Learning to read: Difference between revisions

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==Acquiring reading==

===Spoken language is the foundation===

A child's ability to learn to read, known as [[reading readiness]], begins in infancy, as the child begins attending to the speech signals in their environment and begins producing spoken language.<ref name="Wolf, 2007, 81-83">{{cite book |author1=Wolf, Maryanne |author2=Stoodley, Catherine J. |title=Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain |publisher=Harper |___location=New York |year=2007 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/proustsquidstory00wolf/page/81 81–83] |isbn=978-0-06-018639-5 |oclc=471015779 |url=https://archive.org/details/proustsquidstory00wolf/page/81 }}</ref> Children make some use of all the material that they are presented with, including every perception, concept and word they come in contact with; thus the child's environment affects their ability to learn to read.<ref name="Wolf, 2007, 81-83"/> The amount of time a child spends listening to someone read to them is a good predictor of their reading attainment later in life.<ref name="Wolf, 2007, 81-83"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Fields|first=Tiffany|title=Touch Therapy|year=2000|publisher=Churchill Livingstone|___location=New York|isbn=978-0-443-05791-5|pages=255}}</ref> As a child listens to stories and looks at pictures they gradually learn the relationship between letters, words and stories.<ref name="Wolf, 2007, 81-83"/> Preschool-aged children with limited exposure to books and reading in their home, including limited experience of being read to, are at risk of reading difficulties.<ref name="Wolf, 2007, 81-83"/> For example, these children tend to have less exposure to literary phrases, such as "Once upon a time",<ref name="Wolf, 2007, 81-83"/> and have smaller vocabularies,<ref>{{cite web|last=Biemiller|first=Andrew|title=Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network|url=http://www.literacyencyclopedia.ca/pdfs/topic.php?topId=19|access-date=20 November 2011|pages=10|format=pdf|year=2007}}{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name="MyersBotting2008">{{cite journal |last1=Myers|first1=L. |last2=Botting|first2=N. |title=Literacy in the mainstream inner-city school: Its relationship to spoken language|journal=Child Language Teaching and Therapy|volume=24 |issue=1|year=2008 |pages=95–114|issn=0265-6590 |doi=10.1177/0265659007084570|s2cid=145153275 |url=http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/13719/3/Lucy%20RC%20paper%20revised%20CRO.pdf }}</ref> both factors that affect the ability to read by limiting comprehension of text. The environment in which a child lives may also impact their ability to acquire reading skills. Children who are regularly exposed to chronic environmental noise pollution, such as highway traffic noise, have been known to show decreased ability to discriminate between [[phonemes]] (oral language sounds) as well as lower reading scores on standardized tests.<ref name="CohenGlass1973">{{cite journal|last1=Cohen|first1=Sheldon|last2=Glass|first2=David C.|last3=Singer|first3=Jerome E.|title=Apartment noise, auditory discrimination, and reading ability in children|journal=Journal of Experimental Social Psychology|volume=9 |issue=5|year=1973 |pages=407–422 |issn=0022-1031 |doi=10.1016/S0022-1031(73)80005-8}}</ref>

Spoken language is the foundation of learning to read (long before a child sees any letters) and is a strong predictor of a child's later reading ability. Spoken language is dominant for most of childhood, however, reading ultimately catches up and surpasses speech.<ref> {{cite book |title=Language at the speed of light|date=2017|pages=101–121|author=Mark Seidenberg|isbn=9780465080656}}</ref>

By their first birthday most children have learned all the sounds in their spoken language. However, it takes longer for them to learn the phonological form of words and to begin developing a spoken vocabulary.

Thus, the ideal process of what is called emergent or early literacy<ref name="Wolf, 2007, 81-83"/> begins in the relationship between hearing spoken language, seeing [[written language]] and feeling loved. The positive feeling that arises from spending time with books in a loving context provides a strong foundation and intrinsic [[motivation]] for the long and cognitively challenging process of learning to read.<ref name="Wolf, 2007, 81-83"/> However, reading to children and ensuring exposure to many [[books]] is not enough to prepare them for reading.<ref name="Wolf90">{{cite book |author1=Wolf, Maryanne |author2=Stoodley, Catherine J. |title=Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain |publisher=Harper |___location=New York |year=2007 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/proustsquidstory00wolf/page/90 90] |isbn=978-0-06-018639-5 |oclc=471015779 |url=https://archive.org/details/proustsquidstory00wolf/page/90 }}</ref> Another critical skill is the ability to name letters or characters.<ref name="Wolf90"/>

Children acquire a spoken language in a few years. Five-to-six-year-old English learners have vocabularies of 2,500 to 5,000 words, and add 5,000 words per year for the first several years of schooling. This exponential learning rate cannot be accounted for by the instruction they receive. Instead, children learn that the meaning of a new word can be inferred because it occurs in the same context as familiar words (e.g., ''lion'' is often seen with ''cowardly'' and ''king''). As British linguist [[John Rupert Firth]] says, "You shall know a word by the company it keeps".

===Reading to children: necessary but not sufficient===

Children learn to speak naturally - by listening to other people speak. However, reading is not a natural process, and most children learn to read through a process that requires "systematic guidance and feedback".

So, "reading to children is not the same as teaching children to read". Nonetheless, reading to children is important because it socializes them to the activity of reading; it engages them; it expands their knowledge of spoke language; and it enriches their linguist ability by hearing new and novel words and grammatical structures. Reading and speech are codependent: a richer vocabulary facilitates skilled reading, and reading promotes vocabulary development. There is also some evidence that "shared reading" with children does help to improve reading if the child's attention is directed to the words on the page as they are being read to.<ref name="MyersBotting2008">{{cite journal |last1=Myers|first1=L. |last2=Botting|first2=N. |title=Literacy in the mainstream inner-city school: Its relationship to spoken language|journal=Child Language Teaching and Therapy|volume=24 |issue=1|year=2008 |pages=95–114|issn=0265-6590 |doi=10.1177/0265659007084570|s2cid=145153275 |url=http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/13719/3/Lucy%20RC%20paper%20revised%20CRO.pdf }}</ref>

The environment in which a child lives may also impact their ability to acquire reading skills. Children who are regularly exposed to chronic environmental noise pollution, such as highway traffic noise, have been known to show decreased ability to discriminate between [[phonemes]] (oral language sounds) as well as lower reading scores on standardized tests.<ref name="CohenGlass1973">{{cite journal|last1=Cohen|first1=Sheldon|last2=Glass|first2=David C.|last3=Singer|first3=Jerome E.|title=Apartment noise, auditory discrimination, and reading ability in children|journal=Journal of Experimental Social Psychology|volume=9 |issue=5|year=1973 |pages=407–422 |issn=0022-1031 |doi=10.1016/S0022-1031(73)80005-8}}</ref>

===Stages to skilled reading===

The path to skilled reading involves learning the alphabetic principle, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report.pdf|title=National reading panel, nichd.nih.gov}}</ref>

British psychologist [[Uta Frith]] introduced a three stages model to acquire skilled reading. Stage one is the '''logographic or pictorial stage''' where the child attempts to grasp words as objects. Stage two is the '''phonological stage''' which involves learning the relationship between the graphemes (letters) and the phonemes (sounds). Stage three is the '''orthographic stage''' where students read familiar words more quickly than unfamiliar words, and word length gradually cease to play role.<ref>{{cite book|author=Stanislas Dehaene|title=Reading in the brain|pages=199–204|publisher=Penquin Books|date=2010-10-26|isbn=9780143118053}}</ref>

===Age to introduce literacy learning===