Learning to read

Between entering school in Prep and leaving for high school in Year 6, a lot goes on in terms of learning to read.

In order to be able to read, we need to be able to decode fluently and comprehend what it is we are reading. Sometimes we can have one of those skills without the other and this leaves us perhaps having listening comprehension without being able to read a text or able to decode the words in a text without sufficient understanding of the vocabulary and background knowledge to make any sense of those words. For example, if you are trying to read a text written in a language that you don’t read/speak, you won’t be able to access it; however, if someone translates it for you and it is about a topic you understand, you will have comprehension of the text (listening comprehension). Alternatively, if you have no experience in the study of engineering, you may be able to decode the words in an academic text / research paper about engineering, but it might not make much sense because you don’t have the background knowledge and/or vocabulary to make sense of those words.  These are factors teachers need to consider when teaching students to read across all of schooling, not just in the first few years.

In the early years, students are in the stage of ‘Learning to Read’. During this stage our focus at school is teaching students the alphabetic code (sound-symbol correspondences) so that they can begin to decode words. This involves a lot of explicit teaching of sounds and how those sounds are represented by letters/symbols. A very important concept students need to understand is that letters DO NOT make sounds; rather, letters and combinations of letters represent sounds – this is quite a different way of thinking about letters and the alphabet. For example, ‘a’ does not ‘say ‘ay’ for apple’. Actually, the letter/symbol/grapheme ‘a’ can make many different sounds. At the same time as learning to decode and subsequently read fluently, children are also exposed to a large diet of literature which they read and analyse in terms of the language features, text structures and author techniques right from Prep. This combination of explicit teaching of the code and exposure to high quality literature ensures that students are being taught to both decode and comprehend.

From Year 2, students begin to read more independently and are exposed to more complex texts with richer themes and characters. They also transition to reading a lot of non-fiction texts to ‘bridge’ their decoding to technical vocabulary and build background knowledge needed for comprehension. We call this stage the ‘Reading to Learn’ phase of teaching reading and Year 2 move from ‘Learning to Read’ to ‘Reading to Learn’ throughout this year. From Year 3, students are expected to have mastered most of the alphabetic code and are reading more independently. The teaching of reading is absorbed within in all subjects/learning areas and spelling (Sounds Write). Students are required to lean more heavily on their comprehension and use reading to learn new concepts and content in all subject areas.

Throughout all phases of learning to read and reading to learn, students are supported by teachers and specialist literacy support teachers (STLaNs) to achieve mastery by being exposed to more repetition of what has been taught and practised. This is how we ensure the best possible path to success in reading for all students at Windsor State School.

What’s going on in classrooms this week?

This week’s year level spotlight is going to shine on Year 2, so let’s have a look at what they have been getting up to.

Year 2

What a great start to the year we have had in Year 2! In English, the students have been enjoying narrative texts together. They have been sharing their opinions about narrative texts, analysing them for language features that authors use to entertain the reader and practising writing descriptive sentences in preparation for planning and writing their own narrative text at the end of the term.

In Mathematics, students have been busy learning how to measure the length of objects, practising their number facts and using them to solve addition problems.

In Science, students have been investigating different materials. We have been using our senses to observe, feel and describe different materials using scientific property words. We have also started testing different materials for the properties of strength and water resistance. Soon we will use our knowledge of materials for a special Science project. Stay tuned for our creations!

Year 5

The start of Year 5 has been an exciting time for students.  They are making great use of the G block multi-space and have continued to show the Windsor Way with their interactions and movements around the school.  In Science, students have been engaging in hands-on experiments to learn about the concept of camouflage. Through these experiments they have witnessed how animals and plants use this technique to blend into their surroundings. Students have also been challenging themselves to improve their quick recall of times tables, extend their knowledge of vocabulary and sentence construction, and learn all about Democracy. 

Well done Year 5!