This summer holiday, I have been working with a five year old girl, who completed her first year of school in July. We first met in her classroom at the end of term. We had a friendly chat, she gave me a guided tour of her classroom, and then she went to fetch her book bag. When she returned, I asked her to show me which books she’d been enjoying,
“I haven’t been enjoying that one because it’s too hard,” she said, tossing the book aside.
She chose another book with colourful pictures and a repetitive phrase on each page. As she began to read, it was clear she had memorised the text and, for the parts she had forgotten, she looked at the pictures and used her imagination to fill in the gaps.
The interesting thing was, when I asked her to “Show me the letter that spells …”, she demonstrated a good grasp of letter-sound correspondences: identifying digraphs (e.g. ‘sh’, ‘ee’), as well as sounds for single letters. However, there was no evidence of her using any of this knowledge when we shared the book together. In fact, at no stage during my close observations did I see her using the letter detail in her word attempts. There was barely a passing glance at the words on the page, and she showed no sign of pointing (to help her match one spoken word to one written word).
So far, we have had four lessons together, and every moment of our reading and writing activities has been focused on drawing her attention to the letter detail in words. Earlier on, she offered me an explanation of her strategy – without any prompting from me:
“I think of the pictures, and then I think of the words, and then I copy, and then I start to read them when I think of it.”
I’m all for soaking in the pictures and firing up the imagination but, to fully release the potential of these stimuli in reading and writing, a child must learn to systematically check and use the letter detail in words. There are no quick fixes for this, it requires thorough learning of effective strategies, through dedication and hard work.
My young friend still prefers her default strategy of ‘just look at the pictures and make up your own story’. This strategy can be a wonderful way into reading, but needs careful steering to avoid it becoming an obstacle later on.
I’ve selected some of the ‘Jelly and Bean’ beginner readers to wean my developing reader away from her habit of ignoring the author's words, and I have found them ideal. She is enjoying getting to know the playful characters in the series. She is also having to apply herself to decode words by studying the letter detail - and cross-reference that against her growing letter-sound knowledge. The simple, but appealing, pictures offer her a confidence boost, and serve as a scaffold for her attempts. As learning to read takes a considerable amount of energy and effort, the books are a sensible length, with a line or two of decodable text on each page.
“I haven’t been enjoying that one because it’s too hard,” she said, tossing the book aside.
She chose another book with colourful pictures and a repetitive phrase on each page. As she began to read, it was clear she had memorised the text and, for the parts she had forgotten, she looked at the pictures and used her imagination to fill in the gaps.
The interesting thing was, when I asked her to “Show me the letter that spells …”, she demonstrated a good grasp of letter-sound correspondences: identifying digraphs (e.g. ‘sh’, ‘ee’), as well as sounds for single letters. However, there was no evidence of her using any of this knowledge when we shared the book together. In fact, at no stage during my close observations did I see her using the letter detail in her word attempts. There was barely a passing glance at the words on the page, and she showed no sign of pointing (to help her match one spoken word to one written word).
So far, we have had four lessons together, and every moment of our reading and writing activities has been focused on drawing her attention to the letter detail in words. Earlier on, she offered me an explanation of her strategy – without any prompting from me:
“I think of the pictures, and then I think of the words, and then I copy, and then I start to read them when I think of it.”
I’m all for soaking in the pictures and firing up the imagination but, to fully release the potential of these stimuli in reading and writing, a child must learn to systematically check and use the letter detail in words. There are no quick fixes for this, it requires thorough learning of effective strategies, through dedication and hard work.
My young friend still prefers her default strategy of ‘just look at the pictures and make up your own story’. This strategy can be a wonderful way into reading, but needs careful steering to avoid it becoming an obstacle later on.
I’ve selected some of the ‘Jelly and Bean’ beginner readers to wean my developing reader away from her habit of ignoring the author's words, and I have found them ideal. She is enjoying getting to know the playful characters in the series. She is also having to apply herself to decode words by studying the letter detail - and cross-reference that against her growing letter-sound knowledge. The simple, but appealing, pictures offer her a confidence boost, and serve as a scaffold for her attempts. As learning to read takes a considerable amount of energy and effort, the books are a sensible length, with a line or two of decodable text on each page.
It is not uncommon for children, who have developed habits of: memorising texts; waiting for an adult to tell them the word; randomly guessing at words etc, to display an impressive array of work-avoidance tactics when they are handed the responsibility of independently reading an unknown text. My new pupil is no exception. Towards the end of Tuesday’s lesson, with three pages left of a new book, we hit a barrage of these tactics (which I recorded at the time):
Child: “Bit tricky. Can’t remember” (looking at me)
Me: “You don’t need to remember. Don’t look at me, just look at those letters.”
Child: “Sometimes I have a drink when I give up.”
Me (with another reassuring smile!): “I’m not going to let you give up.”
Child: “Too tired.”
Me: “We’re not stopping, until we’ve read these last three pages.”
Child: “Too thirsty.”
Me: “When you’ve read the pages, then you can have a drink.”
Child: “I need the toilet.”
Me: “When you’ve read the pages, then…”
Child: “I’m hungry.”
Me: “When you’ve read the pages, then…”
Child: “I can’t do it.”
Me: “Just look at that first word (pointed to ‘a’) and have a go.”
(very) long pause… time for a compromise…
Me: “I’ll help you. I’ll point and you read.”
Child reads last three pages in less than a minute - with no help other than my finger pointing. She independently (and perfectly) segments and blends ‘hat’ and ‘big’, and self-corrects ‘a’ to ‘the’.
Let me finish with one of my favourite quotations from Marie Clay:
‘A child must learn to take the initiative and work at a difficulty.’
Child: “Bit tricky. Can’t remember” (looking at me)
Me: “You don’t need to remember. Don’t look at me, just look at those letters.”
Child: “Sometimes I have a drink when I give up.”
Me (with another reassuring smile!): “I’m not going to let you give up.”
Child: “Too tired.”
Me: “We’re not stopping, until we’ve read these last three pages.”
Child: “Too thirsty.”
Me: “When you’ve read the pages, then you can have a drink.”
Child: “I need the toilet.”
Me: “When you’ve read the pages, then…”
Child: “I’m hungry.”
Me: “When you’ve read the pages, then…”
Child: “I can’t do it.”
Me: “Just look at that first word (pointed to ‘a’) and have a go.”
(very) long pause… time for a compromise…
Me: “I’ll help you. I’ll point and you read.”
Child reads last three pages in less than a minute - with no help other than my finger pointing. She independently (and perfectly) segments and blends ‘hat’ and ‘big’, and self-corrects ‘a’ to ‘the’.
Let me finish with one of my favourite quotations from Marie Clay:
‘A child must learn to take the initiative and work at a difficulty.’