Early Childhood Reading Education

¶ … common core state standards are a set of standards that have been adopted for K-12. States have the ability to adopt the federal CCSS. The CCSS intended to provide new expectations for each grade level.

There are a number of different instructional approaches for language. Meaning-based approaches are based on the idea that children learn about literacy mainly through activities, interaction and observation, with little need for formal education. Skills-based approaches are those rooted in five core skills that are related to literacy: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency. Students learn to read by learning skills related to these elements. The blended approach combines the two, where teachers help the students to build on the base that they acquire via the meaning-based approach.

Meaning-based and skills-based perspectives need to be interwoven to provide effective preschool and elementary school education. There are several traits of effective teachers that go along with this. First, they teach children the basic skills that support learning, with a print-rich environment with a lot of reading material, and will support children's interactions with print. Teachers not only read to children daily but also encourage them to read on their own as well. A good teacher will also facilitate collaboration between students, so that they can help each other to learn and acquire key skills. There should be links in the classroom between literacy and play, and the children should be provided with opportunities to use literacy in real world situations. Further, multiple forms of assessment should be used to evaluate the children, to provide a more comprehensive picture of their progress.

The big ideas in this chapter are the common core standards, the three different perspectives for learning language and the different principles of effective teaching -- the three ideas discussed above.

CE 310 Unit 2

From birth to age 6 the focus is one building the pre-reading skills. These are phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, print awareness, vocabulary, and oral language. These skills form the basis for learning how to read, a process beginning in Grade 1 or age 6. In the primary grades, the focus shifts towards building other skills: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Understanding the reading process is important there. The reading process is predicting, checking and integrating. The reader will approach the text with predictions about it based on prior experience. The checking process is where the reader checks against the print and their experience and asks "does this make sense?." The final part, integrating, is where the reader asks "what does it mean?" From ages 6-8 the focus shifts to comprehension and strategic knowledge. Fluency is the latter end of this stage. Reading to learn occurs at ages 9-13.

There are several big ideas in this chapter. The first is that beginning reading instruction "should be built around high-quality curricula and use reading materials that are language-rich, rigorous and engaging. The reading process as outlined above is another one. Children are expected to learn to read during the primary grades, focusing on the five foundational areas . For instruction, it is important to prepare a literature environment for learning to read and implementing evidence-based programs and practices. In first and second grades, the goal is to help students learn how to decode words and to help them apply their decoding.

Unit 3 Study Guide

Blended instructional methods begin with a print-rich classroom environment, featuring shared writing, storybook reading and projects that encourage the use of reading and writing. A classroom should have a library center, where there are books available for students to read. A writing center provides tools for learning how to write, and a space for children to do so. The writer center area should have examples of children's writing. Essentially, the physical space should support working with words, reading, writing and play, all integrated together.

Books should be shared with young children, and there are guidelines for how to select books. Shared writing and individual experience stories are also tools by which children can learn about literacy. Interactive writing involves the students and the teacher interacting to write the text, which ends up taking on the form of play and helps engage students in the writing process.

It is also important to have materials to encourage reading at home. If the classroom has a lending library, and book bags filled with books and interactive materials they will be encouraged to borrow books to read, something that is valuable for all students. . it is important to encourage students to read on their own. There are special strategies needed for students who are English language learners and students with learning disabilities. Storybook time is a strategy for English language learners, with repetitive and simplified texts. The same goes for children with learning disabilities, who benefit from this form of instruction, especially when they are allowed to choose the book and to work at their own pace.