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Reading instruction at this stage focuses on the pre reading skills that
are pre requisites to learning to read. These include the acquisition of oral
language skills, visual and auditory discrimination skills, and the
development of concepts. In other words, the child is getting ready to learn
to read.
This stage covers the years before the child comes to school and a part or all
his first year in school. With certain children, it extends beyond this.
The idea of reading readiness, however, does not seem to be
understood by many parents. In some instance, after a child has been in
school for a few months, a parent would often wonder why his child is not
performing in reading as well as the other children does. Usually, the teacher
is blamed for this. Few parents understand that so much depends on the
preparation of the child before he goes into formal reading instruction. Few
parents understand that they are part of this preparation and that the first
responsibilities of providing the child with pre reading experiences are theirs.
Many children meet anxiety, frustration, and failure early in their
school life because they are not prepared to profit from their initial reading
experiences. Of course, even years ago, teachers were always aware of the
differences in maturity and training among kindergarten and first grade
children coming into their classrooms. The question, however, was which
differences in children really made the difference between reading success
and reading failure. Through pre-service and in-service seminars,
workshops, conferences and graduate studies, teacher have increased their
knowledge on the teaching of reading. They have learned to use
sophisticated materials and evaluative techniques. In view of this, they have
become aware of the fact that to ensure reading success, the decision as to
when to begin formal reading instruction is of great importance. The reading
teacher knows that if he cannot predict reading success for a child under his
care based on what childs attitude, maturity, and prior training, he would
extend the pre reading period and he would work to strengthen the specific
areas of weakness he finds in this particular child. This pre reading stage
during which child is being prepared for his formal reading instruction is
termed reading readiness, which is defined as the the general stage of
developmental maturity and preparedness at which a child can learn to read
easily and proficiently in a regular classroom setting when exposed to good
teaching. This includes the whole child- his mental, emotional, social and
physical welfare. It likewise involves the specific skills directly involved with
reading act.
areas- listening, speaking, and writing. The reason for this is that reading is
one mode of expression of the language which affects and, in turn, is
affected by the three modes. Since proficiency in the four areas of
communication listening, speaking, and writing is the foundation of
learning proficiency in all the other disciplines, it is imperative that even at
the initial stage of formal reading instruction, the child is also taught how to
listen, speak and write properly.
The following are the skills in the four communication areas that are
supposed to be taught to and mastered by the child before he moves on to
the next step or stage of reading development.
Listening Skills
The listening skills are classified under four headings, namely, auditory
discrimination, listening comprehension, work study skills the instruction
which are given orally or which the children listen to, and literary
appreciation skills.
Speaking Skills
Children in the initial stage of formal reading instruction are taught in
speaking skills that will enable them to communicate orally what they hear
and what they read. They are, therefore, trained to produce sounds listened
to, talk about themselves, their family, and friends, talk about their toys,
pets, and games in about two or three sentences, make simple introductions,
describe objects at home and in school, talk about ones activities, in school
and at home, talk about community helpers and their occupations, talk about
their past and present activities, and have the ability to give simple
directions or instructions.
Reading Skills
In the initial stage of formal reading instruction, otherwise known as
the beginning reading stage, the children are taught the following reading
skills: word recognition, comprehension, oral reading skills, work-study skills
and literary appreciation skills.
Writing Skills
The writing skills taught to children at this initial stage of formal
reading instruction are as follows:
a. using upper and lower case letters in:
o
Writing ones full name
o
Writing ones grade, section and school
o
Copying correctly ones address and parents names
o
Writing correctly the days of the week and the months of the year
o
Writing the names of the school subjects and the material needed in
each subject
b. copying correctly words, phrases, and sentences learned, and names of
places, persons, streets, towns, cities, etc.
c. writing missing letters in a word
INTRINSIC FACTORS:
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence is defined as the innate capacity to learn. When it comes
to happiness and success in life, emotional intelligence (EQ) matters just as
much as intellectual ability (IQ). Emotional intelligence helps the learner to
build stronger their interest in reading books.
Highly gifted learners may also show an intense interest in numbers or
letters. These are often the children who start doing simple math or teach
themselves to read by the time they are three. However, a child who does
not read or do math early may still be gifted. Children who read or do math
early are almost certainly gifted, but not all gifted children do those things
early.
The higher the IQ of the child, the better the reading skills.
EMOTIONAL STABILITY
It refers to the state of being able to have the appropriate feelings
about the common experiences and being able to act in a rational manner.
Stability means to be emotionally and physically predictable and not readily
moved. People that are emotionally stable are able to tolerate the day to day
strains and stresses by not getting emotionally upset, anxious or angry.
Low emotionally stable learner may also be characterized as neurotic.
Neurotic learners have a tendency to easily become upset and experience
negative emotions while reading. learners who are experiencing low stability
can affects and decrease their interest in reading .
Some Symptoms of Emotional problems:
1.
Nervousness
2.
Anxiety
3.
Fearfulness
4.
Extreme shyness
5.
Unhappiness
6.
Daydreaming
7.
Mistrust
8.
Aggressiveness
2. Memory span- the extent of the ability to retain knowledge has been
found to have great effect on the reading ability of children. Tests show that
good readers are consistently higher than poor readers.
3. Physical condition- the physical condition of a children has a great
effect on their reading ability. The vision of the child as well as his hearing
and his general health condition contribute much to his best reading
performance. When his vision is normal, he can easily interpret the written
symbols. His hearing capabilities must be satisfactory in condition and his
overall body parts are working well.
Visual and Auditory Efficiency
Visual pertains to or achieved by sight while auditory refers to sound
detection hearing. Both of these senses are basic to success in reading.
Children learn to associate the sounds of familiar letters with the
corresponding written symbols. It is always necessary to hear clearly and to
see clearly in order to have normal reading. Children should distinguish the
sound of both the environment and the letters of the alphabet to attain
progress in reading.
EXTRINSIC
FACTORS
Environmental Factors
Studies made on reading performance show that environmental
conditions-situations to which the reader reacts and which responds to his
behavior- contribute to high progress or failure in reading skills. These
include:
Socio-economic status
Investigators in the field of sociological research have extensively
studied the socio economic status of the family in relation to reading
achievement. (Strang) wrote Hill and Guammatteo, Lovel and Woosey, and
harris found a higher reading backwardness in the lower socio economic
group. She also reports that Sutton Malmquist and Durkin found that reading
achievement was associated with high socio-economic level, that only two
out of forty-eight students from the blue collar class level were poor
readers, and that the parents of these students are engaged in the
professions.
The implication of the foregoing findings is that evaluation results of reading
performance should always be interpreted in the light conditions that may
influence it. Certain conditions may be interfering with the progress of the
reader, and these conditions should be taken into consideration in the
preparation of the program of instruction.
Mobility
Mobility is one environmental factor that is often overlooked by reading
teachers and investigators in the field of reading. This factor includes:
1.
Mobility of the Family- the transfer of family to one place or another.
2.
Change of teachers
3.
Change of teaching methods
4.
Social adjustment necessity by the school
All these are detrimental and, as much as possible, should be avoided.
If any one of these cannot be avoided, then adjustments or provisions should
be made in the program of instruction.
In some cases the effect of family mobility on the child is positive. A
child who is, either in elementary or high school, may find a new challenge in
the environment. Hence, he will do his best to excel in school. Studies that
prove this, however are rare.
Education and Attitudes of Parents
The influence of parents education and interest in reading and their
attitudes have been more clearly established as directly related to reading
progress or failure of their children. Strang (1968) mentions Malmquist study
found out that children, whose parents have acquired above the elementary
level, are better readers than those whose parents did not go beyond the
elementary level.
She also cites the studies made by Bell and Schaefer and MacDonald
which found marked differences in the attitudes of parents of unsuccessful
readers. Parents of successful readers were likely to suppress their childrens
curiosity and creativity. The parents of the unsuccessful readers were found
to be opposite. The studies further discovered that it is not the expressed
attitude of parents that is related to success, but in way in which children
perceive them.
Home Conditions
The home conditions that have been found related to reading achievement
are:
1.
General emotional atmosphere
2.
Number of books in the home
3.
The childs position in the family
4.
Interfamily relationships.
Several studies discovers that the child who learns to read early is
likely to have one or more brothers and sisters, or parents who read him and
who are interested in school. It has also been discovered that the child who
progresses fast in reading is one whose parents, brothers or sisters are
interested in his school performance and who guide him in his studies at
home. These family members likewise provide a home atmosphere that is
conducive to learning.
Skills that the reading require
Skills related to eye movement
Eye movement relates to the ability to move the eyes in a conventional
manner. That is for English, from left to right, back left and down from a line,
left to right again and so forth. This fact about eye movement appears to
suggest that a person reads by moving his eyes across the page in a steady
manner, identifying clusters of letters or words, then adding word to word to
form phrases, clauses and sentences which he can finally, decode meaning.
Citing ophthalmoscope studies Charles W. Kriedler of Georgetown University
that skilled readers see items move in irregular sweeps, pause momentarily
and sometimes move backward.
David Eskey of the University of California also notes that we use our eyes
to take in whole chunks it text in a series of short, jerky movements called
saccades, and even surprisingly, the better readers we are, the less we
actually see of the print on the page Kriedler agrees with Eskeys
observation the more skilled readers differ from the less skilled one in just
these particulars: the eyes move in bigger sweeps, the pauses are shorter,
and there is less regression.
Visual discrimination
Visual Discrimination involves the ability to perceive words accurately
by noting likenesses and differences in words.
There are several ways in which readers, especially beginning readers,
experience difficulty with the visual discrimination of words. They often do
not note likenesses and differences of vowels and consonants in words,
and/or display reversals, omissions and additions in their reading.
For example:
A student who does not note the difference between words like went
and want, ride and rode, horse and house, confused and confessed may be
one who experiences difficulty with vowel discrimination. A student, who
experiences difficulty with consonant discrimination may confuse words such
as then and when, would and could, ever and even, and presents and
prevents. Reversals are displayed, for example, by confusion of was and saw,
big and dig, spot and stop, conserve and conversed. Additions and omissions
are evident in such word discrimination as our versus your, ever versus
every, though versus through, and conversion versus conversation.
Beginning readers often misperceive words that are similar because
they have not yet internalized the differences in newly presented words.
While it should not be assumed that a beginning reader who reverses letters
or confuses similar words is learning disabled, if a student continues to
display a serious weakness in visual discrimination beyond a mid-first grade
level, diagnostic testing is advisable.
It is important to note, also, that sometimes it is assumed that
students who reverse words, reading was for saw, or saw for was, actually
see the words in reverse. Instead, it is the way they perceive words that
causes this difficulty.
Upon careful examination of students with this
deficiency, it has been determined that students with visual discrimination
problems involving reversals experience difficulty with left-right directionality.
Sometimes they view the word with a right-left eye-movement, instead of a
left-right eye-movement. Thus, they will read was as saw or saw as was.
Training students to move their eyes consistently from left to right in the
reading of words is an essential part of vision training.
The most common cause for visual discrimination problems, lies in the
fact that students with visual discrimination problems do not focus on the
individual letters of the word and/or note likenesses and, in particular,
differences in words. These students often, for example, read words such as
when as then, and then as when because they do not focus on the initial
letter of the word and/or think about its initial letter sound. Parents and
educators need to point out the differences in these words to students and to
work toward establishing an internalized understanding of them.
ESSENTIAL ABILITIES
Reported by|: Alyanna Grace Garcia, Carlyn Miranda, Frances Datuin,
Pamela Denice Perez, Rosalia Cunanan, & Jazaine Sison
Factors Affecting Oral Language Development
Exposure to print Children in a print-rich environment benefit from
early exposure to reading and print concepts such as familiarity with letters
and sounds, as well as exposure to the conventions of printed words.
format: Stories typically have a beginning, middle and end. They describe
the main characters and the setting in which they live, the conflict and the
resolution. An understanding of story structure is essential in order to read,
understand and write narrative. In contrast, consider the structure of
expository, or informational text. These forms of writing also follow certain
structures, such as: persuasive, cause and effect, compare and contrast,
procedural. It is critically important that students understand these
structures through listening comprehension before they even begin to focus
on reading comprehension. They first need to be able to understand and tell
stories in those formats, before they can begin to write those kinds of stories.
Strategies and Activities to Nurture Oral Language Skills
Brainstorming
Pantomime
Choral Speaking
Storytelling
Phonological Awareness
In recent years, many researchers have explored the relationship
between phonological awareness and success with reading and spelling.
Phonological awareness is the area of oral language that relates to the ability
to think about the sounds in a word (the words phonological structure)
rather than just the meaning of the word. It is an understanding of the
structure of spoken language- that is made up of words, and words consist of
syllables, rhymes and sounds. Fitzpatrick summarizes it best by saying the
phonological awareness is the ability to listen inside a word.
Children who have well-developed phonological awareness when they
come to school have a head start making sense of how sounds and letters
operate in print. This ability is important for using sound-letter knowledge
effectively in reading and writing. In fact, a students level of phonological
awareness at the end of kindergarten is one of the strongest predictors of
future reading success, in grade one and beyond. More than 20 percent of
students struggle with some aspects of phonological awareness, while 8-10
percent exhibit significant delays. Early intervention is crucial and can make
a real difference to students with limited levels of phonological awareness.
The Role of Phonological Awareness
There are different levels of phonological awareness: words, syllables,
onsets and rimes, and phonemes. Recognizing this has important
Fluency
This is the ability to read a text accurately, smoothly, quickly and with
expression. The following activities can improve fluency:
A. Reading with a model teacher.
B. Choral Reading.
C. Tape assisted reading.
D. Readers Theater.
E. Partner Reading.
Vocabulary
Types of vocabulary
Reading vocabulary
Listening vocabulary
Speaking vocabulary
Writing vocabulary
Students
Students
Students
Students
Decoding
Phonemic awareness
Spelling
Vocabulary
Fluency
Thinking
Comprehension
Constructing meaning
Metacognition
The skills on the left are those skills essential to mastering the code and are
considered the basics of beginning reading instruction. The skills listed on
the right point to comprehension as a separate aspect of reading that
requires the same amount of direct instruction and teaching time as the
decoding skills. Once thought of as a natural result of decoding plus the oral
language, comprehension is now viewed as a much more complex process
involving knowledge, experience, thinking and teaching.
COMPREHENSION
- Is a process of constructing meaning from written text, a complex skill
requiring coordination of several kinds of inter-related information
- Is the result of an interaction between the text and the reader
Comprehension is the understanding and interpretation of what is read. To
be able to accurately understand written material, children need to be able
to (1) decode what they read; (2) make connections between what they read
and what they already know; and (3) think deeply about what they have
read. One big part of comprehension is having a sufficient vocabulary, or
knowing the meanings of enough words.
Readers who have strong comprehension are able to draw conclusions
about what they read what is important, what is a fact, what caused an
event to happen, which characters are funny. Thus comprehension involves
combining reading with thinking and reasoning.
The notion of something happening while we read is the essence of
comprehension. The something happening is the interactive construction
of meaning inside our heads, which creates understanding. Sadly, the
something happening does not naturally occur inside all readers and so
there is a felt need to teach them how to use their experience and their
knowledge to make sense of what they are reading.
Profile of Proficient Reader
What makes a child a better reader than all the other children? In a
study of proficient readers, David Pearson was able to determine several
common strategies used by proficient readers that enabled them to make
sense of the text. A condensed version of this research is what is described
as the profile of a proficient reader
A good reader is metacognitive aware of and able to use and articulate
the following strategies in order to interact with the text and enhanced
meaning.
1. Make connections. A good reader is able to draw from background
knowledge and personal experiences while reading to help create
meaning from the text.
2. Ask questions. A good reader asks both literal and inferential questions
before, during and after reading to clarify meaning and deepen
understanding.