"Reading is the most

important skill for

success in school and
society."
– Susan L. Hall and Louisa
C. Moats, Straight Talk
About Reading
Readin
g

Progra
What is a Reading Program?

 the tools needed to prepare the child to become

an independent reader.
 Research shows that young children who attend
language enrichment experiences beyond
regular school will advance beyond their peers,
and stay ahead through their entire schooling
(Hirsh-Pasek & Galinkoff pp 101-102).
As children learn to read, they learn how
spoken and written language relate to each
other. For this to happen, the components of
the reading program, including the
instructional materials selected for classroom
use, must relate to one another and be
orchestrated into sequences of instruction
that engage all children and meet their
needs.
Essential
Components of
Reading
 1. Children have opportunities to
expand their use and appreciation of
oralarelanguage
Language experiences a central component of good reading
instruction. Kindergarten and first-grade language instruction that
focuses on listening, speaking, and understanding includes the
following:
 Discussions that focus on a variety of topics, including
problem solving
 Activities that help children understand the world, in and
out of the classroom
 Songs, chants, and poems that are fun to sing and say
 Concept development and vocabulary-building lessons
 Games and other activities that involve talking, listening
and, in particular, following directions
 2. Children have opportunities to
expand their use and appreciation of
printed
 Activities that help children language
to understand that print
represents spoken language
 Activities that highlight the meanings, uses, and production
of print found in classroom signs, labels, notes, posters,
calendars, and directions
 Activities that teach print conventions, such as
directionality
 Activities in which children practice how to handle a book-
how to turn pages, how to find the tops and bottoms of
pages, and how to tell the front and back covers
 Lessons in word awareness that help children become
conscious of individual words, for example, their
boundaries, their appearance and their length
 Activities in which children practice with predictable and
patterned language stories
3. Children have opportunities to hear
good stories and informational books
read aloud daily

Listening to and talking about books on a regular basis

provides children with demonstrations of the benefits and
pleasures of reading. They also hear the kinds of vocabulary,
sentences, and text structures they will find in their school books
and be expected to read and understand. Reading aloud to
children every day, and talking about books and stories, supports
and extends oral language development and helps students
connect oral to written language.
 4. Children have opportunities to
understand and manipulate the
building blocks of spoken language
Children's ability to think about individual words as a sequence
of sounds (phonemes) is important to their learning how to read
an alphabetic language. Instruction that promotes children's
understanding and use of the building blocks of spoken
language includes the following:
 Language games that teach children to identify rhyming
words and to create rhymes on their own
 Activities that help children understand that spoken
sentences are made up of groups of separate words, that
words are made up of syllables, and that words can be broken
down into separate sounds
 Auditory activities in which children manipulate the sounds of
 5. Children have opportunities to learn
about and manipulate the building
blocks of written language
Children must also become expert users of the building
blocks of written language. Knowledge of letters
(graphonemes) leads to success with learning to read.
Instruction that helps children learn about the essential
building blocks of written language includes the following:
 Alphabetic knowledge activities in which children learn the
names of letters and learn to identify them rapidly and
accurately
 A variety of writing activities in which children learn to print
the letters that they are learning to identify
 Writing activities in which children have the opportunity to
experiment with and manipulate letters to make words and
 6. Children have opportunities to learn the
relationship between the sounds of spoken
language and the letters of written language

Increasing children's awareness of the sounds of spoken language

and their familiarity with the letters of written language prepares them to
understand the alphabetic principle-that written words are composed of
patterns of letters that represent the sounds of spoken words. Instruction
that helps children understand the alphabetic principle and learn the
most common relationships between sounds and letters includes the
following:
 Alphabetic awareness activities in which children learn that printed
words are made up of patterns of letters
 Lessons in sound-letter relationships that are organized systematically
and that provide as much practice and review as is needed
 Activities in which children combine and manipulate letters to change
words and spelling patterns
7. Children have opportunities to learn
decoding strategies
Efficient decoding strategies permit readers to quickly and automatically
translate the letters or spelling patterns of written words into speech
sounds so that they can identify words and gain rapid access to their
meanings.
Effective decoding instruction is explicit and systematic and can include
the following:
 Practice in decoding and identifying words that contain the letter-
sound relationships children are learning to read and need for reading
and writing
 Practice activities that involve word families and rhyming patterns
 Practice activities that involve blending together the components of
sounded-out words
 "Word play" activities in which children change beginning, middle, or
ending letters of related words, thus changing the words they decode
 8. Children have opportunities to write
and relate their writing to spelling and
reading
Increasing children's awareness of spelling patterns hastens
their progress in both reading and writing
Activities for effective spelling instruction should include the
following:
 Activities that are related to the words that children are
reading and writing
 Proofreading activities
 An emphasis on pride in correct spelling
 Lessons that help children attend to spelling conventions in a
systematic way
 Activities that surround children in words and make reading
and writing purpose-filled
 9. Children have opportunities to
practice accurate and fluent reading in
decodable stories

The words in decodable stories do emphasize the

sound-letter relationships the children are learning.
While many predictable and patterned books provide
children with engaging language and print experiences,
these books may not be based on the sound-letter
relationships the children are learning.
10. Children have opportunities to read
and comprehend a wide assortment of
books and other texts
They learn to use word order (syntax) and context to
interpret words and understand their meanings. Providing
children with a great many books, both narrative and
informational, is of primary importance.
 Classrooms that ensure wide reading provide the
following:
 Daily time for self-selected reading
 Access to books children want to read in their
classrooms and school libraries
 Access to books that can be taken home to be read
independently or to family members
 11. Children have opportunities to develop
and comprehend new vocabulary through
wide reading and direct vocabulary
instruction
Written language places greater demands on children's vocabulary
knowledge than does their everyday spoken language.
Therefore, it is important that teachers read aloud to children and
encourage them to do a great deal of voluntary and independent
reading. In addition, during reading instruction, children should be
encouraged to attend to the meanings of new words. Activities that
promote the acquisition of vocabulary include the following:
 Wide reading of a variety of genres, both narrative and informational
 Instruction that provides explicit information both about the meanings
of words and about how they are used in the stories the children are
reading
 Activities that involve children in analyzing context to
figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words in a reading
passage
 Discussions of new words that occur during the course of
the day, for example in books that have been read aloud
by the teacher, in content area studies and in textbooks
 Activities that encourage children both to use words they
are learning in their own writing, and to keep records of
interesting and related words
 12. Children have opportunities to learn and
apply comprehension strategies as they
reflect upon and think critically about what
they read
Written language is not just speech written down. Instead, written language offers
new vocabulary, new language patterns, new thoughts, and new ways of thinking.
Comprehension also depends upon the understanding of word meanings, on the
development of meaningful ideas from groups of words (phrases, clauses, and sentences)
and the drawing of inferences.
Comprehension strategy instruction can include the following:
 Activities that help children learn to preview selections, anticipate content, and make
connections between what they will read and what they already know
 Instruction that provides options when understanding breaks down (for example,
rereading, asking for expert help, and looking up words)
 Guidance in helping children compare characters, events, and themes of different stories
 Activities that encourage discussion about what is being read and how ideas can be
linked (for example, to draw conclusions and make predictions)
 Activities that help children extend their reading experiences though the reading of
more difficult texts with the teacher