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The ABC of reading
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TEACHING Thirty per cent of children in schools need guidance in reading, says literary coach Tricia C. Frank
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Reading lessons Tricia C. Frank
Tricia C. Frank, a teacher for 32 years, who has been teaching teachers on reading is clear that if a child requires help to read, attend to him immediately. Working as a literary coach in Saudi Arabia, Tricia who visited India recently, explainsthat 30 per cent of the children in schools need extra supervision and guidance in reading. This has little to do with a disability of any sort, but with those who may be slow in responding to words.
Teaching methods
According to her, the National Reading Panel, a panel convened by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, U.S., to evaluate the effectiveness of various methods used to teach children to read, came up with five points on reading instructions. These are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension and offer guidelines on which classrooms need to function. “Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think and work with the individual sounds in spoken words. Phonemes are the smallest parts of sounds in a spoken word that make a difference in the word’s meaning. Like ‘m’ in mat when replaced with ‘p’ becomes pat. Phonics instruction teaches children the relationship between the letters of written language and the individual sounds of spoken language. “Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately and quickly. When fluent readers read silently, they recognise words automatically. Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. In other words, fluent readers recognise words and comprehend at the same time. Vocabulary refers to the words we must know to communicate effectively and plays an important role in how effectively a child may be able to read. And text comprehension is the ability to comprehend or understand what they read. If children cannot do this, then the purpose is defeated.”
Tricia says, “The earlier we trace this, the better and it requires to be done before the age of nine or else children would never be able to read to their full capacity. By age nine, they should be able to read 110 words per minute.” Tricia explains this pertains to all children , “every normal child that goes to regular school. About 70 per cent of the children take to reading automatically and without any difficulty. It is the remaining, who may struggle with it. As teachers and parents it is our duty to screen them and assist them with it.”
For this, Tricia explains that there is the need to use words that rhyme, or by segmenting or breaking words up. “For example, if children cannot recognise the difference between two rhyming words, they would need assistance. It is a situation dealing with hearing and how they perceive it.” She substantiates that it can be deciphered by simple procedures like a game for example. However, she says, if it is an extreme case, it could be a hearing problem that is genetic or one that can be corrected medically. “It must be known that this extra effort is much needed as children are so much more confident when able to read to one hundred percent capacity, so it must be made early enough. Four-and-a-half to seven years is the ideal age to work with children to correct or assist them, after this it gets tough but remember, it is still possible .” She adds that often when children are not confident about reading they may withdraw, leading others to believe that the child is dumb or unintelligent. This does not have to be true; they just require extra help .”
TANYA ABRAHAM
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