in how this goal is to be achieved

9. Phonics • An ideal alphabet would assign one letter to each sound • 26 letters, but 44 sounds in the English language, dialect variations can extend this number William T. Stokes • A letter can have a large number of different sounds

10. Examples • The letter ‘a’ as in ‘all’ is a contrast to ‘a’ as in • ‘any’ • ‘want’ • ‘at’ • ‘calm’

11. The same sound can also be written in many different spellings, like the sound ‘i’ in child can be disguised in words like: • ‘aisle’ • ‘height’ • ‘lie’ • ‘sign’ • ‘island’ Cedric Cullingford

12. Conclusion • Learning to read can be difficult and confusing at times • Different methods help children to learn to read • Children are constantly learning to read; for example while listening to stories and seeing books