Sunday, August 16, 2015

Early Literacy: Reading

There are basically two approaches used in the teaching of reading...

  • look and say
  • phonics

Look and say involves the recognition of whole words by their shape. Words and often written on flashcards and children will attempt to memorize them, often practicing at home.

Children can then read simple stories comprised of words that they have learned. They recognize words from their shapes, from the look of them.

The shortcoming of this approach is that early readers will have no way of recognizing words that they have not yet learned.

Phonics breaks down words into sounds and encourages the sounding out of words. Children are encouraged to pick out patterns in the sounds of words, noticing rhymes and rhythms.

The disadvantage with this method is that English is not phonically regular - a letter may make one sound and a completely different sound in another.

It is not very rewarding for the early reader to be limited to phonically regular words that can be sounded out. On the other hand, knowledge of phonics will have no way of recognizing words that they have not yet learned.



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