Teach a Child to Read With Children's Books
Teach a Child to Read with Children'due south Books
Volume review by Ruth Beechick
I oftentimes hear parents say, "My child tin read just he can't comprehend." Since reading is comprehending the printed words, something is very wrong with this statement. I decided that the mistake is in these parents' definition of reading. They seem to think that reading consists of sounding out words. Their child can sound out words, so they say he tin read.
Homeschoolers are more prone to this view than the residual of the world because many advertisements and writings directed to them promote phonics heavily. That sounds reasonable to an adult listen. If we are going to teach reading, the view says, let's outset with the smallest particles—the letters and their sounds and rules and linguistic vocabulary of phonemes, consonants, then forth. Then we tin can motility upwardly to syllables and to words. And when the child knows enough words he can brainstorm to read. This could be called the bottom-up system.
This wonderful book by Marker Thogmartini1 explains a top-down system in which the child begins by reading existent books. These are more interesting than workbooks and certainly more interesting than phonics drill. Only they have within them withal phonics sounds and sight words that the bottom-up lessons would teach. Thogmartin does non neglect phonics; he integrates it with real reading rather than pedagogy it in a vacuum. Through books, and then, children get the best of both worlds—enjoyment of stories and reading skills, too.
Thogmartin suggests "predictable books." Some of these are repetitious similar Brown Bear, What Do You Meet ii
Dark-brown bear, brown bear, what practise you see?
I see a redbird looking at me.
Redbird, redbird, what exercise yous meet?
I see a yellow duck looking at me.
Others are cumulative like Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Some have elements of rhyme and rhythm or use familiar sequences such as numbers or days of the week.
On Monday he ate through 1 apple.
But he was still hungry.
On Tuesday he ate through two pears,
but he was still hungry.3
This predictability is key, according to Thogmartin. In Chocolate-brown Bear, a child could read the next two lines all except for the new creature. A major reading strategy is to predict what may come up next. This is what keeps you reading folio after page of a novel. By predicting significant, the child tin tell that the adjacent page volition name a new creature looking at the yellow duck. The first alphabetic character or other phonics chemical element he knows may help him figure out what fauna. The motion picture on the page will aid too. It is legal to use pictures. A good reading strategy is to continue an ongoing "pic" in our heads of what we are reading, and picture books innovate children to that strategy. Phonics, meaning, and pictures—all are legal cues. Meaning is the principal one. If phonics causes a kid to say firm instead of horse but house does non fit the meaning, the child needs to stop and try to figure out what is incorrect. Or if he says read with long e audio when information technology should be short east, only meaning volition help him correct it.
Attempt reading something that is difficult for you and see what cues you use to figure out unknown words. In a geology report I see the word aeromagnetic and I don't bother to sound it out syllable by syllable. Sounds do not requite the meaning anyway. I come across ii parts, the second a familiar word and the first looks like the British spelling in aeroplane. The British connection is confirmed later in the sentence where it uses kilometers instead of miles. So I suspect that this is a style to use magnetic instruments from the air to study a geologic formation. That meaning fits what I am reading and so I can continue without running to the dictionary. Children, likewise, should learn to apply known parts or whatsoever cues that assistance to get the proper meaning.
Thogmartin explains that parents should begin with "whole reading" of predictable books by reading to children and then gradually move into more formal lessons where children practice nearly of the reading. In lessons, the general procedure is to begin by reading familiar books in the child'southward basket of books. Review yesterday'southward book. Then employ a new book for the day. Starting time, innovate the new book by looking through information technology with the child. Wait at the pictures. Talk about the story using its own words as much every bit possible. If it says they went to the park and went to the zoo, and then don't ask "Where did they become?" Then help the child read the book using any of the skills he has learned then far.
There are numerous didactics tips in this book, more than you tin use in one lesson and maybe more than than you will ever apply. 1 idea is for the child to betoken to each give-and-take as he reads, not then as to sound out What … practice … you … see, only more rapidly and so as to show he understands the one-to-1 correspondence of each printed word to each spoken word. You can sometimes read with a kid. If he reads word by give-and-take, you tin model a smooth expressive reading and so have him reread the sentence. Some other tip is to wait long enough for the child to try the strategies he knows and not jump in as well quickly to tell him a word. When you do help, attempt reminding him to look at the first alphabetic character or a known part of the word or other cue. Adept phonics information is included in this volume, pointing out what generalizations (not rules) are the most useful to teach. This top-down system does not have an engineered sequence for learning sounds or other bits of reading. Yous teach them as a child meets them. All the sounds and words are in interesting stories. Far better to learn them there than in boring workbooks and drills.
Amidst things not to do, is not to panic when a child reverses p, q, b, or d. Instead, show how lower case b is office of capital B. Or teach the give-and-take bed as a mnemonic. Do not use the words large and little, but use upper example and lower instance. Some lower instance letters are as big as the capitals. Do not interrupt a story with teachings so long that the story gets lost. Keep your teachings short. If a child misses more than one give-and-take in ten, the book is too hard for him.
Thogmartin points out that tests like the California Achievement Test are geared to children who are learning the bits and pieces of reading and accept practiced filling out workbook blanks. So he found a test of whole reading and the children scored higher. Someone in your homeschool grouping who has access to a graded series of readers (not A Beka or ACE) can brand a test. Cull selections from each level of reader, shorter on the lower levels, perchance upwardly to one hundred words at higher levels. For piece of cake arithmetic try to adjust circular numbers of words—forty, 50, and so on. To test a child, start where you know it is easy for him, and have him read aloud each selection in order. Stop when he misses more than 10 percent of words in two selections—for instance, if he misses more than iv words in a xl-give-and-take option. The highest level where he accomplished xc percent is his reading level.
Thogmartin'due south lessons add writing. He has the kid write a sentence most the story or perhaps a judgement that he wants to write. This gives further opportunity to teach nigh messages and sounds, and information technology integrates reading and writing.
After several capacity of good teaching ideas, the book moves on to record keeping, and this is where I part company with the system. I could never go on records of each audio and each skill that a child has learned, or even a list of the books read and the days they were read. If a child does not learn or remember a particular item, I assume information technology will come up again and I volition get more than chances to teach and review it. That is easier than searching my records to encounter what to teach.
When my offset kid was learning to talk I thought that if this toddler was going to acquire English linguistic communication in two years I surely could learn Russian in that fourth dimension. All I had to do was write downward each new word he spoke each twenty-four hour period, and so add those to my Russian list and learn them, but this very soon became overwhelming. By the natural abode method toddlers learn to speak thousands of words per year. The natural reading method also reaches a point where we cannot continue upwards with what words a child has learned, let alone what strategies he uses in each case. I might at times use a checklist of letters or sounds to decide on something specific to teach or to see how a child has progressed during a semester or to impress a year-cease evaluator. But as part of my day-past-solar day teaching, I could never keep it upwardly. If you can, your year-end evaluator will be impressed.
In the appendix is a long list of children's books to use, just Thogmartin does not insist you stick with his list. Use whatever you have bachelor at abode or in libraries. He points out that you lot tin can buy more than thirty books for the price of an expensive phonics kit. Children who exercise phonics games and drills for reading class think that's what reading is. Those who do workbooks think that'south what reading is. And both get boring subsequently a time. But children who read interesting stories retrieve that's what reading is—right from the beginning. If your child is one of these, you will never end up saying, "My kid tin can read only he can't comprehend."
Biographical Data
Copyright, 2009. All rights reserved past author below. Content provided by The Quondam Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC.
Dr. Ruth Beechick has taught hundreds of people to read, all ages, and many methods, and she is happy to see a commonsense volume like Thogmartin'southward directed to homeschoolers. Her own newest book is Earth History Made Simple: Matching History with the Bible ( www.HomeschoolingBooks.com or 1-800-421-6645).
References
- Teach a Child to Read with Children's Books, by Mark B. Thogmartin, 1996 (EDINFO Press). Render to text.
- Brown Bear, What Practice You See? by Bill Martin, Jr., 1967 (Henry Holt & Co.). Return to text.
- From The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, 1969 (Philomel Books). Return to text.
Source: https://creation.com/teach-a-child-to-read-with-childrens-books
0 Response to "Teach a Child to Read With Children's Books"
Post a Comment