Behind the Scenes of How Children Learn to Read

Systematic phonics – The National Reading Panel found that systematic phonics instruction leads to the “greatest gains in reading accuracy for young students.” That’s when students are taught how to use letter-sound correspondences to decode and spell words in a methodical way. Teachers help students understand the relationship between written symbols and their sounds.

Decoding – The next step in mastering reading is decoding, when children use small words or word units to figure out larger words. Learning to decode helps students recognize root words, prefixes and suffixes (for example, when a child can read the word at, it’s easier to read the words cat and bat).

Phonemic awareness – Phonemes are the smallest units that make up spoken language, and they combine to make syllables and words. To learn to read, young children must learn to recognize the differences in sounds and break words apart into their phonemes. For example, pan is made up of the p, a and n sounds. It’s important that they recognize that some phonemes have multiple sounds, such as c, which can make a hard c sound or an s sound.

Fluency – Reading fluency is the ability to read with speed and expression without compromising accuracy. It comes with practice and of course relies upon the ability to recognize words on sight without having to sound them out part by part.

Comprehension – It goes without saying: children need to be able to understand what they read. Your child should be able to read a passage or chapter, answer questions about the who, what, when, where and why, make predictions about what might happen next, and summarize. Vocabulary development is an important part of comprehension.

There are other pieces to the reading acquisition puzzle, of course, such as the memorization of high-frequency words that appear often in texts and learning to identify letter patterns and recognize them when decoding unfamiliar words. It’s also important that children understand sentence structure and punctuation in order to get the context of that which they read.

Reading takes instruction and practice to master and it doesn’t come easily to everyone. When children have trouble with reading, it could be that they are missing important building blocks of reading and need focused guidance to rebuild those missing skills. Huntington’s individualized reading programs can help children boost their confidence and reading ability. Learn more by calling 1-800 CAN LEARN.