Elementary reading programs that are based on scientific research focus on five components: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Kindergarten reading programs concentrate on phonemic awareness and phonics. The other components are not excluded, but fluency and comprehension can only be achieved once a child has phonological awareness.
It Begins With Sounds
An elementary reading program for kindergarten will begin with the building block of reading-phonemic awareness. This is mastered when a child knows that the letter "a" corresponds to the sound "a" as in apple. Listening is the key to this skill. Children must know that letters and sounds are linked before they can begin to know that words are formed from this relationship.
Sounds Become Words
After phonemic awareness comes phonics. This term is inclusive of all teaching strategies and activities that bring a child to understand that letters become words when they are linked. This is when letter naming fluency and sound correspondence come together. When a child understands that the sounds for letters "c," "a" and "t" make the word "cat," then they are decoding and blending.
Words Have Meaning
Once words can be decoded, elementary reading programs then move toward structure. This process goes from naming words to reading words joined in a sentence. Kindergarten programs usually stop at sentences. Reading paragraphs of more than three sentences will begin in first grade. However, even at the kindergarten level, meaning is taught through one or two sentences. Assuming the child can blend the words in the sentence, teachers will begin to stress word meaning. Reading vocabulary is now introduced. Listening and speaking vocabularies have been introduced indirectly since birth by parents, other family and friends. In the structured environment of the classroom these vocabularies are increased every day. Reading vocabulary instruction cannot begin until a child can blend sounds into words. The teacher can then guide them into word knowledge. A good elementary reading program will stress the use of a variety of texts to build vocabulary.
Meaning is Understood
Once children can blend sounds into words, read the words in a sentence, and then know what the sentence means, they have achieved comprehension. This is the fifth component of reading and the desired result of elementary reading programs. In fact, reading is no longer defined as the ability to call words. A child has not truly read until they understand the text. Comprehension equals a successful reader.
Significance
Elementary reading programs will bring the five components of reading together as skills that are built upon grade by grade, from skill to skill in a scope and sequence based upon the results of research that guides best reading practices. These programs seek to have children become successful readers by the end of third grade. This is crucial because research proves that a child who struggles to read past this grade will have some form of reading difficulty in the following years of school and into adult life.
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