Building Readers
“Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.” —Kate DiCamillo
I love to sit on the carpet with a small group of young readers and examine a simple predictable book. These emergent texts open the door to reading for my kindergartners. But . . . we know that this is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to building skilled readers. There are many essential elements that must be incorporated into a literacy framework to construct the decoding strategies, comprehension skills, and fluency that build competent readers. Dr. Hollis Scarborough created a model that compares skilled reading to a rope – made of many pieces – intertwined to ensure literacy success. Scarborough’s Reading Rope shows the “many strands that are woven into skilled reading.” Let’s take a look at them.
This model ties together the many pieces that build skilled readers. The components of background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge combine to build language comprehension. The skills of phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition become more automatic as our children build word recognition. So how do we ensure our instruction supports the building of these skills?
For emergent readers we:
- Make connections and build upon background knowledge.
- Promote phonemic awareness. (Activities that work with letters and sounds should happen daily. Rhyming, listening, syllable and word awareness, initial and final sound awareness, matching letters and sounds)
- Expose young readers to lots of patterned predictable texts. (Have books in hands daily! Build vocabulary, look for patterns and sentence structure, read and re-read to build confidence and concepts about print.)
- Work with words at appropriate developmental level. (Word sorts, word families, and developmentally appropriate word study should happen daily.)
- Encourage speaking, reading, and writing opportunities daily. (If we say it, we can write it. If we write it, we can read it. Literacy skills work together.)
For developing readers we:
- Continue to build upon and develop background knowledge to develop deeper meaning.
- Promote phonemic awareness through word studies directed at students’ instructional levels.
- Model shared reading and provide independent reading times daily. (Readers must read to grow!)
- Work with words at appropriate developmental levels. (Word sorts, examining literary language, writing and word play are great skill building activities.)
- Integrate and highlight literacy skills throughout all areas of curriculum. (Explore the importance of literacy throughout the learning day.)
Guided reading time provides us with the perfect opportunity to put all of these elements together. Directed reading, writing, and thinking activities require purposeful planning and creative decision making, while meeting the evolving developmental needs of students. Athletes become skilled through consistent daily practice. Readers become skilled through reading, writing, speaking, listening, and working with words every day. Practice does not make perfect, but it certainly builds readers.
Do you want to take the next steps to build guided reading instruction and build readers? Check this out!
https://www.myedresource.com/the-next-step-forward-in-guided-reading/
