reading

Online reading challenges offer children opportunities to discuss their reading, connect with others and receive recommendations for future reading from other readers. Online reading communities make reading more social. Readers participate in online social networks in several ways. There are apps that can be used. Goodreads is simple and can be accessed by smartphone. Students can track their reading, set yearly targets for themselves and post reviews.

Research consistently falls short in reporting theoretical frameworks which in turn increases the gap between research and practice. It further increases the difficulty teachers face in matching interventions with student needs (Hodges et al., 2016).

 They recommend three areas for further research:

Organisations

The National Association of Advisers in English (NAAE).  

Booktrust.  

Centre for Literacy in Primary Education 

National Literacy Trust

The Reading Agency

Phonics

www.rrf.org.uk

www.dyslexics.org.uk

Case Study 1. Bourne Abbey Church of England Primary School, Lincolnshire

Libraries are an asset in any school. A growing body of research known as school library impact studies has consistently shown positive correlations between high-quality library programs and student achievement (Gretes, 2013; Lance &  Hofschire,  2011; Rudkin & Wood, 2019). The benefits associated with good library programs are strongest for the most vulnerable and at-risk learners, including low-income students, and students with disabilities.

‘Reading for pleasure’, ‘reading for enjoyment’ are often used interchangeably. The National Literacy Trust’s definition is, “reading that we do of our own free will, anticipating the satisfaction that we will get from the act of reading. It also refers to reading that having begun at someone else’s request we continue because we are interested in it” (Clark & Rumbold, National Literacy Trust, 2006).

The publication Read On. Get On (2016) authored by Jonathan Douglas on behalf of the National Literacy Trust and Save the Children has the subtitle ‘A strategy to get England’s children reading’ is a really useful read about reading in the UK.  It opens with this message, “Every year in England, thousands of children leave primary school without the confidence and fluency in reading that they need. The impact on their learning, life chances and engagement with reading is significant. We need to ensure that every child can read well by the age of 11.

Making meaning from print requires the brain to use a complex array of cognitive strategies. Competent readers do this automatically without conscious effort. Learning to reading, requires we identify what our brains have learned automatically and teach children to do this consciously.

5 Essential Components of Reading

In this guide the five elements of reading were identified. These according to Armbruster et al. 2001 are:

Phonemic awareness

Phonics

Vocabulary

Fluence

Comprehension

Reading is a complex skill involving the orchestration of a number of components.  Researchers often talk about a “model of reading” when talking about only one aspect of the reading process (for example, models of word identification are often referred to as “models of reading”). 

Models of Word Identification