How is learning to read and write different to learning to speak? What are your own experiences of learning to read and write?

Charles Darwin said: The problems with learning to read and write….. “Man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children; while no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew or write.”

Literacy development Unlike the acquisition of spoken language, which a child largely acquires without being taught, the acquisition of literacy (reading and writing) needs explicit teaching. For most children, this teaching begins when they start formal schooling and is the most important aspect of language development after the age of 5. Source: Jean Stilwell Peccei, Child Language: a resource book for students, Routledge 2006

How far do you agree?

Learning to read (developing literacy skills) Reading aloud   A child who is read to frequently builds up a repertoire of known texts which will be returned to again and again. On each occasion the child plays a more active role in the reading, predicting and re-enacting of the text. This familiarisation helps the child develop a growing awareness of what is involved in becoming a reader. Silent reading Usually during the infant stage the child moves from reading aloud to reading silently. In the initial stages the child sub-vocalises the words, reading at the same pace as if s/he were reading aloud. With experience, the words become ‘thoughts in the head’ and the rate of reading increases. Issue copies of the booklet to students

LITERARY TECHNIQUES THAT HELP YOUNG READERS   Fiction for young children will often use tried and tested techniques, such as alliteration, to interest a new reader and help them remember the sounds associated with certain letters. These include: Alliteration Rhyme Pre-modification Repeated grammatical structures Assonance Rhythm Familiar discourse patterns

Methods - actually learning how to read Although you've never seen the word before, most of you will be able to guess a pronunciation for smidge. How? There are two principal methods by which a child learns to read: The whole word approach where a child is taught to recognise the total shape of the word; this method might make use of pictures and labels. The phonic method where a child learns the sounds of individual letters and runs them together to form a word, such as m-a-t. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of both these methods? What methods were used in your school?

FIND OUT ABOUT PHONICS   The teaching of reading has been debated for decades, and continues to be a controversial issue within education. Many different schemes and methods have been proposed and used; the main division is between phonic and whole-word approaches. The whole word approach (also known as ‘look and say’) teaches the child to recognise individual words as wholes, rather than as units made up of individual letters or sounds. The phonics approach to learning to read is now very popular and used in most primary schools. It involves teaching children the relationship between letters and sounds, so that they can learn the sounds for individual letters and then blend the sounds together to make the word they see on the page. Although there is more to reading than this straightforward activity, as letter-sound correspondences are not always as simple as c-a-t in English, it is interesting to look in more detail at what is taught in phonics programmes

The Research…. 1960-70   Frank Smith said that as children learn to talk by talking they learn to read by reading. He said that reading should not be broken down into component parts and children should not be presented with contrived or over simplified texts. The reader has 2 basic needs: - The availability of interesting material that makes sense to the reader. - An understanding and more experienced reader as a guide. Psycholinguists explained that readers draw upon the following cue systems when making sense of texts: Semantic cues – using knowledge and experience of stories to predict events, phrases and words. Syntactic cues – drawing on knowledge and experience of patterns in oral and written language to predict text. Grapho-phonic cues – using knowledge and experience of relationships between sounds and symbols to read particular words.

1980s   Growing emphasis on home-school links, children’s knowledge of literacy before schooling and contributions made by all parents. A research programme in Bristol found clear evidence that listening to stories was one of the most significant pre-school experiences associated with children’s development as readers and writers. When an adult reads to a child it is normal for the child to ask questions and make comments about the pictures, the print and the nature of the text itself. Through this talk children come to know more about what is involved in becoming a reader. Popular texts tend to share: a strong story a lively, rhythmical text powerful, imaginative content memorable language interesting illustrations that complement the text humour language that is not contrived or unnatural As well as published texts children’s own texts play a powerful role in developing reading ability. These texts are often made into books and become a valuable part of the classroom’s reading resources.

Reading - Stages of reading development CLA for the new AQA spec, covers ages 0-11 only. How is the research by Chall (1983) similar to that of Harris and Coltheart (1986)? Having read both of these stages of reading development, what ages do you think you can add in to Harris and Colthearts? Extension task in purple.

Mid Term Feedback…. The WHY. Why are the texts doing what they are? WHY? WHY? WHY? Must explore historical context and the impact on language use and representation! People getting Text A and Text B mixed up in comparison. Not cool! Tenuous speculation as opposed to analysis “There was very little freedom in those time so…” V’s “represented as….”

Grade Boundaries A* A B C D E 84 72 61 51 41 31 A* A B C D E 59 50 43 36 29 22 This Mid-term as no Q4/5

NEA – ORIGINAL AND COMMENTARY DUE TOMORROW. Give back those marked. Georgie Original Piece?

Child’s Language Acquisition… What needs to be demonstrated in your responses? How data sample responds to these ideas. Specific. The difference between spoken and reading/writing. An engagement with the big issues/debates/questions. What might some of these be with learning to read? Must use the data (and beyond) to provide specific examples. Analyse these. Use relevant and specific theory to back these ups. The difference methods of learning to read and their impact. Whole word? Phonics? What relevant theories backs up or challenge your findings?

Look at the books you have been given. Mini Essay - How are children’s books constructed to appeal to specific stages of language development in reading? Look at the books you have been given. Can you find any specific examples from the list? Try to work out which age-group each book is aimed at. How did the examples identified lead you to this decision? WHY would the writer make that decision? Link to the theories we looked at last lesson. Write up your findings… Intro – What are the issues? How do children acquire reading skills? What has been identified? What are the debates? Example – Show me in the text where the author has made a specific choice for the ‘reader’. Evaluate is it successful? Restrictive? Theory – What theories support your findings? Repeat x 2

Graphology Page layout. Lineation. Pictures. Font(s) and size of letters. Lexis and Semantics Length of words and number of syllables. Types of words and semantic fields. Sounds of words e.g. onomatopoeia, rhyme. Concrete/abstract nouns. Repetition. Ease of recognition (sound-spelling match). How context could help with more difficult words. Grammar / Syntax Sentence type (simple, compound, complex). Sentence length. Position of subject and verb in sentence. Use of active or passive voice. Verb tense. Modification e.g. adjectives, adverbs. Pronouns used after subject (or object) has been clearly established. Lineation in relation to grammatical units. Cohesion Careful structuring of sentences to make the text cohesive. Repetition (of words and parts of sentences). Pronouns used after referent well established. Influences from everyday speech Face to face interactions. Familiar scenarios. Use of direct speech. Informal register. Features borrowed from the oral tradition of story-telling Alliteration (big, bad wolf). Repeated epithet (Little Red Riding Hood). Parallel sentence structures. Rhythmic language Rhyming couplets.