What is Reading?
Reading is the process of interpreting and understanding a written text consisting of written words or symbols that help make sense of what is being read.
Learning to read is actually quite a complex task as it involves many steps that need to be acquired before the task can be mastered. It is arguably a continuous process of mastery.
The 4 general stages include:
Pre-reading: this is the stage where a child masters certain skills that will eventually help them engage with reading materials. These skills include the ability to understand what letters are, how they make up sounds, and that the fundamentals of reading are made up of an understanding that letters form words and words form sentences.
Phonics: this stage includes refining the above process of knowing which letters are associated with particular sounds. They then take this sound knowledge and form words.
Sight word development: this stage is only possible with a confident base of phonics. There are certain words that don’t follow that regular phonetic rules and therefore they learn to recognise which of those words are the exception.
Fluency: now that a child can identify words, sound out unfamiliar ones and have an understanding that reading is made up of letters that make words and how words make sentences, they can now focus on practicing these skills to help develop their fluent ability. The more fluent a reader is, the more confident they are to engage in texts that they might not generally choose to read. They are also now better equipped to tackle more complex texts. Additionally, through this process, they are building their vocabulary bank.
Throughout all these stages, the idea of comprehension should be continuously brought in so that children are able to marry words with context. They are more likely to remember the word ‘cat’ if they have seen or touched a cat. Comprehension is vital in reading as we read to understand. If those comprehension skills are lacking, then even the strongest of readers won’t truly understand what they are reading which makes the entire process pretty redundant.
There are obviously many, many different approaches that can be taken when teaching reading. However, all approaches boil down to the solid understanding that there is a relationship between letters, sounds and how together they make up a written language.
The more exposure you provide to this written language, the more you are helping your child develop this skill.
How can you do this?
Read aloud to your child
Let them flip through books
Ask them questions about pictures they have seen or sentences they have spoken
Come and join us for a sensory storytelling class
But ultimately, help them develop a love for reading. This is not just by giving them books or forcing them to read. After all, it’s the things we love that we want to then invest the most time into.
