In the past, the majority of teachers would have thought you could teach reading by simply listening to students read in turn. A “Look and Say” method was used to memorise words. This teaching method has now largely been discredited.

Results may indicate that students that use this method have higher reading levels than those who learn phonics. Due to the fact they automatically recognise a small number of words. However, later tests show that literacy development of these students stalls, when hit with longer and more complex words in the following years. Studies have shown that the average person (including children), cannot learn to recognise more than 2,000 words by sight alone. Even if this figure is nearer 3 – 5,000 common words, they read so poorly that they do not like to read and seldom do.

Learning phonics enables students to read on their own and resolve words that they do not recognise.They are taught the sounds and blends of letters, by learning to break down words, they learn how words are constructed and how to spell and read. There is much debate on the teaching of phonics and literacy as a whole. But most agree that a balance combining phonics and whole language programs is best.

In the classroom we use our Phonics Book to concentrate on learning the sound formulas that can be applied again and again. This helps the student far more in the future, (building better pronunciation, word recognition, spelling and reading) than the memorization and guesswork of the “Look and Say” approach. To balance this, in our Reading classes and their other subjects, they learn to comprehend the full meaning of a text. Be it a story or directions in their grammar book.

However, being able to read is one skill, but understanding and gaining enjoyment from reading is another. To learn to read effectively a child needs to have a large vocabulary. Without it, when the child does read they stumble over words that they do not know, and have trouble following the idea of the sentence. This leads to frustration and a dislike of reading. When a child is faced with this difficulty he or she is less likely to read, thus further inhibiting the growth of their vocabulary.

Students, who come from "high literacy" households--where young children are read bedtime stories on a regular basis, tend to learn to read well regardless of the teaching approach used. These students tend to enter school with large vocabularies and reading readiness skills (and sometimes they already can read). Students from "low literacy" households are not exposed much to reading in their homes and tend to have smaller vocabularies. Our Students, who have come though the J class program, show how beneficial that time has been when it comes to reading. Though once in P class it is very important that so many minutes a day of reading time is set aside for children at home.

A study of out-of-school reading of fifth graders, found that a student in the 50th percentile read books about 5 minutes a day, while a student in the 20th percentile read books for less than a minute a day. This same study found that the amount of time a child in the 90th percentile spent reading in two days, was the amount of time a child in the 10th percentile spent reading all year. Thus I always recommend that my students read whenever they have the opportunity. Even, if it is only for a few minutes, whilst waiting for something else to start. Although the reality is that children with supportive parents will pick up reading more quickly.

永和 校區 AP1/P2 外師
Clement John Wilkinson
University Of Leicester