Reading Teaching Emphases

Reading – Teaching Emphases

At all levels  Foster children’s enjoyment of reading, encouraging them to explore a variety of texts and take risks with confidence  Read to students every day  Encourage students to respond critically to texts they have read  Model reading behaviours and strategies for students to emulate through shared reading  Encourage students to select their own boos to read independently every day  Encourage students to share experiences related to reading  Talk to students about their reading  Provide opportunities for students to write every day for different purposes and audiences

Level One  Print contains the message  Show that print is written left to right and top to bottom  Return sweep  Left page before right  Ensure that the child will be able to respond by showing understanding of text read to him/her or viewed by him/her  Distinguish between pictures, letters and words  Demonstrate that a written word is a unit of print wit a space either side  Teach one-to-one point with only pointer finger  Explain how to get ‘brain in gear’ Orient book  Match lower case with upper case and letters and match letters written in different fonts  Identify frequently used words in context (e.g. look, I, me, the)  Always insist that the child looks at the picture first before reading the text  Draw attention to relations between words and pictures  Talk about letters by name relating initial letters to the sounds they represent  Relate spoken to written words in context  Listen to and read with support (shared reading) texts featuring rhyme, rhythm and repetition  Introduce students to linguistic structures and features through shared reading, language experience and modelled writing

Level Two  Get the child to locate known and unknown words  Show how to link the story to own experiences  Show how to use initial sounds to help work out words and to check if they are right  Demonstrate use of context cues to construct meaning  Talk about words and letters in context, point out distinctive features  Use environmental print purposefully every day  Select reading material that is predictable, familiar and has natural repletion  Insist that the child keeps eyes on text with reading text

Level Three  Encourage the child to take responsibility for checking if word is right or wrong – based on initial sound, picture, meaning  Model reading strategies such as predicting words, using picture cues  Provide opportunities for children to retell stories  Use title, cover illustrations and knowledge of the text topic to predict meaning in texts

Level Four  Make sure cross checking of initial sound is automatic  Expect self correction attempt  Monitor for meaning – “Did that make sense? Look at the words a little more closely and have another go”  Teach how to use picture cues and knowledge of context to check understanding of meaning  Focus on meaning of story rather than reading word for word  Involve children in oral cloze activities focussing on words  Teach unknown word strategy:- o Look at the picture – think about the story o Read up to the word and say the first sound or part out loud and think (get your mouth ready)

Level Five & Six  Teach cross checking – it starts with the right sound, but check the picture to check if it’s ‘dot’ or ‘dog’  Check for final sounds – teach to search more than initial sound of the word quickly. Words may start the same but end differently e.g. ‘cat – car’  Talk about letters and words in context, pointing out distinctive features

Level Seven  Encourage to predict and check before saying  Teach monitoring of beginnings and endings and expect self correction if beginnings or ends don’t look right  Re-read if not sure if it sounds sensible and looks right – beginning, middles and ends. “Be more careful and fix it up”  Tell child to re-read to clarify meaning if slow stilted reading or long/hard work on a word  Teach quick decoding skills ‘c-at’  Use appropriate full stop voice  Discuss “…” (quotation marks) said  Develop fluency – insist they read books from 2 or 3 levels lower – fluently – eye tracking only  Model phrasing. Do shadow reading  Encourage quick return sweep with eyes

Level Eight  Begin to check middle sounds of words as well as beginning and ends  Teach child to say blends automatically e.g. beginning ‘tr’ ‘br’ end ‘l’ ‘nd’  Show how to look for known words hidden inside words – say the parts quickly  Teach how t attack compound words o Cover second word – read first o Cover first word – read second o Read both  Before, during and after reading promote discussion that goes beyond the literal level

Level Nine  Teach making and breaking words o Compound words o Rhyme o Onset and rim o Contractions  Expect self-correction with attention to beginnings, middles and ends.  Encourage child to retell major content from visual and printed text  Encourage eye tracking only

Level Ten & Eleven  Show children the link between words e.g. unknown word ‘right’ – know ‘night’ in another book – show the connection – “What must this be?”

Level Twelve & Thirteen  Insist on orientation with as little teacher/parent intervention as possible o Use title and front picture – what can I expect this book to be about? o Front cover picture ad all illustrations – what can I see and what’s happening? o Scan text for some information – structure/vocab/punctuation e.g. “…”  Read blurb if available

Level Fourteen  Teach consistent use of all 3 cues o Use pictures o Use prior knowledge o Use first part and known parts of word (work on whole words when necessary) o Use grammar  Teach how to break up words into syllables o Clap parts of spoken words o Look at written words – mark syllables – one vowel per syllable o Work on syllables e.g. as/on Aston – ish astonish – ment astonishment  Re-read after long hard word on a particular word to check that the word you have worked on fits well with the cues that have been used

Level Fifteen  Expect use f al strategies and ability to attack more complex vocab and smaller print  Reading may become very word by word and becomes very stilted as child focuses on decoding, so to improve this get the child to read known books to keep up fluency and improve expression  Work on phrasing, uncover – show a few words at once

Level 15+  Teach for automatic response to vowel sounds both short and long  Teach long vowel rules  Encourage the use of capitals, full stops, exclamation arks and quotation marks to make sense of the text  Teach appropriate punctuation voice for . ? !  Teach to try alternative vowel and sounds if first attempt doesn’t sound right and soft and hard ‘c’ and ‘g’  Insist on fluency on known books  Encourage the child to:- read like you talk & use appropriate character voices e.g. Wolf