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What is Reading?

Posted by Bruce Johnson on March 9, 2017.

The most fundamental definition of reading is being able to interpret written symbols and understand
printed material. Like walking and talking, learning to read does not happen all at once, but happens
gradually through continuous experiences with printed material and reading related activities. Parents
can help their children learn to read by presenting and reinforcing these printed materials and reading
related activities.

The National Reading Panel, initiated by the United States Congress and the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, has identified five elements of reading instruction necessary for
reading achievement. These elements include: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary,
comprehension, and fluency. A basic understanding of the elements may help as you begin to work with
your child.

Phonemic awareness involves the ability to recognize that a spoken word consists of a sequence of
individual sounds. Children need to learn some basics about language, such as an understanding that
words are composed of sounds, before being able to start with reading printed letters and putting those
printed letters together to make words. Specific phonemic awareness skills consist of rhyming, oral
blending, and word segmentation, as well as isolation, deletion, and substitution. Rhyming words are
words that end with the same sounds. These include: bat, cat, hat, mat, and sat. Oral blending puts the
sounds of letters together to create words. For example: the sounds /b/, /a/, and /t/, (say the sounds not
the letter names), combine to create the word bat. Word segmentation is the opposite and breaks the
sounds in words into individual sounds. For example: bat has three distinct sounds which are /b/, /a/,
and /t/ (say the sounds not the letter names). Isolation involves isolating sounds of words. For example,
the first sound in the word bat is the /b/ sound. Deletion entails deleting sounds in words. For example,
the word bat without the beginning /b/ sound is the word at. Substitution means substituting one sound
for another sound. For example, changing the /b/ sound in the word bat to a /s/ sound creates the new
word sat.

These phonemic awareness skills and additional playing with language will help prepare children for
phonics. After all, readers need success with sounds before moving onto printed letters, printed words,
and printed texts. Phonics involves teaching readers to read and pronounce words by using the printed
letters and corresponding sounds. For example, the letter b has the /b/ sound as in the word bat, or the
letters th have the /th/ sound as in the word that. Children learning to read also need to learn how to
put those letters and letter sounds together to make words, in order to decode those words and read
those words in print.

In the simplest of terms, vocabulary means all known words. This includes sight words or high frequency
words as well as multiple other words. Some teachers and researchers relate word attack skills to
vocabulary skills, that is, the skill of putting letters, prefixes and suffixes, and syllables together to make
meaningful words. This is necessary in order to be able to read unlimited words. For example, that the
letters c, a, and t go together to make the word cat; that un and der and stand go together to make the
word understand; and that home and work go together to make the word homework. This is the piece of
the reading process that many people associate with what reading is all about. However, reading is
much, much more.

The major goal of reading is to take meaning from the text. Comprehension instruction and involvement
includes: prereading instruction, during reading instruction, and postreading instruction. Prereading
instruction includes previewing vocabulary, activating background knowledge, asking questions, creating
visual images, drawing inferences, synthesizing, and clarifying. During reading instruction includes think
alouds, stopping and making or changing predictions, tweaking or refining mental pictures, identifying
confusions, and making connections. These connections may be: text-to-self connections, text-to-world
connections, or text-to-text connections. Postreading instruction includes responding, asking questions,
summarizing, retellings, and creating notes.

Reading fluency is the ability to decode individual words accurately and automatically. Fluent readers,
appropriately paced readers, and even faster readers to a point, tend to have better overall
comprehension and tend to become the better readers. These readers have an extensive overall
vocabulary, and therefore expend little energy on word attack skills and more energy on reading for
meaning. In addition, these readers see phrases, sentences, and paragraphs as complete units with
meaning.

How to address these five elements of reading instruction? While it may be best to leave the direct
teaching of reading skills to teachers at school, there may be many pieces of the reading puzzle parents
can present at home. Take a look at future CliF blog posts for more specifics. These will become some of
the best activities to present at home. Show some enthusiasm when you follow through, and you will
see that enthusiasm spread to your child.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds, or phonemes,
in spoken words.

Phonics

Phonics is the concept that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes—the sounds of the
spoken language—and graphemes—the written letters and spellings that represent those sounds.
Vocabulary

The words readers read and know. The larger the reader’s vocabulary, the easier it is to make sense of
the text.

Comprehension

Comprehension is the reason for reading. It is basically an understanding of what is being read.

Fluency

The ability to recognize words easily, read with greater speed, accuracy, and expression, and better
understand what is read.

Source

National Institute Child Health Human Development

Bruce Johnson is an educator, reading specialist at the Merrimack Valley School District in New
Hampshire, member of CLiF’s Advisory Board, and author of Helping Your Child Become a Successful
Reader: A Guide for Parents.

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