Learning to Read
The act of reading is a complex process. Whereas adults learning to read or improve their reading skills have different needs than children learning to read, it is still useful to look at components of the reading process as described by the National Reading Panel (National Reading Panel, 2000).
Five Big Ideas
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Phonemic Awareness | Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made up of smaller parts called phonemes. Readers with fully-developed phonemic awareness can articulate the separate phonemes in a word, blend phonemes together to make a word, and manipulate phonemes to create new words. |
| Alphabetic Principle (Phonics) | Phonics involves the understanding of the relationship between phonemes (the small units of language sounds) and printed letters. Knowing the relationship between these two is very important for reading and spelling. Phonics involves both an understanding of alphabetics (words are composed of letters that represent sounds) and the ability to use this understanding to blend sounds into words and decode unfamiliar words into sounds and then blend them again. |
| Fluency | Fluency means being able to read quickly and smoothly. Fluency, though, is more than “speed reading”. It also involves knowing the words, knowing what the words mean, and properly expressing certain words, such as putting the right feeling, emotion, or emphasis on a word or phrase in text. |
| Vocabulary | Vocabulary is the mental “bank” of words that a reader can recognize and understand (receptive vocabulary) and use (expressive vocabulary). In order for readers to understand a given text, most of the words used in the text need to be part of their vocabulary, or the reader must be able to infer their meanings through contextual analysis. Readers develop their vocabularies by receiving direct instruction and also encountering new words in books, conversation, and media. |
| Comprehension | Is the complex cognitive process involving the intentional interaction between the reader and the text to extract meaning. It is the essence of reading. |
Now that we’ve discussed the complexity of the reading process, it is easier to understand that there are many reasons why a person may struggle to learn how to read.
Some of the causes of our Learners’ difficulties may include:
- weak reading instruction in the early grades
- high transiency → fragmented education
- learning or intellectual disability
- difficulty processing the sounds of the English language → low phonemic awareness
- limited vocabulary
- limited exposure to spoken standard English
Oftentimes, a Learner is faced with a combination of these factors, making reading even more of a challenge. Given the multiple combinations of factors, educators generally agree that no one approach to teaching reading works for all. Thus, an important aspect of tutoring is to assess the nature of a Learner’s reading difficulty.
Turning Pages uses a basic assessment process comprised of initial diagnostic assessment (i.e., determining a Learner’s specific strengths and needs) and ongoing progress-monitoring (checking periodically to determine the Learner’s degree of improvement).