Learning+to+read

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Learning to Read.
//'Reading is the process of constructing meaning from print and from other symbols' // (Hill, 2006, p.139)

Learning to read begins in a child’s ears. Parents give a child vital skills just by talking, reading and playing games with children. A child’s vocabulary grows and they begin to learn the relationship between letters, sounds and words. Simple nursery rhymes and the alphabet song are often learnt before children start school through parent teaching and educational television shows such as Sesame Street and Play School.  (Wilbur, 2003) media type="youtube" key="E8CHnbdEXgQ&hl=en" height="355" width="425" media type="youtube" key="99WQeH36OZo&hl=en" height="355" width="425" 



The Ning, Nang, Nong- Playschool and Elmos Alphabet Rap- Sesame Street (Videos).

I can still remember the alphabet songs from Sesame Street and i grew up listening to the Ning, Nang, Nong every morning on Play School. They are excellent aids for early oral development.

 ==**Why is it important to read to children? ** ==

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">(Hill,2006, p.68 ) <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="COLOR: #00fffc; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center">
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Parents reading out aloud to children is a source of information about print and letters and the characteristics of written language.
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> By showing and enjoyment of and engaging with books, parents transfer literacy skills and a love of reading to the child.
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Parents can encourage questions and read with humour and a fun, exciting tone generally have children who are more fluent and postitive readers.
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Telling stories, singing songs and playing rhyming games along with reading aloud promtote literacy.
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Books read aloud introduce children to different words and ideas not used in televsion and conversation.
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Children develop comprehension skills if continually read to.

<span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-SIZE: 120%; COLOR: #00fff7; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center">Developing print awareness.
<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Children who have print awareness understand that the squiggly lines on the page represent spoken language and that that the spoken language is linked to the words on the page not to the pictures. They may also understand that print can be used in different ways and contexts such a story in a book, a menu in a restaurant and that a sign can tell us if we are in danger. A child with print awareness will have what seems the simple skill of knowing that print is organised and generally read from top to bottom and left to right of the page. Although we do not live in a perfect world so children have had many different experiences which means that no child is at the same level as another. It is our job to develop print awareness and further develop it. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> (Reading Rockets, 2004) <span style="FONT-SIZE: 120%; COLOR: #00fff7; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif">**
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Some ways in which print awareness can be promoted. ** <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">**Encourage preschool children to play with print.** They can write a shopping list, construct a stop sign, write a letter, make a birthday card, etc.
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Help children understand the **relationship between spoken and written language.**
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">**Reinforce the forms and functions of print** found in classroom signs, labels, posters, calendars, and so forth.
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">**Read to children from books with easy-to-read large print.** Use stories that have predictable words in the text.
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">**Use "big books"** to help children notice and learn to recognize words that occur frequently, such as //a//, //the//, //is//, //was//, and //you//.
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">**Label objects**<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> in your classroom.

Reading cues. **  <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">'When children attend to actual print, they use several sources of information known as //cues//, which are combined in order to read.'

Semantic cues- //meanings that come from knowledge about the world, from books and personal experiences//.

Syntactic cues- //the structure or syntax of written language (grammar).//

Grapho-phonic cues//- using phonetic knowlegde, letters have to be recognised by sight and then associated with sounds.//

(Hill, 2006, p.141)

**<span style="FONT-SIZE: 120%; COLOR: #13ece0; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif">The development of reading. ** <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Children go through stages of reading development and will be able to use the reading cues at different stages. The phases are not age related and children can be at different stages when they begin school. || <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">**Possible Features** || || <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Watch parents behaviours, want to join in, realise that the marks on the page mean something. || || <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Tell the story by looking at the pictures, use different sources of information (pictures, print, prior knowledge) || || <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Direct match between text and illustration, knows between 0-50 words,simple stories, range of punctuation. || || <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Concepts are familiar, more text types used, longer sentences, does not rely on pictures for support as much. || || <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Books which go beyond child's experiences, longer texts with different structures. || || <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">More complex stories with greater conceptual load, more complex plots and characters, less picture explanation. ||
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">**Stage of reading**
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Beginning
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Early emergent
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Emergent
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Early
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Transitional
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Extended

(Hill, 2006, pp.145-157)

<span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-SIZE: 120%; COLOR: #2feeea; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center">**References:** Hill S 2006, //Developing early literacy: assessment and teaching,// Eleanor Curtain Publishing, Prahran, Vic.

Reading Rockets 2004, //First year teacher program//, retrieved 21 April 2008, <http://www.readingrockets.org/firstyear/>

Wilbur P M 2003, //Succeed to read, teach a child to read//, retrieved 21 April 2008, <http://www.succeedtoread.com/learntoread.html>