Steps for teaching reading


10 Easy Steps to Teach Kids to Read

Teachers want their students to be successful in life, and one of the most important things for a child’s future is literacy. Reading is the foundation for all learning, and kids must learn how to read as early as possible. But teaching kids to read can be a daunting task – especially if you don’t know where to start.

Don’t worry, though! We’ve got you covered. This blog post will outline ten simple steps to help teachers teach kids to read. But first, let’s take a look at why reading is so essential.

Take me straight to the 10 easy steps!

Why is Reading Important?
Related Reading: Best Teaching Strategies for 2022

Reading is one of the essential skills a person can possess. It is necessary for success in school, and it is a prerequisite for many careers. In addition, reading allows people to learn about new things, explore other cultures, and understand the world around them.

So, how can teachers help their children become readers? Let’s discuss some fantastic techniques!

How to Teach Kids to Read: 10 Easy Steps

1. Start With Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds in words. This is an essential skill for reading, and it can be taught very early on. In fact, many schools start teaching phonemic awareness as early as kindergarten.

There are several activities that teachers can use to help kids develop phonemic awareness. For example, teachers can have students clap out the sounds in words, identify and spell rhyming words, and segment words into individual sounds.

2. Teach Sight Words<a href=httpsinpinterestcompin112660428164454352 title=Image source >Image source <a>

Sight words are the most common words in the English language, and they must be learned to read fluently. Teaching sight words can be tricky because there is no one set way to do it. However, there are a few general tips that teachers can follow.

One of the best ways to teach sight words is to use flashcards. Flashcards allow students to see and say the word several times, which helps them learn it better. In addition, teachers can use games and activities to help students learn sight words.

3. Introduce Letter Sounds

Letter sounds are the individual sounds that letters make. Teaching letter sounds is another essential step in teaching kids to read. This can be done in various ways, but one of the most effective methods is to use flashcards.

Teachers can also use songs and rhymes to help students learn letter sounds. Songs and rhymes are fun to learn, and they allow students to remember information better.

4. Teach Word Families

Word families are groups of words that have the same ending letter sound. Teaching word families is a great way to help kids learn new words. In addition, it helps them understand how words are related to each other.

There are several ways that teachers can teach word families. One way is to use flashcards. Another way is to use word family charts. Charts allow students to see how the different words are related to each other.

5. Use Stories to Teach Reading

Stories are a great way to teach kids to read. They provide contextual clues and help kids understand what they are reading. In addition, stories are fun and exciting, which helps kids stay engaged in the learning process.

6. Make Reading Fun with Games<a href=httpswwwsplashlearncomelareading games title=Reading games on SplashLearn >Reading games on SplashLearn <a>

One of the best ways to get kids interested in reading is to make it fun. Try different activities such as reading aloud, reading together, and reading challenges.

In addition, let kids read books they are interested in and provide various reading materials such as magazines, comics, and books. There are also different reading games offered by SplashLearn that can make reading more fun for kids.

7. Encourage Kids to Read Independently

Kids learn to read best when they are allowed to practice and experiment independently. Encourage your child to read independently by setting aside time each day to read and provide various materials. Be sure to praise your child for their efforts and successes, no matter how small.

8. Help Kids Understand What They Are Reading

One of the most important things you can do as a parent is to help your child understand what they are reading. This can be done by asking questions about the text, discussing the characters and plot, and connecting what is read to the child’s own experiences.

Related Reading: Benefits of Reading Aloud in Classrooms 

9. Teach Kids to Use Context Clues

Context clues are words or phrases in a text that help explain the meaning of unknown words. Teaching kids to use context clues is an essential step in reading comprehension.

There are several ways that teachers can help students learn how to use context clues. One way is to provide them with a list of context clue words. Another way is to use word maps. Word maps help students see how the different parts of a word are related to each other.

10. Monitor Kids’ Reading Progress

It is crucial to monitor your child’s reading progress and make sure they are making adequate progress. One way to do this is to keep track of what words your child can read and what words they are still working on. In addition, be sure to ask your child questions about the text they are reading to check their comprehension.

Let’s Read!

With these ten simple steps, you can help kids become a reader in no time! Reading is an essential life skill, and with the right tools and techniques, you can make sure your child masters it. Be sure to praise your students for their efforts and successes, and don’t forget to have fun while reading together!

Related Reading: How to Build Effective Project-Based Learning Plans for Classrooms

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How can I help my students understand what they are reading?

One of the best ways to help kids understand what they are reading is to discuss the text with them. Ask questions about the characters and plot, and connect what is read to the child’s own experiences. In addition, please provide them with a list of context clue words.

When do you consider a child to be a reader?

There is no one answer to this question, as reading proficiency varies from child to child. However, a good rule of thumb is to consider a child to be a reader when they are able to read fluently and understand what they are reading.

How can poems entice reluctant readers?

Poems can be a great way to get reluctant readers interested in reading. One way to do this is to read the poem aloud and have students follow along. In addition, ask questions about the poem to help students understand it better. Finally, connect the poem to the child’s own experiences.

What are some reading strategies that can help my students?

There are a variety of reading strategies that can help students become better readers. Some strategies include using context clues, asking questions about the text, and monitoring reading progress. In addition, teachers can use word maps to help students see how the different parts of a word are related to each other.

How can phonological awareness help children become better readers?

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and identify the individual sounds that makeup words. Teaching phonological awareness is an essential step in reading instruction. There are a variety of ways that teachers can help students learn about phonology. One way is to provide students with word cards. Another way is to use phonemic cueing.

What should I do if my students are struggling with reading?

If your students are struggling with reading, it is important to find out the root of the problem. One way to do this is by using a reading assessment. Once the problem has been identified, teachers can provide students with the appropriate interventions. In addition, it is important to monitor the child’s progress and make sure they are making adequate progress.

Is silent reading better for students than reading aloud?

Some students prefer silent reading, while others prefer reading aloud. It is important to allow students to choose the type of reading that works best for them. However, teachers need to provide both types of reading so that all students have the opportunity to experience both.

The 7 Main Steps To Teach Reading, From Beginning To Reading Comprehension

There are seven main steps to teaching reading to a child from the beginning to reading comprehension. They are as follows:

Step 1: Teach the sounds of individual letters:

Students need to learn the individual sounds in words and that words are made up of small parts of sound and phonemes. Recognizing individual sounds and understanding the relationship between letters and spoken sounds (phonics) create phonemic awareness.

Be sure to emphasize ending sounds as well as the more obvious beginning sounds. Listening for ending sounds is sometimes overlooked, yet it is very important.

Step 2: Teach sound blends:

Sound blends such as st, fl, dr, sh, etc should be emphasized as well as digraphs such as ch, ck, ph. These letters together form distinct sounds or phonemes.

Step 3: Teach whole words:

Whole-word recognition or word identification is made up of being able to use sound-symbol relationships. This is an important skill that deserves the time students spend to master. Word families- bat, cat, pat, sat, etc. are important in this stage. Vowels should require special attention in this stage, especially when distancing between short /i/ and short /e/ (As in /pit/ and /pet/) throughout the whole-word reading process.

We learn some sight words incidentally or in the course of everyday life. Certain words are just recognized by their appearance and EFL students can recognize and appear to “read” signs and advertisements, such as Brand Names such as NIKE, Pepsi, etc.

Here are some materials you can use to promote the developing EFL students’ identification of sight words:

  • Word games such as matching and word search games.
  • Flashcards or reader books with plenty of sight words.
  • Picture dictionaries.
  • Rhymes and entertaining poetry.

Step 4: Present meanings:

Be sure that students know the meaning of each word they read. You can use a lot of techniques to present the meanings such as drawings, pictures, miming, etc. Don’t forget to check the understanding of the meanings frequently. Be sure that students can discriminate the variations in meaning as well as go over words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings.

Step 5: Teach word parts:

It is important to teach word parts: prefixes, root words, suffixes, and derivations of words. When students know these parts, they will be able to understand more words. For example, when an elementary school student knows the meaning of “bed” and the meaning “room”, they will understand easily the meaning of “bedroom”.

Step 6: Put words in contexts:

Encouraging students to put each word in context is a powerful strategy. The student who can use words in sentences can demonstrate a mastery of reading and language usage as well.

Step 7: Teach reading comprehension:

Teaching reading comprehension is essential to achieve the enjoyment of reading or reading for pleasure and for understanding the informational text. Several important techniques to check reading comprehension can be used. You can ask students to:

  • retell, summarize, or paraphrase what you’ve read.
  • make inferences or draw conclusions.
  • sequence events.
  • compare and contrast, etc.

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Teaching reading - the main methods and stages of classes

Sooner or later, every parent faces the question of how to properly teach a child to read: where to start, what method to choose, teach yourself or trust a specialist? And such questions do not arise in vain, because learning to read is a rather complex and lengthy process, on which the further study of a student largely depends. Mom and dad, like no one else, know what is best for their baby. They can choose any training option. The main thing is that initially the child learns all the stages, and in the future he does not have to be retrained. nine0003

Teaching reading to preschoolers. Where should you start?

Adults look with admiration at children who read well at the age of 3-4. Pride is caused not only by children, but also by their parents, who managed to teach them at such an early age. Therefore, many strive to start learning letters as soon as possible, to read by syllables. But experienced teachers and psychologists do not recommend starting teaching reading to preschoolers under 5 years old. It is believed that it is at this age that the baby is already ripe for high-quality and effective classes. nine0003

There are two indicators that you can rely on to start teaching your child to read. If he is very interested in letters and texts that he sees, tries to read them, asks to teach him. Or, if the preschooler will soon go to first grade. Of course, schools do not have strict requirements for the preparation of students. But it will be better if the first grader masters the initial reading skills before his first bell rings.

In both cases, you need to think about who will take on the role of teacher. Undoubtedly, it will be more effective to engage in specialized centers. nine0003

When can I start teaching my child to read?

In an effort to develop a child's skills as early as possible, parents do not always think about how early learning can affect the baby. Trying to teach him to read at 2-3 years old, adults forget that his brain is not yet completely ready to perform such tasks. Even if earlier learning is successful, it is likely that in the future there will be problems with reading speed or reading comprehension. This is due to the fact that the baby is not yet able to effectively go through all the stages of learning. Therefore, it is better to start classes at about 5 years old. It is also worth paying attention to the signs of readiness of the student. These include:

  • Excellent sensory experience.
  • The ability to be attentive for a long time, to make elementary conclusions.
  • Ability to compare objects of complex shape.
  • Developed memory and visual-figurative thinking.
  • Independent knowledge.

Given that all children develop at their own pace, it is important to understand the readiness of an individual child, and not adjust learning to age. After all, complex thought processes require the psychological maturity of a person. nine0003

Basic steps and methods

When teaching reading, you need to take into account the basic steps, each of which must be well learned and fixed by the student. All children need different time to master the material, so someone will quickly pass the first stage, and someone next. Take your time and take as much time as you need.

Stages:

  • Consolidation of the concept of "letter" and "sound";
  • Learning phonetics;
  • Excellent knowledge of the alphabet; nine0020
  • Reading by syllable;
  • Word;
  • Phrase;
  • Text.

When choosing methods of teaching reading, you can pay attention to verbal, visual and practical. The verbal method is necessary in the classroom, it evokes the correct associations, emotions and images in the student. But it must be supported by both visual and practical.

The visual method is characterized by the use of different didactic materials. It is interesting for children, because it allows you to add variety to your studies. Also, thanks to the visibility, the guys become more observant and attentive. nine0003

When the first two methods have been used, you can move on to practice. It is practical exercises that allow you to improve knowledge, increase the level of skills and abilities.

Methods of teaching reading. How to choose effective courses?

In order not to make a mistake with the choice of methodology, to be sure that the child is ready to learn, as well as to make classes interesting and effective, you should pay attention to special programs developed by specialists.

Such examples include reading courses for Primer and Chitarik from the SMARTUM Intelligence Development Academy. Thanks to a high-quality methodology, students get the opportunity not only to learn to read correctly, but also to master meaningful reading when there is a complete understanding of what they read. nine0003

Primer helps children to learn letters and sounds, to understand the basics of phonetics. Chitarika is the next stage, which directly teaches to read. Education has a consistent character - the kid has time to learn and consolidate each of the stages of learning and only after that he moves on to the next.

Due to the methodology from experienced teachers, in the end, the child will be able to quickly and correctly read, understand the text read, and work with it independently. All this is very useful in elementary school, because the child will come to study already prepared. The presence of reading skills will allow him to quickly adapt to the educational process, to better absorb the material. nine0003

Stages of learning to read and write | Article (grade 1) on the topic:

Course preparation for professional development.

Practically significant work

on the topic:

"Stages of learning to read and write."

Completed by: speech therapist teacher

Voskresensk 2017


Reading is a complex psychophysiological process. Visual, speech-motor, speech-auditory analyzers take part in his act. On the basis of this process, as B.G. Ananiev, “the most complex mechanisms of interaction between analyzers and temporal connections of two signal systems” lie. nine0003

In the complex process of reading, three main points can be distinguished:

1. Perception of these words. To be able to read means, first of all, to be able to guess by letter the words that they denote. Reading begins only from the moment when a person, looking at the letters, is able to pronounce, or remember, a certain word corresponding to a combination of these letters.

2. Understanding the content associated with the words read. Each word we read can cause some changes in our minds, which determine our understanding of this word. nine0003

3. Evaluation of reading. The ability not only to read a book, but also to critically relate to its content is observed, as is well known, not always.

In modern pedagogy, it is customary to characterize the skill of reading by naming its four qualities: correctness, fluency, consciousness and expressiveness.

Correctness is defined as fluent reading without distortion affecting the meaning of what is being read.

Fluency is the speed of reading, which determines reading comprehension. This speed is measured by the number of printed characters read per unit of time (usually the number of words per minute). nine0003

Consciousness of reading in the methodological literature of recent times is interpreted as understanding the author's intention, awareness of the artistic means that help to realize this intention, and understanding one's own attitude to what is read.

Expressiveness is the ability by means of oral speech to convey to the audience the main idea of ​​the work and one's own attitude towards it.

Well-known psychologist T.G. Egorov in his work “Essays on the Psychology of Teaching Children to Read” considers reading as an activity consisting of three interrelated actions: the perception of alphabetic characters, the voicing (pronunciation) of what they indicate, and the comprehension of what is read. In a small child who is just learning to read, these actions proceed sequentially. However, as the experience of reading the text is accumulated, these components are synthesized. For the reading to take place, all three actions must be performed simultaneously. nine0003

Stages in the development of reading skills for a beginner reader.

In methodological science, there are three stages in the formation of reading skills: analytical, synthetic, and the stage of automation.

The analytical stage is characterized by the fact that all three components of the reading process in the activity of the reader are “broken” and require separate efforts from the child to perform specific operations: see the vowel, correlate it with the merging syllable, think where the letters should be read outside the merger, voice each graphic syllable seen, i. e. pronounce smoothly, so that you recognize the word and understand it. Reading by syllables is a sign that the child is at the very first stage of skill formation - analytical. nine0003

The synthetic stage assumes that all three reading components are synthesized, i.e. perception, pronunciation and comprehension of what is read occur simultaneously. At this stage, the child begins to read in whole words. However, the main sign of the reader's transition to this stage is the presence of intonation during reading.

The automation stage is described as the stage at which the reading technique is brought to automatism and is not realized by the reader. His intellectual efforts are aimed at understanding the content of what he reads. The main sign that children have reached the level of automatic reading is their immediate emotional reaction to the work they read on their own. Such a path - from the analytical stage to the stage of automation - can be passed by a child within the framework of elementary school, provided that the teacher provides a certain mode of work in the classroom; nine0003

. Writing and writing are important activities for the child, on which the mental development of the student and the success of his advancement in studies at all subsequent stages of education depend.

The psychophysiological nature of the writing process as a type of speech activity is the mechanism of interaction of five components: auditory, articulatory, visual, motor and hand-movement (A.R. Luria, B.G. Ananiev, B.V. Guryanov, N.G. Agarkova) . Writing, in comparison with other forms of speech activity, is characterized by a specific visual-motor link, since only through visual representations is the connection of the auditory-motor representation characteristic of the formed writing skill with the motor representation established (P. L. Gorfunkel, N. G. Agarkova). nine0003

From the very beginning of learning to read and write, the subject of comprehension for a first-grader should be not only the process of sound analysis of words, a clear differentiation of articulation of phonemes similar in sound, the preservation of visual images of letters in memory, but also the assimilation of letter signs, as well as ways to reproduce them on paper.

Writing is a complex type of learning activity. It consists of a number of structural components, many rules and skills, the mastery of which is a complex, lengthy, difficult process for elementary school students [22]. A student, learning to write, must master three main groups of skills, namely:

a) technical - to use writing instruments correctly, coordinate hand movements, adhere to hygiene rules;

b) graphic - correctly depict letters, syllables, words, write letters with the desired slope, a certain height and width, evenly position on the working side, connect them correctly;

c) spelling - correctly determine the sound and letter composition of words, comment on their description.

Learning to write is, first of all, the development of a graphic skill. Like any skill, it is formed as a result of training, as a result of the formation of skills and, on their basis, performing a series of exercises. nine0003

The process of mastering the skill of writing has a complex psychophysiological structure and includes auditory analysis, articulation, formation and preservation of the visual-motor image of each graphic element (letter), as well as complex mechanisms of coordination and regulation of movements. At the same time, children must learn the concept of letters - graphic signs, with the help of which sounding speech is fixed on paper, learn different styles of the same letter in various versions (printed, written, large and small). Children must correctly differentiate the sounds of speech, unmistakably recognize them, write them down correctly, correlate them with letters. In parallel, the formation of spelling skills is underway. nine0003

A skill is “an action formed by repetition,* characterized by a high degree of mastery and the absence of element-by-element conscious regulation and control.”

There are three main stages in the formation of a skill:

Stage I - analytical - isolating and mastering individual elements of an action, understanding the content.

Stage II - conventionally called synthetic - the combination of individual elements into a holistic action.

Stage III - automation - the actual formation of the actual skill as an action, characterized by a high degree of assimilation and the absence of element-by-element conscious regulation and control. Characteristic features of skill automation are speed, smoothness, ease of execution. It is impossible to form a skill without exercises, but the exercise is only advisable at the third stage of skill formation, and the first two stages are conscious activity (and not mechanical exercises). Until the child has realized the algorithm of action (for example, “where to start writing, where to lead, where to end”), until the task of actions has been formed (for example, the visual image of a letter), “exercising” the child is meaningless and harmful. “Jumping” through the first two stages (analytical and synthetic) not only does not contribute to the formation of a skill, but also slows it down. nine0003

Consequently, the formation of reading and writing skills of a younger student is facilitated by the teacher taking into account the psychophysiological characteristics of the child and the use of a combination of various techniques and exercises in his pedagogical activity, as well as additional teaching methods that facilitate the student's work.


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