THE 5 MOST IMPORTANT BUILDING BLOCKS OF READING

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness - is the ability to HEAR the individual sound of each letter in a word and REPEAT that sound. For example, the word “cat” actually contains 3 letter sounds:

           c – hard c sound “kuh”

           a – short a sound “ah”

           t – the t sound “tuh”

 •Teaching children Phonemic Awareness is a little tricky because they learn about language naturally by listening to speech and words.

 • But hearing EACH SOUND in a word does not occur naturally because we do not speak in individual sounds. Our speech is made up of whole words. 

For example, no one says

“kuh-ah-tuh”

when they want to tell you about their pet. They will just say the word “cat.”

 • And to make things even more confusing, there are 26 letters in the English language, but there are 44 SOUNDS in the English language.

Why?

For two reasons:

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1. SOME LETTERS MAKE MORE THAN ONE SOUND.

For example, the "c" in the word cat has the hard sound “kuh,” but the "c" in the word city has a different soft “s” sound. The letter "g" also has a hard and soft sound. In addition, all the vowels (a, e, i, o, u) have a long and a short sound.

 

2. TWO OR THREE LETTERS CAN "TEAM UP" TO MAKE THEIR OWN UNIQUE SOUNDS.

For example: the letters "ch" makes the “cha” sound, as in chew. Or "ph" makes the “fuh” sound, as in phone. Also, "sch" makes the  “skuh” sound as in school.

 

So, for children to be successful readers, they have to learn the different sounds each letter or letter combination makes.

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Phonics

Phonics - is a method of teaching children how to read and write. It is the next step after they develop Phonemic Awareness (learning the sound each letter makes).

For example, in order to READ the words “cat” or “dog,” the child has to put each letter sound together:

“kuh-ah-tuh” = cat 

or 

“duh-aw-guh” = dog

 

 • This process of sounding out letters is called DECODING. It is a very important skill taught during the student's Phonics lesson.

 

 • The next step after students "decode" the word is for them to think of the meaning of the word. Usually a Phonics lesson will include a picture of the word. So the student says the word "cat" while looking at a picture of the word "cat." Eventually,  students can read the word "cat" and know what it means without the need for pictures.

 

 • Other lessons in Phonics include writing the alphabet (both uppercase and lowercase letters), adding SIGHT WORDS* to form sentences and practicing rhyming words (called WORD FAMILIES).

 

*SIGHT WORDS - are words that are very common in the English language.

Students should know at least 1,000 SIGHT WORDS by the 5th grade.

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Fluency

Fluency - is the ability to read smoothly and without hesitating. The child should only stop or pause at punctuation marks.

 

Students should be reading about 60 words per minute smoothly and correctly by the end of 1st grade, and 90-100 words per minute smoothly and correctly by the end of 2nd grade.

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Vocabulary

Vocabulary - is the student's knowledge of word definitions or meanings.

Having a large Vocabulary is necessary to reading comprehension.

Readers will not be able to understand what they are reading without knowing what the words mean.

Comprehension

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Comprehension - is the ability to understand what you are reading. The student will need to:

   (1) Quickly sound out words and read them smoothly.

   (2) Make connections between what they read and what they already know.

   (3) Think about what they are reading and be able to answer questions about the story.

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For more info on how to help your child become a successful reader

click here:

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READING TIPS FOR PARENTS AND GUARDIANS

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