Basic Components of Reading Instruction

When learning to read, the most effective instruction includes the following five components:

Phonemic Awareness
Phonics 
Reading Fluency
Vocabulary
​Text Comprehension 

Let's Talk About...

Phonemic Awareness: The knowledge that words are comprised of individual sounds or phonemes.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word, and phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes in a given word.  

Children should be able to identify beginning consonant sounds (onset), vowel sounds, ending consonant sounds, and vowel and ending consonant combinations (rime).

In addition to identifying, children must be able to segment and blend individual sounds in a word.  For example, when given the word "rash", your child should be able to identify that there are three separate sounds and to blend the sounds to identify the word, and then segment and identify individual sounds when asked. 

Phonemic awareness skills are important as they are a precursor to word attack skills.  Strong phonemic awareness indicates that children will be able to decode or break down words that they've never encountered. 

Phonemic awareness skills are developed in early childhood education, and through a variety of engaging and entertaining activities.  Click the link below for a few ideas.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonemic-activities-preschool-or-elementary-classroom 

Phonics: A system of reading instruction in which students learn that sounds/phonemes are represented  by letters/graphemes (sound-symbol relationship).  

Phonics teaches children how to attack or decode unknown words.  They must learn the sound that individual letters and letter combinations represent.  For example, s represents the /s/ sound, heard at the beginning of "sit" and h is an aspirate that represents the /h/ sound heard that the beginning of "happy", but sh represents one sound, not two.  sh represents the sound heard at the end of "fish".  A strong phonics program also helps one to build strong spelling skills as well.  

​Word attack skills are critical to becoming a fluent, independent reader.  Many times, reading problems stem from poor decoding skills.  While it is an established fact that phonics is required to learn how to read, the method of instruction  is an area of debate amongst reading instructors.  Teachers used to teach phonics in an explicit, systematic manner, but today, there is a strong push towards whole language- a method of instruction that exposes children to text and asks them to learn word attack skills inductively.  There are political reasons for the removal of phonics instruction from elementary schools, which will be addressed in a separate blog post.  

There are hundreds of phonics instruction programs, particularly for younger children.  However, given the reading epidemic that our older children are facing, I recommend the following resources
- Wilson Reading Program (a phonics-based remedial reading program for students of all ages)
- Lindamood Bell's Seeing Stars (a reading instructional program helping students that have a weak working memory, which is necessary for good word attack skills)
- Phonics for Older Students by Remedia Publications (a book of activities to develop phonics skills)
- Teaching Phonics & Word Study in the Intermediate Grades by Wiley Blevins
- Words Their Way  by Bear and Invernizzi (a text offering information and activities for learners of all ages to develop word attack skills)

​

Reading Fluency: the ability to read text smoothly, accurately, clearly, and with expression.  

So now that students can break down and read words aloud, they must be able to read them in a sentence, paragraph, etc...  Reading fluency addresses one's oral reading skills. 

A great part of fluency that is overlooked is grammar.  Grammar directly links to reading fluency, as fluency is based on word identification (being able to read words onsite), and phrasing.  Phrasing lets a reader know where to pause and place emphasis based on punctuation (commas, exclamation points, question marks, periods, etc...)  Grammar helps a child read with an expression and intonation that comes across as natural.  

The best way to develop fluency is via practice.  Choral/unison reading activities, modeled reading (teacher/parent showing what good reading looks like), phrasal reading, etc... can help people develop fluency skills.  

Weak fluency is generally due to poor decoding skills, poor word identification skills (especially sight words), and poor vocabulary.

Vocabulary: studying words and their meanings (denotatively and connotatively)

With little explanation needed, vocabulary is key to reading comprehension.  If children do not know the meaning of the words they are reading, how can they make meaning of the entire text?  

There is a great debate about how we should define words.  We are taught vocabulary primarily via looking up words in the dictionary and by reading them in context (context clues).  Most schools do not teach explicit vocabulary skills. 

Vocabulary can be classified as active or passive.  Active vocabulary is when you are able to both recognize and use a word, while passive vocabulary is when you just recognize the word. 

The Cultivated Mind is ALL ABOUT vocabulary.  In fact, we are developing a curriculum that places etymology at the basis of all vocabulary instruction.  For more information, check out our affiliate website, EtymologyRules.
​

Text Comprehension: the ability to make meaning of the text.  

The purpose of learning the previous components of reading instruction is to make meaning of the text.  A reader should be able to identify the author's main ideas and supporting details (nonfiction) or the central idea or theme of a text (fiction).  If your child spends more time trying to sound out words or define the words in the passage, then the child will have less mental energy to place towards making meaning.  This is a clear indication that the text is too difficult.  When learning to read, your child should be reading texts on their instructional level (not too hard, but not too easy), and to develop reading stamina, they should read on their independent reading level (text they can read on their own). 

The following components are necessary to comprehend text:
- Prior knowledge
- Ability to make mental pictures (visualization)
- Making predictions
- Asking questions
- Recognizing text structure
- Paraphrasing 
- Summarizing
- Making inferences 

​A great text on comprehension is 7 Keys to Comprehension by Susan Zimmerman

Overall, reading is key, and with such low reading rates amongst our children, we must do what is necessary to ensure our children are equipped with this skill.  Michigan's public school system recently just stated that children do not have the right to learn to read.  That should tell you that it is up to YOU as a parent to teach your child to read.  Remember mama's, we are the first teachers and the womb is the first school.  

Feel free to e-mail [email protected] for questions about reading.  Or leave a comment below!