Teaching+Reading

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =Teaching Reading =

There are many different ways a teacher can approach how to teach early readers to read. The main teaching approaches are:


 * **Modeled reading -** Is where a teacher stand out the front and reads a story to the entire class.
 * **Shared reading -** Is a whole class instructional approach to reading, involving both the teacher and students.
 * **Guided reading -** Involves a teacher working with a group of 4 - 6 students who each have their own copy of a text. The students read independently, with the teacher moving from student to student to help and assess reading.
 * **Independent reading -** Is where the student reads by themself with no help from the teacher or peers.

In conjunction with the above teaching approaches, there are three main steps in a reading lesson, which consist of:


 * **Before** - The teacher introduces the book at length and may also introduce new words as to help the children increase their prior knowledge.
 * **During** - Prompts are used to help children comprehend the reading of a text, which they may otherwise have not been able to understand by themselves.
 * **After** - Activities and practice are planned to build on what they have just learnt.

Another effective step is the whole-small-whole teaching approach. This consists of an effective and well used practice in a literacy block to teach writing and reading. Whole class time at the beginning of the lesson, then small group work in the majority of time in the middle, that whole class share time at the end of the lesson. In reading, there are four main roles of a reader which consist of:
 * **The Code Breaker -** The code breaker uses the alphabetic principle and the known high frequency words to decode and read print.
 * **The Meaning Maker -** Meaning makers read to understand all the features of the book, such as pictures, illustrations, sentence structure and the printed words.
 * **The Text User -** The text user will determine what type of text is being read, then adjust their reading style to suit that text.
 * **The Text Critic -** The text critic evaluates the author's purpose, for example an advertisement is different to a scary novel. After evaluating the text they determine how the text makes them feel.

Not only must a reader be able to read a word, but they must comprehend and understand the meaning of not only the word but its realtion to the text. A child may be able to pick up and read a text far beyond the level of others, but it is the ability to read the words as well as understand what you read that gives the power of comprehension. Comprehension is the ability to understand the text, pictures and design of a text. There are many effective comprehension tools available to teachers to firstly assess students, and to help teach comprehension.

According to Gaskins (2003), there are five road blocks that need to be cleared before children can comprehend. These steps consists of:

Taken from (Hill, Susan, Developing Early Literacy, 2006, p. 192)
 * Building Involvement - Children need to actively construct meaning from text
 * Holding attention - Staying on task when reading
 * Being persistent - Help develop strategies to avoid children lacking persistence in reading difficult words and books.
 * Taking time to reflect - Activities after reading a text help develop comprehension in children
 * Being flexible- Being positive about making mistakes and having a go.