The process of learning to read is a complex process that requires the teaching of various skills and strategies such as knowing the relationship between letters and sounds and phonemic awareness. It is a process that takes time to acquire and plenty of practise to maintain these skills. Some children readily learn how to "break the alphabet code" working out that the alphabet is a symbol system of sounds and words, while for other children it is a lengthy process.
The school wide Inquiry focus on Reading is to lift the achievement of students who are below the expected achievement level. It is hoped that through our Inquiry we will learn more about our priority student's reading behaviour and help them to overcome their problems.
When listening to children read individually, one can quickly observe what reading strategies they use. What do they do when they come to an unknown word? Do they appeal? Or use only visual clues? Wait for someone else in the group to supply the word? Or have a wild guess?
I have focused on a group of children who have some knowledge of the "alphabet code" and are trying to make meaning out of print. They are reading at red level and know some high frequency words. These are the observations I made.
Child A: His reading lacks fluency. He reads slowly, "voice pointing" at each word, as if he lacks confidence in his own reading ability. He came to an unknown word , hesitated then turned to the title saying it was a bit like this. He noticed the word in the title had an upper case initial letter and he asked if it was the same word. We compared the letters and he then agreed it was the same word. He also used the picture to confirm his "guess" of an unknown interest word further on in the story.
Child B: Read very fast and he did not pick up his errors. He was not looking at the whole word but guessed from the initial letter. He is not noticing or using any punctuation but did commented at one stage that the reading didn't make sense but did not attempt to fix it. He lacked focus on the task and was constantly glancing around at what else was happening in the class.
Child C: Although she has a good alphabet sound knowledge, Child C has not made as much progress as I had expected. She lacks confidence and does not like to get a word wrong so constantly stops and appeals at an unknown word. She gets the high frequency words "come" and "here" mixed up and she has not got the confidence to check if she has the correct word.
Child D: Also reads slowly and appeals when he comes to an unknown word. He reads each night which is beginning to help him recognise more high frequency words but this does not help him with unknown words. He knows most of his alphabet sounds but has not made the connection between alphabet sound knowledge and how to attempt to use it to help with his reading.
Hearing the children read individually was helpful to pin point some of their reading behaviours.
