Developing reading

When does reading start? Formally? Age 4, in school. However, words might appear to young children sooner. E.g. PUSH and PULL on doors. Where may very young children absorb information from?

Thinking points 1. Did your pre school or family experience shape your attitude to reading and writing and your confidence at school? 2. Technology offers new types of literacy. What kind of literacy do you need to use it? 3. Should other cultural practices be more valued within schools?

What do you think baby/toddler books aim to do? How do they achieve their aims?

Baby/ toddler books Help with speech development by providing pictures for children to label objects/package/network build. Often based around themes or topics using hypernyms to provide children with relevant hyponyms and allow them to network build. Initially designed to be read to children – therefore they contain complicated grammatical structure that children wouldn’t be able to read. They increase children’s knowledge of immediate environment. Provide an enjoyable shared experience. Reading scheme books are different – focus on entertainment, but also to help the formal learning process. Children become independent reader around the age of 8.

Now let’s look at some theorists that will help us discuss how children learn to read...

B. F. Skinner Imitation theory Children can be seen learning to read through clear imitation and repeating of words

Jerome Bruner- LASS (language acquisition support system) Explains how parents use book to interact with babies. He saw parent child interactions as having 4 phases: 1. Gaining attention- getting the babies attention on a picture. 2. Query- asking the baby what the object is. 3. Label- telling the baby what the object in the picture is. 4. Feedback- responding to the baby’s utterance. He was inspired by Vygotsky, who believed that children learn by being helped to do it when they are ready- and part of a ‘scaffolding’ process. Both see children as active learners and believe that the social context of their experiences are of paramount importance.

Jeanne Chall An expert on reading development, Jeanne Chall, surmised that "the learning and uses of literacy are among the most advanced forms of intelligence, and, compared to other forms, depend more on instruction and practice" (1983, p. 2). Chall (1983) proposed six developmental stages that describe how children typically learn to read, as summarized in table below.

Noam Chomsky Nativism: the theory that the ability to acquire language is genetic and innate Theory Language has a quality of innateness. Big gap between evidence available to child and linguistic system they ultimately construct Language Acquisition Device (LAD: an instinctive mental ability to develop language) Universal Grammar (initial state of LAD) – what child has at birth Children assemble sets of rules as they see language about them

Jean Piaget Theory of Cognitive Development

One of the most famous theories used to explain children’s overall cognitive development. It can be used by literacy educators to understand the learning stages through which students progress as they mature and their relationship to literacy achievement. Let’s look at this more closely… Theory of Cognitive Development

Birth – 2 Years of Age Sensory exploration of the world: Children do not have language skills and are dependent on their senses. Activities for Literacy –Board books with brightly colored pictures –Books with sound, things to touch, or smell

2 Years – 7 Years of Age This stage is categorized with rapid language development. Children begin to categorize with words. Activities for Literacy –Story book reading and discussing the story

7 Years – 11 Years of Age In this stage of development, children use concrete objects to begin to think about abstract concepts. Books for younger children will often contain lots of concrete nouns and mostly avoid including abstract nouns.

How do the texts do the following… Interact with their audience Suggest values. Use rhyme and other phonological devices Depict characters (animal? human?) Use spoken language features Proportion of text to pictures Hypernyms/hyponyms/semantic fields Structural devices (repetition, repetition of sentence frames, lexical cohesion – connectives) Vary sentence moods – declarative, exclamatory, interrogative, imperative

Graphemes and phonemes A grapheme: a written symbol, letter or combination of letters that represent a phoneme or a sound. Children need to understand that written texts: 1. reflect the relationship between symbols (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). 2. have cohesion, with different parts interconnecting 3. are organised in particular ways, chapters, headings etc 4. differ in their organisation according to genre (fiction and non-fiction) 5. represent their original culture, following its rules and conventions

How are children taught to read? Looking into the deep and distant past…. Can you remember how were you taught to read?

How are children taught to read? ‘Look and say’ or whole word approach. Children learn the shape of words, without recognising individual phonemes. The method is often with flashcards, with an image to accompany it. What are the advantages? Disadvantages?

How are children taught to read? The ‘phonics’ approach. Children learn the different sounds made by different letters and put them together. Emphasis is on phonological awareness and on hearing, differentiating sounds in spoken words. The two main approaches are analytic and synthetic. This is currently viewed as being the most effective… why? Any disadvantages?

Context – Oliver (7 years old)is reading his school book to his mother at home C: the horse needs a new shoe (.) got any jobs mister (.) asked Vicky I’ll give you a penny to jump M: not jump C: pump M: yeah C: the pi b-billows M: not (.) not (.) billows what does that say what does that part of the word say [mother covers up the end of the word to leave “bell”] C: bell [mother takes hand off word] ows M: yes bellows What can we say about the context of this? What theorists can we link it to?

Encouraging and motivating… The best case scenario is parents reading with children externally as well, for obvious reasons! Through positive reinforcement, parents can aid a child’s development. Skinner would love this stuff!

Cues Cueing is the strategy used to help decode written texts successfully. Graphaphonic- looking at the shapes of words, linking them to familiar grapheme/words to interpret them. Semantic- understanding the meanings of words and making connections to new ones. Visual- looking at images to connect to words/graphemes. Syntactic- applying word knowledge and word classes to work out if context of word is correct. Contextual- searching for own experience to compare with or social conventions (pragmatics) Miscue- learning from errors.

Transcript M: Okay you are going to read your book to me today Ollie (2.0) what’s it called O: Victorian adventure M: Yes O: Biff and chip had been to (.) London (1.0) with Gran (,) they had some pictures which (.) they put into a scrapbook (.) they wanted to take the book to school M: It’s like when we went to London isn’t it O: Gran came into Biff’s room to look at the children’s scrapbook (.) we had a great time in London said Biff (1.0) thank you Gran (.) Gran was pleased (2.o) suddenly the magic key glowed it was time for an adventure (.) the magic suddenly took the children into the little house but didn’t it take Gran M: no no what does it say O: But did it take Gran M: That’s right good boy (sound of pages turning)

Chall’s stages of reading development StageAgeKey characteristics 0Pre-reading and pseudo-reading Up to 6 Pretend reading, turning pages. Some letter recognition, especially letters in own name. Often predicting stories and words. 1Initial reading and decoding 6-7Reading simple texts containing high frequency lexis. Chall estimated about 600 words understood. 2Confirmation and fluency 7-8reading more quickly, accurately, paying more attention to meaning of words. How many written words understood? 3,000. 3Reading for learning 9-14Reading for knowledge as motivation 4Multiplicity and complexity 14-17Responding critically to what they read and analysing texts. 5Construction and reconstruction 18+Reading selectively and forming opinions.

Graded ‘Reading schemes’ are used in schools. familiarity is established and used to aid learning. Can you remember the scheme at your school? Key features are: Lexical repetition- new lexis introduced often repeated. Often Proper nouns Syntactical repetition of structures- simple sentences containing one clause. Simple verbs- single rather than verb phrases One sentence per line- helping children say complete phrases Anaphoric referencing- pronouns refer to characters already used Text-image cohesion- tells the story

Key questions: 1.Can you apply the nature vs nurture debate to literacy acquisition? Is it innate? Or can be acquired through imitation? 2.Is there evidence that the methods used to teach reading support the interactionist viewpoint? 3.How far do you think cognitive acquisition theories relate to reading development? Do children have to understand the concepts first?