Real World Skills? Reading v Test Taking

Eliminate almost all worksheets and workbooks and instead use the money saved to purchase books for classroom libraries; use time saved for self-selected reading, self-selected writing, literary conversations, and read-alouds.  Ban test-preparation activities and materials from the school day.

Richard Allington and Rachael Gabriel have clearly identified the six elements of effective reading instruction that ensure children learn to read. Best of all these 6 elements don't require much time or money - just educators' decision to put them into place.

Jump on board this link for a detailed look Every Child, Every Day

Happy Reading!

Rachel Walker

Co-Pilot & Red Rocket Scientist

www.redrocketreaders.com

Power to Read

Dr. Marie Clay advocated that for 80% of children, learning to read will be relatively trouble-free. The key is to take special care of the 20% who struggle, and in doing so, take care of all 100% of learner-readers.

Now esteemed experts, Richard Allington and Rachael Gabriel have clearly identified the six elements of effective reading instruction that ensure children learn to read.  Best of all these 6 elements don't require much time or money - just educators' decision to put them into place.

Jump on board this link for a detailed look Every Child, Every Day


Six Elements in brief;

1. Every child reads something he or she chooses. (At some time every day, they should be able to choose what they read).

2. Every child reads accurately. (A body of research demonstrates the importance of having students read texts they can read accurately and understand).

3. Every child reads something he or she understands. (The ability to read takes lots of reading and rereading of text that students find engaging and comprehensible).

4. Every child writes about something personally meaningful. (Writing provides a different modality within which to practice the skills and strategies of reading).

5. Every child talks with peers about reading and writing. (The task of switching between writing, speaking, reading, and listening helps students make connections between the skills they use in each task).

6. Every child listens to a fluent adult read aloud. (beyond first grade, teachers should read to their students each day).

Allington and Gabriel make the following suggestions:

Eliminate almost all worksheets and workbooks and instead use the money saved to purchase books for classroom libraries; use time saved for self-selected reading, self-selected writing, literary conversations, and read-alouds.  Ban test-preparation activites and materials from the school day.

In conclusion - It's time for the six elements of effective instruction to be offered more consistently to every child, in every school, every day.  Remember, adults have the power to make these decisions; kids don't.  Let's decide to give them the kind of instruction they need.


Happy Reading!

Rachel Walker
Co-Pilot & Red Rocket Scientist


www.redrocketreaders.com

Countdown to launch - 6 success boosters

I've been on a mission to a better world. By helping children learn to read and helping teachers teach literacy.  Today I've found another dimension that will take my mission to the next level.  It's the power boost I've been seeking...

"It's called 'reading' - It's how people install new software into their brains"

Discover the successful reading instruction formula through six, easy, life-changing elements, that have the power to make literate lives a reality for every child.

I am so excited to share it. So excited that I want to shout - perhaps writing in UPPERCASE will suffice. I'm so nervous too that this enormous news is going to be missed and I'm so thrilled by the possibility that it will be globally recognized as the world changing answer that it REALLY IS.

It's happened -  internationally respected experts have pared the formula down to 6 success elements that are; accessible, affordable and actionable now.  Take a read here on this link Every Child, Every Day

Get on board people. This is the real deal. There are no barriers, just a world of possibilities and successful lives without limits.   Every child can be a reader and a learner if we prioritize reading and teach with a proactive, preventative approach.


Happy Reading!


Rachel Walker

Co-Pilot & Red Rocket Scientist

Prepare to Launch!

Early success with reading is widely recognised as the essential launch pad to all other learning. 

Global research and experts world-wide agree that without early success acquiring reading skills, the outlook for children is grim and the wider impact on society both socially and economically is staggering.

Phase 1 – Prioritise Literacy

It is the single biggest factor determining our children’s well-being.

Phase 2 - Preparing for Launch

Promote a love of books and language, model this by reading yourself.

Provide a literate home environment with pens, paper and books.

Read to children everyday.

Value books – give as gifts.

Provide parent education on the importance of literacy.

Teach basic Print Awareness and Concepts of Print. How words work etc.

Phase 3 - We have lift off!

Getting off to a flying start to literacy is so important and knowing that 20% of children struggle to learn to read, it would make a lot of sense to ensure that all children, when they first start formal reading instruction, have the support and intervention strategies that a highly trained reading specialist brings to the lesson.

It’s vital that the books used in the crucial launch phase contain the research proven preventative strategies, designed to set the children up for success, support the new learner and avoid reading difficulties before they occur.  It’s not okay to leave 20% of our children behind to struggle.

Look for books that are

·         Child focused – using carefully controlled, natural language text.

·         Teacher driven – with supportive intervention strategies built in to each book (like a carefully crafted introduction  & word work extension activities).

·         Fun – strong characters, humor and definable plots that combine gradual language development with wonderful stories that children will really enjoy.

Great teachers and great books are the very best investment we can make in our children’s futures and the future of society as a whole.

Happy Reading!

Rachel

Co-Pilot & Red Rocket Scientist

The Importance of Print Awareness

Print Awareness … is a major indicator of literacy success.
Children with print awareness understand that written language is related to oral language. They know that the
printed language carries a message and is a source of both information and entertainment.

Print awareness is an understanding that print is organized in a particular way – for example, knowing that print is read from left to right and top to bottom. It is knowing that words consist of letters and spaces appear between words. Print awareness is a child’s earliest introduction to literacy.
Clay (1993) indicates that many children’s reading difficulties stem from not knowing how and what to look at in a print display.

"A wonderful knowledge of letter shapes, or letter sounds, or words cannot serve a reader if that reader is traveling the wrong way down a one-way street." - Marie Clay


Print Awareness Test

Give a child a storybook and ask them to show you:
• The front of the book
• The title of the book
• Where you should begin reading
• A letter
• A word
• The first word of a sentence
• The last word of a sentence
• The first and last word on a page
• Punctuation marks
• A capital letter
• A lower case letter
• The back of the book

The good news is that Print Awareness can be taught just by talking about and showing the child these basic conventions of print. 

Happy Reading!

Rachel

How Will My Child Learn to Read?

Learning to read is a step-by-step process. It involves a series of developmental stages that come
together, over time, to reach the ultimate goal of making meaning from the printed word.

It is the foundation of all learning.

As a literate adult you probably don’t remember learning to read as a child yourself. Imagine now if
you were suddenly expected to learn a new language and master it quickly or perhaps you had to
learn to read music for the first time with a completely unfamiliar set of symbols and in a
complicated language with a large number of inconsistencies. It’s a big ask and we are asking it of
our little children. Throw in upper and lower case letter symbols (and variations of several of these);
add numerals and exceptions in sounds, digraphs and blends, silent letters and punctuation and you
soon realize that English is a monster!

Nature has given us an oral language. Written language is a man-made technology and it is
unnatural. It takes time to master each of the stages and support is needed at every stage to ensure
your child is successfully launched into a life of literacy and learning.

Step 1 - Foundation Stage

Around age 5, children enter school and begin receiving formal literacy instruction. They continue to
make rapid growth in literacy skills if they are exposed to literacy-rich environments (Burns, Griffin,
& Snow, 1999).

• Will look at books and enjoys being read to.
• Notices letters and words around them.
• Begins to understand that print carries a message.
• Writes their own name and can recognise it.
• Plays at reading – holding books and turning pages pretending to read.
• Enjoys learning about letters and words from books, games, songs and nursery rhymes.
• Looks at pictures and makes up stories.
• Uses memory and pictures to retell a story.
• Learns letter names and letter sounds – starting with their own.
• Learns how books work where a story starts and ends and which way the print progresses.
• Understands the concept of a letter and a word.

Step 2 - Emergent Reading Stage

Children at this stage continue to "read" from books they’ve heard repeatedly. Gradually, these
readings demonstrate the intonation patterns of the adult reader and language used in the book.
Emergent readers are just beginning to control early reading strategies such as directionality, wordby-
word matching, and concepts of print. They use pictures to support reading and rely heavily on
their knowledge of language (Holdaway, 1979; Pinnell, 1996b; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).

• Knows how books work – using left to right directionality of print.
• Matches spoken words to written words.
• Uses pictures to help read unknown words.
• Understands relationships between sounds and letters.
• Learns that text is a common way to tell a story.

Most children at the first grade level are or will become early readers. They know how to use early
reading strategies and can read appropriately selected text independently after a story introduction
given by a teacher (Pinnell, 1996).


Step 3 - Early Reader Stage

Early readers begin to attend to print and apply the phonetic value (International Reading
Association & National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1998; Snow, Burns, &
Griffin, 1998) of letters in order to read. They commonly look at beginning and ending letters in
order to decode unfamiliar words (Clay, 1991; Pinnell, 1996b; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).

Children in this early reading period also begin to attend to more than one source for cues while
reading. Attention is paid to meaning cues, grammatical cues, and prior knowledge on a limited basis
(Clay, 1991; Holdaway, 1979; International Reading Association & National Association for the
Education of Young Children, 1998; Pinnell, 1996b; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). These children are
able to recognize a small number of words on sight.

• Develops instant word recognition.
• Gains an increasing understanding of print conventions.
• Can read for enjoyment and for information.
• Expands vocabulary.

Step 4 - Fluent Reader Stage

Children at the third grade level typically are fluent readers. They use all sources of information
flexibly to read a variety of unknown texts. Fluent readers are able to read for meaning with less
attention to decoding and can independently solve problems encountered in the text (Clay, 1991;
International Reading Association & National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1998;
Pinnell, 1996b; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). If the reading materials are appropriately challenging,
children's fluency continues to increase.

• Automatic word recognition.
• Rapid decoding.
• Makes predictions.
• Self corrects.
• Checks for meaning.
• Uses vocab gained in their own writing.

 

Step 5 - Advanced Fluency Stage

Not only do good readers read fluently with adequate speed, but when they read aloud, they also
use appropriate phrasing, intonation, and their oral reading mirrors their spoken language. They
have more success with writing, better vocabulary skills and a greater understanding of what is being
read.

• Student reads easily.
• Reads expressively.
• Reads with comprehension.
• Uses a large vocabulary.
• Imitates author styles in their own writing.
• Manages different font styles including smaller typeface and irregular phrasing.
• Tackles challenges such as lists, bullet points.
• Enjoys reading!

Happy Reading!

Home-Reading Support Guidelines for Parents & Caregivers

Regular reading practice at home is known to greatly support the acquisition of essential reading
skills taught at school. However, it is important to emphasize that these gains are only seen when
reinforcement at home is positive. Parents that push too much or demand 100% accuracy can spoil
the reading experience and turn children off reading and learning.
Find a quiet spot away from other distractions –turn off the TV, stereo etc. Reading practice should
not be a punishment or a chore – rather just something that we do each day like putting on our
clothes! It is best to choose a time when the child is not over tired –try to schedule the home
reading program at a regular time so it becomes a habit. Note bedtime stories should be a leisure
activity not time to do home-reading.

Always remember that it’s practice that’s needed not pressure!

You can expect that any reading book brought home to share should have already been read at
school with the teacher– check that your child is familiar with the book before proceeding. Only if
they are familiar with the story then:

Ask him to;
• tell you what the story is about
• show you his favorite picture
• tell you which part he likes best

If you are sharing a story that he hasn’t met before you should go through the book together page
by page, discussing pictures and likely storyline so that he can predict some of the vocabulary and
the events of the story.

Word solving
When the child stops at an unknown word he should use a variety of strategies that he has been
taught:
• initial letter
• meaning from the context
• structure of sentence
• ending letters ( -s -ing -er -ed )
• middle letters
• similarity to known word

If he still cannot solve the word you can prompt him:
• What else could you try?
• Is it like a word you know?
• What is happening in the story?
• Does the picture help you?
• Can you find the tricky bit?

If he makes an error but does not notice, you should just say “Something was not quite right there.
Try that sentence again.”

Support means:
• Allow processing time.
• Give opportunities to apply learned strategies and for practice of reading skills.
• Praise, praise – very important. Say “I like the way you worked that out.”
• Read with him so it is not a long task – alternate pages or final pages of longer stories. This
also gives a model of fluent reading with expression and attention to full-stops and other
punctuation.
• Remember - good reading should sound like talking – stories are just talk written down!