Chapter 5 - Reading In The Primary Grades

Readiness | Launched | Phonics? | Word-Skills | Meaning | Oral Reading | Plenty Of Books | Humps | Reinforcement | Teaching | Summary | Q + A

Just as the preschool years are a prelude to a successful beginning in reading, so success in the primary grades builds a firm foundation for effective reading in years to come.

Starting with a desire to read and the ability to differentiate objects by observing their distinctive details, the child learns to recognize a number of words at sight. By the end of the third grade he should be able to identify instantly the basic Dolch vocabulary x of 220 words, which make up at least 50 per cent of the running words in his elementary school books. He will know other words, too, whose meaning he does not have to stop and puzzle out.

Having acquired an ample speaking vocabulary of meaningful words, the ability to identify sounds in words, and a knowledge of letter names, the child is in a position to begin mastering word-recognition skills. He first thinks what the word might mean in the sentence. Then he uses his stock of sound-letter associations and his knowledge of familiar syllables and other structural word parts to arrive at its pronunciation and, possibly, its meaning. Thus he becomes an independent reader, able to enjoy the many stories and other books appropriate for children of his age and reading ability.

Parents should not be disappointed if their child does not come home with a book the first day of school. Most children need pre-reading experiences before they are ready to read.

Having heard or read about the importance of phonics, many parents want to be sure their child is being taught by this magic method. We shall therefore go to some lengths to put phonics in its place, as one of several important word-recognition skills, each of which plays its part in the total reading program.

To counteract the tendency to think of reading as word calling —mere ability to pronounce printed words—reading should be presented from the beginning as a thought-getting process. Parents can help reinforce the teacher's accent on meaning.

Since reading is such an important tool of learning, parents become concerned when their child does not make the progress they expect. What can they do to help? First, they need to know what progress to expect from a particular child. No two children are exactly alike. Second, they should treat the child as a child—their loved and loving child—not as a reading problem. Third, they should confer with the teacher about specific ways in which they can help.

Readiness For Reading

You have probably heard teachers mention lack of "readiness" in explaining why a child was not reading a first-grade book as soon as he started school. The following excerpts from a parent-teacher interview illustrate the dissatisfaction that many parents feel with the readiness program in the beginning of the first grade.

Parent: As a teacher myself, I just wanted to tell you I feel Paul has been given enough word and picture games and that he is ready for reading and writing.

Teacher: I'm so glad you came in. I wish more parents would be interested in talking over their child's readiness for reading.

Parent: That's just the trouble. My husband and I are tired of hearing about readiness for reading. We want Paul to begin to read. All the children seem to do in school is play. We are concerned about Paul. According to tests he's a bright boy. He wants to learn to read and we think he should begin learning to read.

Teacher: Many children need to get used to the change from home to school. They need to settle down a bit before beginning instruction in reading. I also need some time to observe which children seem ready to read and which need more of the prereading games that prepare them for successful reading. My impression of Paul thus far agrees with yours, and I am planning to put him in the group who will begin systematic instruction in reading.

As a matter of fact, Paul did not need any more of the prereading experiences that are so important to prevent initial failure. Bright children learn to read quickly and better without going through the readiness exercises that are needed by children who have been less fortunate in their preschool experiences and are less mature mentally.

To ascertain which children need the readiness experiences and which do not, teachers often give a reading readiness test,2 near the beginning of the first grade. Sometimes, instead of testing, they systematically observe signs of readiness such as the following:

Readiness to learn: Ability to sit still long enough to learn to pay attention and listen, to resist being distracted or bothered by the other children.

Desire to learn to read: Most children come to school eager to learn to read. This desire can be fostered during the preschool years; it is basic to all further reading development.

Personal characteristics: Curiosity about signs and words, self-confidence, outgoingness, cooperation, independence, resourcefulness in finding work to do.

Physical readiness: Normal vision and hearing, good health and freedom from cumulative fatigue and illness, good motor coordination—hands and eyes work together in bouncing a ball, and so on.

Mental maturity: Ability to follow several simple directions, use words appropriately, see relationships, remember a short poem, tell story in sequence, and predict what may happen next.

Language readiness: Ability to speak clearly in sentences; to understand relationship words such as up and down, big and little; to correct errors in speech when they are pointed out.

Auditory and visual discrimination: Ability to distinguish differences in sounds and forms; to interpret pictures.

Prereading skills: Ability to supply a missing word in a sentence if it is suggested by the context; to recognize words beginning with the same sound; to say and recognize the names of the letters; to start associating each letter with its sound in words; to look at a line of print from left to right.

When the teacher has obtained and tabulated information of this kind about every child, she can see which experiences each one needs in order to be ready for systematic instruction in reading. Those who have high instruction-readiness scores can begin basal reading instruction. Those who are below par in oral speech, in ability to fill in the missing words at the ends of sentences, to recognize similar sounds in words, and in knowledge of the names of letters should be given these prereading experiences. Then they will be much more likely to succeed in their first attempts to read.

It would be helpful if every parent could talk with the first-grade teacher several weeks after school has begun. By then the teacher would know what experiences each child needs to give him the best chance for success in beginning reading.

Perhaps the teacher has noted some signs of difficulty in hearing or seeing. If these signs are confirmed by the school nurse or doctor, a more thorough examination is indicated. In fact, every child should have an eye examination by a specialist before he starts school.

Parents, too, can note signs of faulty hearing: Does the child pay no attention when his head is turned away from the speaker? Does he speak in an unnatural tone of voice? Does he mispronounce many words? Scarlet fever, as well as frequent colds and earaches, may impair a child's hearing.

You can foster the child's desire to read by continuing to read him stories and poems that he thoroughly enjoys. When time is limited and he wants more, you can say, "Soon you will learn to read stories yourself, when Mother is busy." Introduce him to the joys of the library. There he may browse among books and wonder what the people in the pictures are saying and what is happening in those enchanted lands.

When you are cooking, give him opportunities to bring you the flour or the sugar in its labeled can. When you are driving, ask him to read the road signs—Go, Stop, Slow, Curve—for you. Write simple messages on his blackboard or bulletin board, not for him to read, but to arouse his curiosity and make him feel a need for reading.

When the child is engaging in some activity, you can talk about it: "How nicely you are stringing those beads!" "It's time to put the toy engine in your toy box." "Alice wants another ride in your automobile." In this way the child associates the clearly spoken word with the object or action that is of immediate interest to him. This is a natural way to build a meaningful vocabulary.

When we are hurried and worried about many things, we cannot always reward the child by showing our interest or giving him a smile when he displays the characteristics that we want him to develop. But our interest is most important. Instead of being annoyed by his questions, we should commend his curiosity even though we cannot satisfy it. When he has taken initiative or shown resourcefulness, it does take thought, but very little time, to smile and say, "You did that all by yourself," or, "You found something interesting to do without my telling you." Children will repeat behavior that is approved by the persons they love.

If a child, for any of a number of reasons, is slow in his language development, the home can do more than the school to build his vocabulary and ability to communicate. Listening and speaking are both involved. We can give him directions to carry out: "Billy, please bring me my hat, my gloves, and my pocketbook." After reading him a story that he wanted to hear, encourage him to talk about it, or make another ending, or tell a story of his own. Let him play "waiter"—let him take your order and repeat it when he comes back: "Here is your chicken soup," "Did you enjoy the baked potato?" "Was ice cream the dessert you ordered?"

A toy telephone is an excellent means of encouraging correct and fluent speech. If the child mumbles, say, "Sorry, you'll have to speak more clearly. This is a very poor connection." Playing "radio announcer" also gives him an incentive to improve his oral speech.

Playing with children who speak clearly is even more effective. The other children will not try to understand the child who mumbles or talks incoherently. Consequently, they will not do what he wants. Often they will refuse to play with him.

One child had a mother who was overprotective and always gave the child what she imagined he was asking for. This child would rush up to other children and shout something they couldn't possibly comprehend. Soon they began to avoid him. The teacher was able to help this child in two ways: through the regular prereading exercises in recognizing similar and different sounds in words, and by acting out playground situations with him. For example, she would play his role and he would play the role of another child. Then they would reverse roles and he would try a better approach. This role playing improved both his speech and his social adjustment.

We have described games that develop ability to recognize similar beginning sounds and concluding sounds in spoken words. Others may be played on auto trips, or at other times when there doesn't seem to be anything interesting to talk about. "I packed my trunk" with things that begin with a particular consonant sound or blend, like ball or dress. Or, "I went to the supermarket to buy..." innumerable articles that have the same beginning sounds. As he looks at magazines with you, the child will enjoy finding objects that end alike, such as boy and toy, or that begin alike, such as cake and cup. You may help him to select, cut out, and paste in a book ten or more picture cards for each initial consonant sound, to give him practice in recognizing these sounds in spoken words.

To encourage the child to think as well as to distinguish differences in words that begin alike, you can make pairs of words:

chickens                                   children
puppy                                       puddle

Then ask him: Which have wings—chickens or children? Which is an animal—puppy or puddle?

These special games and devices are not offered as substitutes for all the natural, spontaneous ways in which children in a family or a play group develop interest in reading, ability to speak effectively, and ability to discriminate among the things they see and the words they hear. The special games may be used if the teacher or parent thinks the child needs more experience along a certain line.

Readiness for reading is a complex state involving many factors. Some are part of the process of growing up and are little influenced by teaching. We have often referred to differences in rate of learning. Other factors have to do with distinct abilities that may be taught. Still others are a by-product of the child's experiences from early years. We have given special emphasis to conditions in the child's environment because those are the factors over which we have the most control.

Launched Into Reading

If your child does not need prereading experiences, or has had a sufficient number of them, the teacher will begin basal reading instruction. During this period it is wise to let the teacher give the instruction in reading. The parents' role is to learn as much as possible, through visits to the classroom, occasional talks with the teacher, or parent meetings in which the reading program and procedures are explained and described. The teacher will suggest many ways in which parents can cooperate. Here are some of the most helpful:

Share the child's enthusiasm over his first successes in recognizing new words and reading a few pages of the primer. There is a magic in getting meaning from those hitherto meaningless marks in books.

Whenever opportunity offers, help him confirm the habit of starting at the left and moving from left to right across the page.

Confirm his impression that printed words are talk—they tell you what the characters are saying and doing. They always have meaning. By giving him printed directions to follow, some of which lead to a pleasant surprise, you can strengthen his impression that printed words have meaning for him. For example, he may read: "Look on the table. Find the surprise there for you." A piece of candy or a little toy rewards his successful comprehension of the direction. Similarly, simple notices on the family bulletin board encourage the child to read for meaning.

If possible, become acquainted with the word-recognition skills that the teacher is helping the child to learn. Instead of telling him the unfamiliar words, let him practice his newly acquired skills. When he reads you a story, reward him by saying, "Fine, you puzzled that word out all by yourself; you didn't need anyone to help you." That is the kind of praise he likes; he wants to feel as competent and as grown up as a first-grade child can be.

When he wants to read to you, give him your full attention. Even though you cannot muster much enthusiasm for the preprimer stories, he will know that your interest in his progress is genuine.

Be judicious in your praise. Show pleasure and approval at each real evidence of the child's progress. But do not praise indiscriminately. To praise him when his performance shows indifference or lack of effort would tend to reinforce bad tendencies such as word calling or monotonous word-by-word reading. When he makes the lines sound as if he were saying them, as though he were talking to you rather than reading to you, then is the time to say, "That's fine." Undeserved praise tends to lower the child's level of aspiration. Praise decreases in value when it is given too lavishly. If the child prizes your approval, because he knows he has to deserve it, then you can spur him to do his best by occasionally withholding it.

Praise should also be specific. Instead of saying vaguely, "Good," or "All right," point out exactly what he did especially well. Then he will be more likely to do the same thing next time. In this way, too, you will be focusing his attention more on what he is reading than on your response to his performance. This will teach him to set his own standards of performance and take pride in living up to them, and thus prevent him from becoming too dependent on the approval of others.

Criticism should be used sparingly, if at all. Thinking back over their early experiences, some adolescents recall the unfavorable effects of criticism:

"When I read to my parents I would get very nervous because I was afraid I would make a mistake, so being afraid, I made the mistakes. They would say I 'should try harder' or 'you're reading too fast.' This would bother me so I began to dislike reading."

Criticism should also be specific. Vague criticism gives the child no indication of how he may cope with his difficulty, no real help in learning to read better. If your child has reading difficulties, be careful not to discuss them with friends or with other members of the family; these things are almost certain to get around—and to be repeated to the child. Even the most casual comment may make the child feel that you are disappointed in him.

Be patient. It is much easier to rush in and do something about a difficulty than to be sensitive to the child's needs. We can get some clues about this delicate matter from adolescents' recollections of their early reading experiences (see Chapter Two). Some express appreciation of their parents' help. Some youngsters wish that then-parents had used another method. Others feel that their parents were not very sensitive to their feelings and moods:

Sometimes my parents would make me read when I just didn't feel in the mood for reading. I wish they hadn't done this.

What About Phonics?

Some Facts About Phonics | Values And Dangers Of Phonics | Difficulties And Problems | When Should Phonics Be Taught? | How Is Phonics Taught?

Parents have an amazing interest in phonics. This is a word to conjure with. Neglect of phonics has been alleged to be the cause of children's failure in reading; it has been associated with "progressive education," and even with communism. Phonics, some parents think, is the method by which reading was taught in the "good old days" when they and their contemporaries learned to read. They think that the "look-and-say" method is the only one being used in today's teaching of reading—with such dire results. These points of view, as we have shown in Chapter One, are quite erroneous. They need to be corrected.

Many people do not even have a clear idea of what phonics is or how it is different from phonetics. Phonetics is the science of speech sounds. It uses a technical alphabet of its own, quite different from our alphabet. Phonics is simplified phonetics; used in teaching reading and spelling. It consists essentially of associating sounds with letters in words. The process of sounding out a word helps the child to pronounce it. If he pronounces the word correctly, and if it is in his speaking vocabulary, then he gets the meaning—the sound of the word recalls the meaning. By sounding t he gets a clue to the word tell. By sounding thi, which is familiar to him in the word this, he has a good start on the pronunciation of thing, think, thick.

Letters may also be grouped into syllables, prefixes, suffixes, and roots. If the reader recognizes these larger groupings, he can get the meaning of the word without pronouncing each letter sound separately.

Teaching speech sounds is complicated; it should be done only by persons who have specific training for it. Otherwise, for many children reading will become, in William James's words, "a great big bloomin' buzzing confusion."

If the child is taught the sounds of separate letters, he will have to unlearn the sound of do which he learned in good when he meets the same letters in noon or tooth. He will be confused when the sound he has learned as long I is heard in words spelled quite differently, such as eye, high, buy, cried, aisle. The best way to avoid this confusion is to teach the child how to recognize unfamiliar words as they occur, in his reading. This approach gives the child an immediate motive for learning word-recognition skills; he can check his results by asking whether the meaning he has derived makes sense in the context, or by looking it up in the dictionary. Thus his attention is focused on meaning.

Some Facts About Phonics

The facts about phonics can be clearly and briefly stated: 1. Phonics should be an intrinsic part, but only a part, of the reading program. Neither the look-and-say method nor the phonic method is wrong; each is incomplete without the other. Some bright children learn to read without any special instruction in phonics, and it is obvious that sound-letter associations cannot be taught to deaf and mute children who have not learned to speak. However, any child who cannot sound out new words or get their meaning by using other word-recognition skills is greatly handicapped in becoming an independent reader.

2. Phonics is only one aid to word recognition. Other aids include: getting the meaning from the context; recognizing prefixes, suffixes, roots, and other familiar parts of compound words; dividing a word into syllables; and looking it up in the dictionary. Phonics is to some extent used in conjunction with these other aids to word recognition; it should not be taught in isolation.

3. Before he begins to be instructed in phonics, it is probably desirable that the child have: a genuine interest in learning to read as a thought-getting process, a small stock of words that he can recognize at sight, ability to distinguish differences and similarities in the sounds of words, and knowledge of the names of the letters. Systematic instruction in phonics is usually introduced in the second half of the first grade; it continues to be taught throughout the grades as long as there is a need for it. It is most valuable in the second and third grades. However, the time for beginning phonic instruction will vary with individual children.

4. Instruction in phonics should be analytic rather than synthetic: that is, it should deduce sound-letter associations from familiar words rather than start with letter sounds and build words from them.

5. Instruction in phonics is best given when the child is engaged in reading, and needs to know the meaning of an unfamiliar word in order to understand the story. The child should gradually arrive at generalizations about the sounds of letters in words. This approach differs from the common practice of teaching lists of words that begin with the same letter sounds; it is more like the way the child learned to talk.
6. Before trying to associate sounds with letters in words, the child should know by sight a number of words whose meaning is familiar to him. Different authorities place this number at anywhere from 50 to 500.

7. It is also generally agreed that initial consonants are the easiest sound-letter relationships to learn. However, the order in which the relationships are learned should be governed by the child's need for knowing them. If certain sound-letter combinations give a particular child difficulty, he may be given special practice on them. The problem is not whether phonics should be taught but when it should be taught; to whom it should be taught—only to those who can profit by it, for some children, it seems, cannot learn by this method—what phonetic elements should be taught; in what order these elements should be taught; and how they should be taught.

Values and Dangers of Phonics

The phonic method of word analysis has definite values. It encourages correct word recognition, it counteracts the tendency to guess, and it gives children one key to the meaning of unfamiliar words.

But there are dangers in overemphasizing phonics. One is the danger of creating "word callers," children who are interested only in pronouncing words, and are indifferent to their meanings. One boy read, "This is a worm; do not step on it," as "This is a warm doughnut, step on it."

There is also the danger that children will become bored by phonic drills, which lack the intrinsic meaning of an interesting story. Moreover, if a child continues for a considerable time to sound out every letter in every word, he cannot help becoming a slow reader.

Examine your own reading. How did you get the meaning of this paragraph? How often did you stop to sound out a word? It is certainly more efficient to recognize a word by perceiving its shape, plus one or two letter clues, and by anticipating its meaning. It is unnecessary to stop and consider every letter-sound association in every word.

Difficulties and Problems

Linguists are often embarrassed by the problems of teaching English. It is not a completely phonetic language; there is not a one-to-one relation between letter and sounds. There are 26 letters, but at least 44 separate sounds. This means that some letters have two or more sounds. It would be simple if each letter always had the same sound. But obviously this is not the case. The letter a carries at least 22 sounds.

Moreover, the same sound is spelled in different ways. George Bernard Shaw once observed that one could spell fish, ghotigh as in enough o as in women ti as in motion.

Take long a for example, as pronounced in ate, late, and date. This sound is spelled:

ea as in bear ei " " their ai " " pair ay " " play ey " " they e " " there

If a child learns ea as pronounced in bear, how will he pronounce beard or heard or hearth or tear?

Many other examples could be cited to show how futile it is to teach lists of sounds separately. Letter-sound associations should be taught in familiar words. The child should check his pronunciation of the unknown word by seeing whether it makes sense in the sentence; this is an essential part of the phonetic approach.

When Should Phonics Be Taught?

Letter-sound associations can be formed as soon as children have learned to recognize a few familiar words. The teacher helps them to know the word by its form or shape, just as they recognize objects or note letter clues. The tall / in father distinguishes the word from mother.

The teacher usually begins systematic phonic instruction with the consonants that always—or almost always—have the same sound: b, d, f, h, j, k, 1, m, n, p, r, t, v, w, z. These are the easiest to learn when they are the beginning sounds of familiar words. Since the consonants are always combined with vowel sounds, the long and short sounds of vowels—a, e, i, o, u, y—are often taught early.

Next, the pupils may learn the common endings: s, ed, ing. Practice in learning these endings may be given by means of various games. Prepare sets of cards, on each of which is printed a different form of one word: want, wants, wanted. Shuffle, and distribute four or five cards to each player. The teacher gives a sentence that contains one form of a word. The child who has the corresponding card holds it up for all to see, and then keeps it to make a set.

A similar game may be played with cards that have nouns on them, some singular, some plural. The child tells which words mean more than one. A repertory of letter-sound associations is gradually built up during the first year.

During the second year children usually learn the more difficult blends: tr, fr, fl, bl, cl, si, st, ch, sh, th; the vowel combinations—oi, ay, oa, ea, ai, ie, ee; hard and soft g and c; and the variant sounds of o when it is followed by to or o.

In the third year, the pupils constantly use all the letter-sound associations that they have learned, and pay special attention to blends and speech sounds, and vowel combinations. At this stage the children may begin deriving rules of their own for pronunciation and spelling. From a great many examples such as

rid                             ride
cut                             cute
pan                            pane, etc.,

they may derive the rule that "adding a silent e to a single-syllable word makes the first vowel say its name."

Or, after studying many words where two vowels come together, like feet, maid, coat, they may conclude that "when two vowels go walking the first does the talking." The trouble with most of these rules is that there are so many exceptions to them.

Practice in sound-letter associations can be combined with reading for meaning, as in the following games:

Phonogram Riddles

Make a set of cards containing words that have the same phonograms, such as pan, fan, man, Dan, can. On heavy paper write a series of riddles:

My word is can. Change one letter and make it something we use on a hot day.

Change one letter again and make it something we use in cooking.

Build on the Last Letter
I am something you sit on: chair.
I have long ears: rabbit.
I say "gobble, gobble": turkey.

Guess Who I Am

The leader shows the letters and pronounces them distinctly: "I end with ook, can you guess who I am?" "I end with all, can you guess how I look?"

Find the Rhymes

Select a number of familiar words that rhyme, and print each on a separate card. The child then finds and puts together the words that rhyme.

How Is Phonics Taught?

Many parents ask this question. In one school, the reading consultant planned a parents' meeting to answer it (see p. 34).

A parent who visits a first-grade classroom early in the school year is likely to see this kind of instruction being given:

Teacher (with a small group of children): This is the way the chalk says Bill. (Writes Bill on board.) Will the boy whose name is Bill come up and erase his name? There's another boy we call Billy. Billy, you come up and erase your name. There is a girl whose name is Betty. Betty, will you erase your name from the board?

Look at the three words on the chart. The first is Bill. The second is Billy. The third is Betty. Do Bill and Billy and Betty look alike? Of course not. You know Bill from Billy. Bill and Billy look different. They have different faces and figures. (As the teacher prints each word on the board, the children trace it in the air with their fingers.) You can tell one word from another in the same way—by looking at them.

Look at the words Bill, Billy, Betty. How is the word Bill different from Billy? How are the words just alike? What makes Bill different from other words? Yes, the big B at the beginning and the two tall letters at the end. Will you know the word Bill when you see it again? How do you know the word Billy when you see it? Yes, by the big B, the two tall letters, and the letter with a tail at the end of the word.

Look at the word Betty. In what way is the word Betty different from Bill? Yes, it has a different small letter; its taller letters are different. It has a letter with a tail at the end—the letter y.

Find Bill among the other words on this chart:

Bill                   cat
John                 Bill
cake                 Bill
tell                    boat
Bill                   bell
 
Find Billy among the other words on this chart:
Bill                   Billy
brown              book
Billy                  bell
tell                    Teddy
Bill                   Betty
Billy                  silly

Bill, Billy, Betty, come to the board. Erase your names as fast as you find them on the board.

(Teacher writes the three words along with many other words similar to those on the chart.) Teacher: Let us write a story about Bill.

(Teacher writes story on board as children dictate it.) Child: We all like Bill. Child: Bill laughs a lot. Child: Bill has a black dog. Its name is

Blackie. Blackie came to school one day.

Teacher: Is this a true story, Bill?

Bill: Yes, I have a dog Blackie and he came to school one day. Teacher: You have learned all the words in this story except laughs and

Blackie. Let's be sure to learn them now. Look at laughs. What other words have you learned that begin with the same letter as laughs? (Teacher writes words that children say on the board. Blackie is taught in the same way.)

Now read the whole story about Bill:

We all like Bill.

Bill laughs a lot.

Bill has a black dog.

Its name is Blackie.

Blackie came to school one day.

Look at the board and read the word or words I draw a line under. (Teacher moves her finger from the beginning of each line to the word she underlines.)

In these lessons, the teacher first helps the children to look at and recognize a few familiar words. Then, as the children learn new words, she introduces phonics by associating the initial consonants

I and b with the same sounds in words the children already know. In this way the children begin to build up the store of letter-sound associations that they will use in solving the new words they meet in their stories.

Later, usually, the teacher may give systematic instruction in the vowel sounds to the children who need it. One teacher began the more formal study of vowels in this way:

Teacher: Each vowel has several sounds, two of which we will study now. One of these we call the long sound and we show it by this little sign—a straight line over the letter, as in a. The short sound we show by a curved line over the letter, like this, a. The long sound is the same as the name of the letter. What is the name of this letter? (Writes A a.)

Ann: A.

Teacher: And what is the long vowel sound of the letter? (pause) Remember, it is just the same as the name of the letter. What is the name of this letter?

Ted: A.

Teacher: And what is the long vowel sound of this letter?

Jean: a.

Teacher (presents each of the long vowel sounds in this way): Now you understand that the long vowel sound of each letter is just the same as its name. Now, these vowels also have short sounds, and this is the code or sign we use to show the short vowel sound of a. This is the sound you say in apple. Close your eyes just a minute. Can you hear the first letter sound—the short sound of a when I say apple? What do you hear?

Children: a—apple.

Teacher: Good. What other words do you know that have this same short sound of a?

Marian: at, absent.

Tom (the second-grade scientist): acid.

Ted: act.

Bill: ask.

Teacher: The a in ask has a somewhat different sound when the word is pronounced correctly. Listen—can you hear the difference: ask and ask? The second is the correct pronunciation. I'm glad you mentioned this word, Bill, because we often give it the wrong sound.

Mary: at?

Teacher: Yes, that's another word with the short sound of a.

Jim: cat, rat, hat, sat.

Teacher (laughing): That was a whole family of short a sounds.

In this way, slowly and with many illustrations, the children become acquainted with the long and short vowel sounds. Some of the brightest children may discover some pronunciation rules for themselves. For example, notice that in such words as go, she, hello, and buffalo, the single vowel that appears at the end of the word or syllable is usually long. Children make these associations and discoveries about sound-letter relations all during the primary grades. At the end of the third grade, by using a combination of context clues, letter-sounds, and familiar syllables like ly and tion, that they have frequently met, they are able to pronounce many new words and thus get the meaning of the story they are reading.

At home, when the child is reading aloud to you and comes across a new word, instead of pronouncing it for him, help him to use the word-analysis skills he is learning in school by asking:

What do you think the word might mean in that sentence?

Do you know any other words that begin with the same letter or letters?

What parts of this word have you seen in other words you've learned?

If the teacher has noted that your child is having special difficulty with certain sounds, she may suggest some phonic games you can play with him (see pages 106-107, 146-148). The word wheel is a familiar type of practice material. The following is a typical homemade practice exercise that can be used for any sounds or parts of words that are causing difficulty:

t           ell
b
w
f
s sh

The column of letters on the left is printed on a separate piece of thin cardboard folded so that it can be moved up and down to form the various words ending in ell, en, ad, or other combinations. You will know you have been successful if your child says, "Mommy, let's play those word games together." You will play only as long as his interest is high and he asks for more.

Other Word-Recognition Skills

Building up a bank of sound-letter associations in meaningful words is an important accomplishment for children in the primary grades. They are also using other word-recognition skills. Before sounding out a word, they have learned to ask, "What might it mean in this sentence?" After they have tried to sound it out, they ask, "Does this word, as I have pronounced it, make sense?" Sometimes they recognize familiar syllables or word parts such as common phonograms as in look and took, how and now; endings; and prefixes. They will sometimes use a picture dictionary.

Perhaps you have noticed that children are sometimes advised to look for little words in big words. This is not recommended. Unless the little words are parts of a compound word such as schoolhouse or homework, this method is likely to be confusing. For example, it is no help to see the little word fat in father, or the two words so and me, in some, or so and on, in soon. It is much better for children to use the knowledge of phonics and of syllables and structural parts that they have already acquired.

During the primary grades your child is taught: to read from left to right across the page, to anticipate the meaningful words in sentences, to recognize instantly many words at sight by their form and shape and by certain distinctive details.

to recognize rhyming words such as can and man, bright and night.

to form and use many sound-letter associations—single consonants, common consonant blends such as st, sh, ch, pi.

to identify common phonograms such as in teach, each, book, cook.

to see the smaller word units in compound words such as headache or schoolhouse.
to recognize familiar syllables such as be, gin, un, der. In short, by the end of the third grade, your child will be able

to recognize many printed words instantly by sight, and will have learned to puzzle out the pronunciation and meaning of unfamiliar words. These are important accomplishments. But there is much more to reading than word recognition. Reading must make sense.

Accent On Meaning

Using phonics to pronounce a new word is only a first step to the important goal—getting its meaning. Getting the meaning, in turn, is a necessary preliminary to thinking and feeling about what we read. Consequently, from the very beginning, teachers direct children's attention to the meaning and use of what they read.

To get meaning out of printed words, children have to bring meaning to them. The meaning they bring to their reading comes from their experiences. Experience comes before reading. A child who brings his experience to his reading would never read the sentence "The children went into the house" as "The children went into the horse"—it just wouldn't make sense.

Children are not really reading if they do not understand what they read. They do not understand what they read unless they have a background of experience that helps them to interpret the words. The word hen is simply a word and nothing more to a child who has had no experience with chickens. It calls up no images; it conveys no meaning. In one of his plays, Pirandello said that a fact is like a sack; it will not stand up by itself; it has to be filled with the meaning that was originally in it. So it is with the words we read.

Teachers use many methods to direct children's attention to meaning. They ask questions before the child begins to read rather than afterward. These encourage him to read with a purpose in mind. The teacher may print notices on the bulletin board about what to bring for the picnic or how to get copies of the snapshots taken on the trip; these have personal meaning for the children. Or she may use the blackboard to write directions for the day's activities. In the course of a story, teachers often encourage children to speculate about what is going to happen, and then read to see whether they were right.

In the best schools, reading is taught as a thinking process.3 From the beginning the children learn that printed words are saying something to them and that the story characters are saying something to one another.

Books remind them of similar events in their own lives—the funny things their little sister did, the time their dog ran away. They tell the teacher these stories; she prints them on the board or on a chart. Since they know many of the words, they can read their own stories along with their basal reader. This gives them meaningful practice on the vocabulary they are learning. They make the most interesting stories into little books—their own books. As second graders, they often like to reread these "volumes" and remember the funny things that happened last year.

The class as a whole often takes a trip—to a farm, to a dairy, to the zoo. Before they go, they prepare charts on what they want or expect to see. Following the trip, they write "thank you" letters and dictate stories about the funny things they saw, how they felt about the baby animals, and what they learned that was new to them. Then they read supplementary books about farms and dairies and zoos.

Activities of this kind involve relating experience to reading and using reading to solve problems as they arise. The children discover that reading is a tool. It helps them to understand and also to extend their experience. They learn, too, that reading is a source of information about what they see and hear. They can learn how to do something, follow an interest, or acquire a new interest.

As soon as the children acquire ability to read independently, time is scheduled for "free reading." This is sometimes done in the library, sometimes in their homerooms where there are many sets of supplementary readers, trade books, and junior encyclopedias and dictionaries. In some schools children may take books home to read over and over.

In a thirty-minute developmental reading period for second and third graders, the children may be divided into groups that read aloud on the level at which they are able to read comfortably. They are concerned with the meaning of what they read—"what does it say" and "what does it mean."

Bulletin boards give children additional opportunities to read.

There they may find a bit of information that is of personal concern to them, such as the day's luncheon menu, a riddle, a funny story, a bit of science news that is within their comprehension—something new to look at each day. Later a committee may use the items that are of permanent interest for a riddle book, a science book, or an animal book.

Parents, too, can encourage children to think and wonder about the stories they read. First graders can understand questions such as "How do you think this story will begin?" "What do you think will happen to Sally?" "Is this a true story—could it really have happened?" As children grow more mature they can answer more searching questions: "Why do you think Jane acted as she did?" "If you had been Mary's mother, what would you have done?" "Which part of the story seemed the most important to you?"

In a first-grade class reading a story, "Newspaper Helps" in the basal text Away We Go by R. G. StaufEer and others, the teacher continually encouraged the children to think while reading: 4

The class read the name of the story in the Table of Contents and located the page on which it began.

Teacher: What do you think will happen in the story?

Pupil: Perhaps a newspaper is used to train a dog.

Pupil: Maybe a family finds a place to live by using a newspaper.

Pupil: The paper may be used to wrap some toys.

Pupil: Maybe the paper is folded and used as a fly swatter.

After turning to the story and studying the picture for possible clues, the pupils speculated further:

Pupil: The boys looked worried because this is a strange dog.

Pupil: The boys are wondering whose dog this is.

Pupil: They want to play ball and the dog gets in the way.

This speculation made the children eager to find out whose ideas were right. So the teacher told them to read the first page and then close their books. After they had read the page the teacher asked, "Who was right?"

The teacher used a similar procedure for the next two pages of print and pictures. Then, in the light of the evidence they had obtained, the children predicted what would happen next and how the story would end.

This kind of procedure helps children to enjoy a story by following its development, leads them to read with active minds, and gives them an immediate purpose—to find out if their predictions were correct. Thus reading and thinking are interwoven.

Of course, one should not read every story in this way. But going through this process of speculation and prediction a number of times in class will help children form the habits of reading with an inquiring mind and anticipating meaning.

At home, parents can encourage meaningful reading in somewhat similar ways. They can express interest in the outcome of the story: Did Janie find Blackie? Did Jack run away from home? What would be the brave thing to do in the situation described? This kind of questioning should be done informally, in an offhand manner. It is the teacher's responsibility to teach the process, and the parent's responsibility to reinforce it.

Oral Reading

In the good old days, the reading lesson often consisted in hearing each child in turn read aloud from the same book. This is exceedingly boring to able readers. In the interesting story, they read ahead, lose their place, and are scolded when the teacher calls on them. If the story is boring, they sit idly, wasting their time or thinking up some mischief that gets them into trouble. Poor readers are embarrassed, especially when their classmates shout out a difficult word before they have had time to puzzle it out for themselves. Fortunately, this method of teaching reading has now been discarded in most schools.

But oral reading has not been discarded. There is a real place for reading aloud in school, even though outside school most people read silently far more than they read orally.

In beginning reading, teacher and pupils pronounce the words, phrases, and sentences that are written on the board, on charts, on flash cards, or are printed in the preprimers. This helps the children build associations between word sounds and the letter sounds.

Soon after the children have begun to read, the teacher listens while they read a paragraph or two; this helps her to check their word-recognition skills.

When the children have learned to read independently, and can choose the books they want to read, there are many opportunities for them to share the high lights of their reading in an audience situation. Mary reads an amusing scene from her book and invites her classmates to read the whole book. David reads the class some information about dinosaurs that they wanted to know. At home, Jimmy reads the morning newspaper to find a paragraph that he hopes he will be chosen to read aloud as "Today's News Item." Four friends select a short story, read it silently, and make it into a play that they present to the class after they have practiced reading their parts.

These and many other audience situations give children an incentive to improve their oral reading. They also give children practice in being a courteous and attentive audience.

This kind of oral reading is a far cry from the outmoded method of reading-a-page-in-turn, which may embarrass the poor reader and bore the able.5

Plenty Of Books

At each stage in the child's development, it is desirable that he read widely, ranging far beyond the books that are required in school. Wide reading builds vocabulary, increases fluency, and exercises skills as the child acquires them.

These values are achieved only if the books are wisely chosen. The print in books for six- and seven-year-olds should be fairly large, for most children of this age are still farsighted. They will not enjoy reading if it entails the physical discomfort of eyestrain. The books should be easy enough so that the child can read and comprehend them independently. If a book is too difficult, it may disrupt good reading habits. Some children are challenged by a degree of difficulty that may discourage others. We tend to give children books that are too difficult; publishers' estimates of difficulty are often misleading. Some books designated as "Beginners' Books" are more suitable for nine-year-olds than for beginners. However, if a child is given a book that is in general too difficult, he may be able to read parts of it with enjoyment, and we can read the hard parts to him.
 
Some youngsters will read books that seem much too advanced for them, and get something out of them, even though there is much that they do not comprehend. Children need challenge as well as competency.

The book should also make some connection with the child's experience and interest; it should give the child some reward in addition to entertainment. You can usually judge the suitability of the book by the child's response to it. The right books develop the child's love of reading; the wrong books may produce or confirm an unfavorable attitude.

Several good readers, now in their teens, describe how suitable books helped them develop a favorable attitude toward reading:

"In my home we have many books that were written for beginners, and we also used to take Jack and Jill, a magazine for children. Maybe it was that, after learning to read reasonably well, I became curious about books and decided to read one. Or maybe on a cold winter afternoon I was bored, and to have something to do I read a book. It could have been many things that influenced my reading."

"I was very proud the day my father took me to the library to get my own library card. He picked out some biographies for me, because I wasn't sure what I wanted to read. For quite awhile after that all I read was biographies. My girl friends and I would go to the library once a week, and we would check out four or five books apiece."

"My school librarian read to us the last part of our library period each week. The whole class thoroughly enjoyed it, because she had tricky ways to get us to listen."

To foster personal development through reading in the primary grades, May Hill Arbuthnot6 suggests books that give reassurance to young children: young Billy Goat Gruff isn't afraid because his big brothers are with him; Peter Rabbit is punished for his disobedience, but is later tucked safely into bed by his mother. In the series by Carolyn Haywood, the reader meets some loving parents who stand firmly behind their children, even when they make mistakes for which they must pay.

As children grow older, they need less reassurance. In their stories more emphasis should be put on achievement, as in the classic "Dick Whittington and His Cat" and the modern The Courage of Sarah

Noble by Alice Dalgliesh. Before long these older children will begin to glimpse wider social relationships and responsibilities in books such as Ellis Credle's Down, Down the Mountain and the Carrolls' stories about Beanie. Stories such as the picture stories about wild animals by Mary and Conrad Buff, the cat stories of Clare Newberry, C. W. Anderson's the Billy and Blaze stories, Robert McCloskey's Make Way for the Ducklings, and Robert Lawson's Rabbit Hill evoke feelings of tenderness, and give children a desire to love and protect as well as to be loved and protected.

Laughter, fun, and fantasy are also important in childhood. Children enjoy the gay make-believe of The Happy Lion or Curious George, and the droll hilarity of the books by Theodore Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss).

To develop a sense of beauty, it is most effective to read poetry aloud, beginning with nonsense verse and gradually moving to ballads and lyrics. Poetry helps to counteract the violence and brutality so often shown on the screen and brought into the home through television.

The teacher or the school librarian will be glad to recommend suitable books on subjects in which your child is interested. If the child is a poor reader and is sensitive about it, the adult should be careful not to dwell on the fact that a particular book is easy. Almost any child likes to have a special shelf for his growing collection of books that he can read independently.

It is wise to have a regular time for reading each day, though such a schedule defeats its own purpose if it is followed too rigidly. Ten or fifteen minutes a day is enough for a beginning reader. We shall foster nothing but dislike of reading if we ignore signs of restlessness or boredom.

Before the child begins to read a book, we should encourage him to discuss its title and illustrations. This is to arouse his interest in what he is reading and prevent him from focusing his attention on how he is reading. If reading aloud becomes tiresome to him, we may let him read a few pages silently, take turns with him in reading a few lines aloud, or read the part of the narrator while he reads the parts of the characters. If he reads the story fluently, it is a good idea to ask him to help you by reading it aloud to his little brother or sister.

Help Over The Humps

Patience With Progress

As long as I can remember my mother has been a tremendous help to me. She never was too busy to stop and aid me with any difficulty I might have had. I feel this is invaluable and I know it was a great help to me.7

Ordinarily a parent's role with respect to a child's first three years of reading instruction in school is to be pleased with the child's progress, share his interest in reading, and provide him with many books for independent reading. As has already been suggested, we may also continue the practice of reading aloud books that surpass in ideas and artistry those that the child can read for himself.

"But, suppose my child is having real difficulty in learning to read? Suppose he is lagging behind the other children of his age? Is there anything I can do about it?" Of course there is, but before doing anything you need a thorough understanding of your child's reading difficulty.

There are many possible causes of difficulty. The child may find it hard to see or hear. He may be under par physically. Something in his relationships at home or at school may be disturbing him. He may have lost out on beginning reading instruction because of frequent absences from school or an inexperienced teacher, or he may not have been ready to read when formal instruction was begun. Perhaps he needs more practice in reading. Fatigue is another factor. In this modern age of television and city life, it is one of the commonest enemies of childhood. According to Dr. Benjamin Spock, children aged six to nine need eleven hours of sleep.

One thing seems quite certain: acute anxiety does not help. If the child, by comparing his reading with that of other children in the class, realizes that he is not doing well, he may develop a good deal of anxiety about it. His parents' anxiety, added to his own, may be the last straw. A state of intense anxiety prevents further learning.

The effect of parental anxiety and pressure was shown in the case of David. His parents were upset when David did not learn to read as quickly as his older sister did. They thought of him as "a reading problem." By nature David was brighter than his sister, but lacked her steady work habits. The teacher helped the parents to see that the pressure they were putting on David to get as good marks as his sister was hindering rather than helping him.

If the child is generally immature, it may be best to pay attention to his all-round growth; this may be the best way of helping him gradually to grow into reading. Helen, for example, was small for her age and a little below par in health. She was above average in intelligence, but had a speech defect that apparently had no physical basis. In beginning reading, a speech defect interferes with the process of associating the printed word with the spoken word, which has already acquired a cluster of meanings.

The teacher avoided calling attention to Helen's speech defect. She created a classroom atmosphere in which the child felt free to talk. The other children, too, accepted her and understood her trouble. The teacher encouraged the parents to take the same attitude in the home and to give Helen a few speech exercises as a game. As a result of this concerted action, Helen's speech improved. Her shyness decreased, she spoke more clearly, and began to take part in programs and plays. All concerned were proud of her progress.

Bobby, the youngest of three children, had been babied at home. His immaturity was more general than Helen's. His parents expected too little of him. Fortunately, he enjoyed school. The reading experiences stimulated him to put forth effort and work harder than he ever had before. Both Bobby and his parents were pleased with the progress he had made by the end of the second grade.

Some five-year-olds expressed rather amusing views about what parents and teachers should do if a child does not learn to read:

"I'd keep on trying to help her and when she got a little older she would learn."
"I would teach and teach her. I would ask mother to help. She would learn if she had that kind of help."

"I wouldn't tell anyone. I'd leave him alone and say that's pretty good 'cause little kids should be treated like humans and not like ants or something."

"I wouldn't stop. I'd keep teaching him to read until he was able to learn."

"I'd cry and be very sad."

"I'd say if you can't do it you'll just have to learn by yourself."

"I'd be mad."

"I'd say she'll never know much. She'll never be rich."

"I would take up all of her time teaching her."

"I would punish him."
 
What a range of adult attitudes toward children's learning is reflected in the comments of these observant five-year-olds!

Patience with Progress

Parents may expect too much of a child. They may not realize that the rate of his growth in reading is governed by his over-all rate of growth. Some children are slow growers. Some have less verbal ability than others. Putting pressure on such children to hurry up and read hinders more than it helps.

It is often hard for a parent to accept a slow rate of development. In our genuine desire to help, we give the child word drills and keep telling him to read at home. We get schoolbooks and workbooks for him to study. It might be far more effective to give him opportunities to read simple instructions for a new game he wants to play, or to read a simple recipe for a dish he is eager to have for dinner.

On the other hand, some able learners are discouraged because their parents have too low a level of aspiration for him. They do not insist on reasonable standards of excellence. The home contains few books or magazines to give them intellectual stimulation. The adults seem to have no time for reading and no interest in reading. Unless they find encouragement elsewhere, these children tend to copy their parents' apathetic attitude toward what goes on around them.

Reinforcement Of Readiness

Additional Practice | Approval Of Progress

The child whose desire to read has never been aroused is handicapped when the teacher begins to give formal instruction in reading. Sometimes this lack of desire persists. Even by the end of the third grade, Sammy had made little progress in reading, despite— or perhaps because of—his mother's concern and a good deal of special tutoring. He was seven years old, large for his age, neatly dressed. He made a good first impression. He talked well, but was immature socially. He said the other boys did not like him. He seemed to have little desire to learn. During the first grade he was tutored at home and had special help in school. He made little progress, but seemed to like the special attention given him, and objected to having the tutoring discontinued. During the second year he became increasingly dependent on this special help. Much of its potential value was neutralized by his mother's insistence that he read the same books that the other children were reading.

For some reason, this boy seemed to have no desire to learn to read. We can only speculate about the reasons. It may be that his reading immaturity was associated with his inability to get along with boys of his own age. His passive resistance to reading may have stemmed from an unconscious hostility toward his mother, who never allowed him to act his age and who openly favored his sister. He may have feared that if he learned to read, the special attention he craved would be withdrawn. At this point reading seemed to have no meaning, use, or purpose for him.

Additional Practice

If a well-adjusted child is having difficulty in associating certain sounds with certain letters, the teacher may suggest that the parent play phonic games with him. Note that we say phonic games, not phonic exercises. Some children need no practice of this kind; others need a great deal. If the latter are given the additional practice at the time they need it, it may prevent their experiencing confusion and failure. Certainty gives the child reassurance and makes him willing to take the next step.

Approval of Progress

The parent, as we have said before, should reward any step in the right direction rather than wait to praise the end result. If a child shows any interest or enthusiasm, it should be approved. Then he will be more likely to repeat the desired behavior. If the child correctly identifies the sounds in a few simple words with which he once had difficulty, we should be pleased, and should show our pleasure.

But we should be equally careful not to reward error. If the child repeatedly gives the wrong sound, we should correct it, ask him to give a similar sound in other familiar words, test him again, and reward his learning with a smile or a word of approval: "That's exactly right now."

We should also take care not to make him too dependent on praise. The pleasure and profit of reading per se should gradually come to yield him sufficient satisfaction.

Methods Of Teaching

Exclusive use of any one method of teaching reading is likely to yield poor results. In the following composition a fourteen-year-old boy of average ability, whose reading scores almost touched the bottom of the scale, describes his unsatisfactory instruction, and states his present attitude toward reading:

In grade school the teachers always wrote words on the board and told us the word. They would tell us how it sounded, and would have you say the word a couple of days, until we knew the word. They didn't, until fourth grade, start to tell why the words sounded the way they did.

My parents tried to help by telling me to look up the word to see how it sounded, but I didn't know how to use the diacritical markings in the dictionary. I first became worried about my reading when I discovered that you had to be able to read to become a scientist So I started to get on the ball and started working on my reading.

Reading has always been difficult for me up to the present day. I didn't like to read books except the ones on science and the different fields of science, especially on raising tropical fish, like Exotic Aquarium Fishes by Inns for example, from seventh grade on up to now. I still don't like to read too much but I do once in a while. I still like to read in the field of science and that's about the only reading I do.

There's no telling where I'd be if I hadn't had some field of interest like science. In some cases radio, television, and newspapers have taught me more than reading fifteen books devoted to the subject.

Apparently this boy's teachers put too much emphasis on the look-and-say method, and delayed the teaching of phonics too long. Of course, other conditions may have contributed to his failure to read up to his ability.

Exclusive use of a phonic method brought equally poor results, as described by another boy of fourteen:
After I had finished a book I would bring it home and read it to my mother. She was a big help to me. One summer when I was about fourth grade I spent an hour a day with her and a book she had about teaching a child to read [Flesch, Why Johnny Can't Read].

At fourteen, this boy is still reading far below his potential ability. He writes, "When I first learned to read, I liked to read, but now it is not much fun. It is much easier to watch TV or lisone to the radio or even go to a movi. Reading the comics is easy so I read them quite often."

Overstrictness on the part of primary teachers may cause children to feel extreme anxiety. A fifteen-year-old girl describes the effect that this tension had on her reading development:

I learned how to read in first grade. My teacher was strict and most of the time we read and learned new words. My parents made me read a lot and read aloud and I read to myself. When I read I'm scared because I'm going to pronounce the word wrong and that's the same way when I answer a question: I'm afraid I'm going to say the wrong thing.

When I first learned to read I didn't think I was ever going to learn. It wasn't bad when you know how to read. But truthfully I don't like to read because I can't read good enough.

When I read fast I can't get the meaning of the paragraphs.

When I read Civics I can't understand what I read but sometimes when I read a story I can tell you what I read and answer questions about it. Reading is what pulls me down in school work. If I knew how to read better I could have better school grades, too.

Bright children usually appreciate teachers who give them instruction when they need it, and encourage them to display initiative and independence. This method worked well in the case of Judy, who describes her primary reading experience as follows:

I have always loved to read, and my first grade teacher, Mrs. F, had quite a bit to do with my feeling toward reading. As I was learning to read she was always ready and willing to help us pronounce words we had not come across before. We had three reading groups, the one each child was in depending on his reading ability. This in itself helped to stimulate my interest in reading, because I was always in the fastest group. Also, those in the fastest group were left on their own quite a bit while the teacher helped the other groups and this led me to depend on my own ability for figuring out new words.

I have usually always read books beyond my grade. I have done this because I find them more interesting and just as easy to read. Also, because they presented a challenge to my reading ability.

By having a television my reading time has been reduced somewhat. However, my like for reading has made me take time out for reading.

Summary Of Reading Achievements In The Primary Grades And How They Are Acquired

Continued interest in reading

Basic vocabulary of words instantly recognized at sight

Well-establislied left-right movement

Word-recognition skills:

Looking for meaning in context

Associating sounds with letters in words: initial consonants and familiar endings Recognizing other familiar parts of words

Increasing vocabulary

Increasing fluency

Reading for meaning and thinking while reading
 
Success in learning to read; approval of people who are important to the child

Suitable, interesting books

Associating word with object, picture, or spoken word Experience reading Reading words in simple stories Word games

Well-established habit of starting at left side of page

Solving unfamiliar words in stories

Relating beginning sounds of unfamiliar words with those of familiar words

Phonic games and exercises, if needed

Success in solving new words for oneself

Repetition of words already learned Wide reading of interesting material on present level of ability Learning new words in connection with activities

Wide reading of interesting material that is not too difficult

Anticipating meaning by asking questions Relating reading to present purpose and previous experiences

The role of the parent during the first three years of school is to contribute in pleasant, casual ways to the child's readiness to read, to share his excitement in his first successful attempts to read, to help him over specific learning difficulties in any ways that the teacher may suggest, to provide him with plenty of books on his present level of reading ability, and to encourage but not force him to read at home.

Questions And Answers

1. Have you any drills we could do with the child at home?

There are many word games that parents and children may enjoy playing together. Some have already been described in this chapter. The following were suggested to parents by teachers in an elementary school:

Tick a Slip Game

Purpose: Increase vocabulary by words and phrases.

Materials: Print single words and phrases on slips of heavy paper. Write a numerical value from 1 to 3 in the upper-right-hand corner of each slip.

Procedure: Two or more people may play. The slips are placed face down on the table. The players take turns selecting a slip and reading it. If the player reads it correctly, he keeps the slip. If not, he replaces it on the table. Add the numbers on each player's slips, and the highest score wins. Rhyming Game

Purpose: To develop associations with familiar letter groups at the end of words.

Material: Print single words on the slips of heavy paper 1%" x %". Have twelve sets of six cards, each set having a particular ending such as:

pan                   wing                                harm
man                  sing                                 farm
can                   thing                                charm
ran                   ring                                  alarm
fan                    sling                                 arm
tan                    string                               disarm

Procedure: two or more people may play. The cards are dealt out to the players. The word slips are placed face down in the center of the table.
 
Each player in turn selects a slip and reads the word. If any other player has the set that goes with the word selected from the center pile, that player is allowed to take the set for his own. The set may not be complete, so another player also has the chance to get the set. The procedure goes on until all the slips are taken from the center. The winner is the one who has the greatest number of rhyming sets. Verb Form Game

Purpose: To give practice in reading verb forms.

Material: Cards approximately the size of regular playing cards made from tag board or heavy construction paper. There are four cards in each book and there are as many books as desired. A book comprises the four forms of a verb such as: play, plays, played, playing. The order of the words on the cards is rotated. The first word on the card is underlined and serves as the name of that card.

Procedure: Three or more may play the game, depending on the number of books in the set Each player is dealt four cards, and the remainder of the pack is placed in the center of the table face down. Each player in turn asks another player for a particular card to be used in completing his book. If he receives the card, he may call again. He continues to call for cards as long as he receives the card asked for. When he fails to receive the card, he draws from the top of the deck on the table. If the player draws the cards for which he has asked, he may continue his turn by asking for other cards as before. When the four cards of a book have been completed, the book is placed on the table in front of the player. When the books have all been assembled, the player having the most books is the winner. Each player is required to repeat all the words in each book and to give a sentence using the verb form correctly. Letter-Sound Association Game

Purpose: For practice on initial consonants, initial blends, or rhyming words.

Procedure: Each child tries to make a home run by thinking of a word that begins with each of the three letters, as man, like, see, home. If the purpose is to teach rhyming words, place the words around the bases.

Materials: Baseball diamond made on oak tag or firm paper.

The child thinks of a word that rhymes with each of the words on the bases.

Lone Wolf

Purpose: Improve visual discrimination, build sight vocabulary.

Material: Deck of about twenty cards, with one additional card for the Lone Wolf. At the top of each card print a word; on another card print the same word, so that they make a pair. Prepare all the cards in this way; all the cards form pairs except the Lone Wolf. The word on the Lone Wolf card can be changed frequently, thus eliminating the chance for memorization.

Procedure: Deal out all cards. Beginning with the person at the dealer's left, take turns drawing cards, each person drawing from the person at his right. As pairs are formed, the words are pronounced and the book is placed on the table. Continue until all cards are matched and one person is left with the Lone Wolf. Oral Games

Purpose: For practice on initial consonants, initial blends, vowels, or rhyming words.

Procedure: Mother or Father suggests a consonant and the child or children see how many words he or they can say that begin with that letter sound.

Vary by naming things in the room that begin with a given letter.

Vary by using blends like th, ch, bl, sm, and others.

Vary by using word endings.

Vary by using vowels: long a, short o, and others.

Other games require more thinking and self-expression on the child's part:

Acting out a word: Chuckle—let's hear you chuckle

Detecting absurdities in sentences, which the child reads: "A plane flies under the ocean."

2. What are some of the reasons why parents should not give\ children lessons in reading?
Children learn best through their own spontaneous curiosity and by means of activities that are serious to them but like play to us. The parent should provide opportunities to learn, and should respond appropriately. For example, say the name of a letter when the child is looking at it intently; read him the sign or label or word that he wants to know about.

Since parents are concerned about their child, they sometimes show impatience when he does not learn as fast as they think he should. The child senses their anxiety and impatience, and this may make him anxious or restive, or resistant to reading.

The parents may use one method, and the teacher tends to confuse the child by using another. This sometimes creates conflicts in loyalty. If the child does not accept the parent's method in preference to the teacher's, the parent sometimes becomes annoyed with the child.

There are many helpful things that parents can do, as described in this and the previous chapter. They need not feel obliged to take on the teacher's responsibility, too.

3. How can a parent learn about his own child's reading?

Through daily observation and conversation parents can learn about:

The child's general interests—these often develop into reading interests.

The child's reading interests: To which stories and parts of stories does he listen with keenest interest? In which parts does his interest flag?

When he reads aloud does he have difficulty with the little common words, or only with longer words?

How does he go about getting the meaning of an unfamiliar word? If you don't tell him, does he first try to get the meaning from the context and then use letter-sound associations? Does he try to divide the word into syllables, recognize familiar parts, or look it up in the dictionary?

Does he like to talk about the books he has read?

When he has free time what does he prefer to do?

4. What is the parent's role in listening to a child read?

Listen wholeheartedly. Try not to allow your attention to be distracted, by grownups or by other children. Do not try to listen to the radio or look at television at the same time. Select some simple household task, such as sewing or knitting, that does not require your attention.

Listen to appreciate. As far as possible enjoy the content of the story and make some comment on it.

Do not give the impression that you are listening for mistakes. It may make the child nervous if he thinks you are paying attention to how he reads rather than to what he reads. It also distracts his attention from the content. Be a good audience.

Do not expect your child to bring home his basal reader. That is the book the teacher uses to give him basic instruction in reading. It is usually better for him to bring home supplementary books on about the same level of difficulty. These are often more interesting to you and to the child; they are meant to encourage wide voluntary reading.

If a child takes his reader home, he should read to his parents only those stories the teacher has already taught in class. He will be able to read these fluently, and will enjoy reading them.

5. Why is my bright child not learning to read?

Some parents who ask this question have tried too hard to help the child learn. If the child is being pushed and prodded to do something he is not ready to do, the initial problem is complicated. In a more relaxed atmosphere, suitable reading material will usually stimulate the bright child to develop interest and skill in reading— when he is ready. Once he is started, no one should hold him back; let him progress as far and as fast as he can.

It is not always so simple as this, however. When there is real incompetence, the parent needs help in determining its causes and in doing what is necessary to correct them.

6. What kinds of experiences are helpful to children who are slow in developing visual and auditory discrimination?

The following experiences are often used by kindergarten and first-grade teachers with groups or with individual children:

Listening to recordings of rhymes.
Having the children close their eyes and try to identify different sounds: the tearing of paper, a high note, a low note, a pencil being sharpened, a familiar song, and so on.
Noticing likenesses and differences in shapes—a chicken and a duck, a goat and a lamb, a plant as it was a few days ago and as it is today.

Finding details in a picture that tell what might happen next.

Seeing how many objects a child can remember after looking at a picture for one minute. Do this again after he has learned to remember objects in groups—for example, all the things associated with the stove in the picture.

Pointing out parts of sentences that are alike:

We went fishing.

We caught one little fish.

7. Why are children grouped for reading?

There are a number of different kinds of grouping that may help children learn to read better.

In large schools, whole classes may be formed on the basis of the children's reading ability as determined by standardized tests, informal tests, the teacher's judgment, and the student's own appraisal of his reading needs. The advantage of this kind of grouping is that it is easier to find a teacher who can work with a limited range of reading ability than one who can deal successfully with a wide range. Moreover, suitable reading materials may be obtained for each class. In such a program the poor reader is less likely to feel inferior and the good reader is less likely to be neglected. On the other hand, some poor readers might be stimulated if they were with better readers, and could take part in their discussions and activities.

Flexible grouping within a class is a very good thing when it is handled wisely. Students with specific difficulties come together to receive the type of practice and instruction that they need. Both good and poor readers work together on topics that are of special interest to them, and thereby learn to appreciate one another and accept their differences.

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