Comprehension

                         What ideas do teachers and parents find to be important, when thinking about children learning how to read? What do we use reading for in our lives? How does this compare with the reasons young children are learning to read? Comprehension and being able to take away meaning from a text is a very important focus. We read something with the intention to understand the text and take some kind of meaning away from it. Texts sometimes have different layers of meaning to them. Therefore, different skills are needed to find the true meaning of these types of texts. Children are trying to develop skills or certain methods that help them understand or comprehend what they are reading. Teachers play an important role when it comes to helping children develop strategies to comprehend what they are reading.

                         Knowing how important reading is in our society it is teachers’ responsibility to give quality and balanced instruction about these types of strategies. This process should start when children are young so that they can use and develop these strategies throughout their life. Children are learning how to make connections, “infer information, understand humor and sarcasm, understand a characters point of view, and more” (Johnson & Keier). When children learn these skills, it helps them comprehend what they are reading. Teachers should “model strategies, explain his or her ideas behind those strategies, have students to be involved, create guided practice opportunities, and have classroom discussions about these different strategies” (Johnson & Keier). Teachers can help students learn the skills they need to comprehend meaning from what they are reading on their own. 

Sounding Out Words

            Children often believe they are in the habit of sounding words out, when they do not know what they are. This is one of the most common know strategies for learning how to read, even though this method focuses on a individual word rather than the overall meaning of the text. Our society often focuses on “reading accuracy” rather than gaining meaning from a text. 

        When looking at this subject it is found that “children use a range of strategies to solve words while reading”. Parents sometimes feel that sounding out words is their main tool when teaching their children how to read. Children take meaning from their readings to figure out words they have difficulty with. They think about what is going on in the pictures and text to solve the puzzle of the unknown word. Another way they find out a word they may not know is through using the structure of the sentence as clues. Children also use visual clues such as looking at the letters to figure out the word they are stuck on. Children are using other strategies when they may think they are just sounding out words. 

          Children have to do more than just sound out words because “sounds change with context”.  Children often go beyond sounding out words to become successful readers. When looking at how children learn to read there is much more to this process than just sounding out words. 

Reading With Children

       Reading out loud to children is a very beneficial activity. Teachers can bring in large books to read out loud to the entire class. This allows children to follow along together as a class, while the teacher leads the reading. Teachers should prepare before reading books out loud to students. Practicing reading a book out loud will make the reading with your classroom a better learning experience. This type of practicing allows teachers to figure out the parts of the stories that should be read in a different way.

   

    Thinking about what parts should be read fast or slow will add to the meaning of the story. It is also important to change the loudness of your voice when reading out loud.This adds to the storyline through emphasizing different parts with your voice. Using different voices for the characters and using different tones in your voice can bring the story alive. If you read a book in only one tone, one voice, and there is no expression in your voice then the words become more of a task instead of an experience. It is important to make literacy meaningful to your students, so every experience should be thought out.

          Children can participate in many ways during this type of interaction.  Reading out loud allows children to hear the words and create meaning from them, while still developing literacy skills. Children are able to repeat what the teacher has read, make predictions, learn new words, and much more. Reading books out loud with children is a great tool that can be very beneficial to the education of young children.

Literacy is Everywhere

Teachers and parents can share literacy experiences outside their homes or classrooms!

Where can we find good examples of literacy outside the classroom? Look around and see literacy in our everyday lives. Literacy is on our signs, our doors, and labels. Children can see how meaningful literacy is in our everyday lives through exploring familiar places, such as local stores or supermarkets.  Literacy can be seen when taking trips to local stores or supermarket through exploring:

Grocery lists

Coupons

Signs

Labels

Fliers

Newspaper Ads

Sale Signs

And More!

           This type of experience will also allow children to connect literacy to real life situations. Children will be able to associate meaningful experiences to literacy through this type of exploration. Children can also use literacy to document their findings. They can make maps of the store or supermarket. They can write and draw the people they see. They can take pictures of the area or video record events that take place. This type of exploration also allows them to collect print samples from the stores. Children can see their community in action in a meaningful way that promotes literacy skills. Children can also prepare for field trips through writing out their own grocery lists, making predictions of items they may find, or writing down questions they have about their future field trip. There are lots of ways we can think about the role literacy has within our community and it is important to explore these ideas with our children. 

How Do You Define Literacy?

                Literacy is an important tool used in our everyday lives but the idea of defining what literacy is can be tricky. People view the concept of literacy in different ways. Literacy can be thought of as a necessary tool we use to communicate ideas with one another. Reading and writing are two core ideas thought of when the subject of literacy is discussed.  When thinking about what literacy means, how would you define what reading is?  Can someone read or take meaning from pictures in a book and if so is this a part of literacy? These ideas are important thoughts to consider when thinking about how children learn to read and how they see literacy. It is essential for parents and teachers to remember that it is important for children to take away concepts or understand the meaning of what they are reading.  

              Pictures can play an important role in helping children create meaning from their readings. Adults use pictures and visual keys to make meaning of their surrounding just like children do. We can easily recognize a stop sign before reading the word STOP based off of the shape and color of the sign. Literacy is something important that everyone should define for themselves through looking at all the different aspects involved. 

Connections to Readings

Already Ready

           

Reading books aloud to young children is very important. Children should have books read to them several times a day. These experiences should be meaningful, and when they are they will act as an important literacy tool. It is important for teachers to not only read books but to create conversations from those books, talking about the cover, asking questions, and encouraging children to think. Children are learning from books and from their teacher during read alouds. Children are looking at important ideas such as, what books are. They are comparing print to the pictures, discovering different types of books, finding different meanings of books, and much more. It is important for teachers to discuss the idea that people make books. Teachers can talk about the different authors of their favorite books. They can also discuss the idea that people draw or take pictures for a book. Talking about illustrators can also inspire creative thinking from children.

The Castle In The Classroom

  

Children are exploring the different components of a story. Children see how stories are taking place somewhere and sometime. They are exploring the idea that stories have a setting. Teachers can do different activities and ask questions to promote further thought about this idea. Children also view different types of characters within books. Children are seeing how these characters are similar and different from each other. They may even make connections from one character in a story to a different character in a completely new story. Showing children that stories have problems in them allows children to think about ways these problems can be solved. Children can use their creativity when reading a book. Children can also use this creativity to make stories of their own, using ideas that they have learned about.   

Important Ideas of Teachers (Twitter)

When searching Twitter for important ideas of teachers within our society a lot of different things are shared. Teachers express their thoughts about children playing and being able to get messy. Young children learn so much from playing. Allowing them the freedom to play and explore is very important in early childhood. Getting messy is something all young children should experience regularly. Children gain so many sensory experiences when they have different opportunities to get messy. It is important for teachers to think positively about children getting messy. Clothes can be washed among with many other things in the classroom.

When teachers create a classroom environment that allows children to have meaningful experiences through their play, learning takes place. It is the teacher’s job to set up these meaningful experiences and help guide children when needed. Providing children with different sensory materials children are learning new things and adding different ideas into their schemas. Children are also learning math, science, and literacy through their play. Another important topic focused on by teachers is the idea of children gaining social and emotional skills when their young. This is a very important goal teachers should have for their children. Children need to learn how to work with one another. This is a skill they will use for the rest of their lives.