Teachers often believe that proficient readers naturally have a love for reading. There is little or no effort needed by the teacher to foster this enjoyment for reading during free time. On the other hand, reluctant readers hesitate to read for several reasons. Primarily, students learn by having someone model new concepts. Students will observe parents, caregivers, or teachers reading and emulate this behavior. However, the study conducted revealed that these students don’t have parents that subscribe to books, magazines, or newspapers for themselves, let alone for the children to read. Teachers have to realize that it isn’t enough to assign reading time in class in hopes to foster a love of reading. Students need modeling & training. Neither teachers, nor parents are reading in front of or to the students. Teachers are not necessarily selecting quality literature to read as a read-aloud or assigned reading and parents don’t see the benefit nor do they take the time to read daily with their students.
Basic skills are being taught to students. Students learn the alphabet, sounds, high frequency words, and some reading comprehension strategies. Unfortunately though, when asked, students didn’t know how to select an interesting book to read. Not having models that demonstrate a love for reading, perhaps leads students to developing negative attitudes towards reading. Although, students gained basic reading skills, eventually when encountering unfamiliar text, students may become unsure of the strategies to use to decode the text because it is more complex than they are accustomed too. After reading the text, they don’t know the meaning of what has been read, quite possibly as a result of focusing on decoding. Consequently, students will decide that reading is hard, takes too long, or is boring. The benefits of knowledge are unimportant to these students. Realizing that they are struggling readers and therefore don’t want to even engage in intervention strategies such as reading with a peer. There is a sense of embarrassment. In conclusion, a student’s motivation for reading stems from modeling, teaching, & practicing, which will foster a positive self-efficacy.
Bearing this in mind, it is imperative that I instill a love of reading in my students. They are at the earliest stages of reading. In an ideal world, teachers would receive students having a love for learning and are self-motivated on the first day of school. Looking specifically at the elementary school in which I teach a kindergarten class, this isn’t always the case. Our population is very diverse, with respect to ethnicity, economics and educational background of parents. In my opinion certain factors may not change, but this doesn’t determine a student’s possible level of achievement.
Phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, & comprehension are all skills that a good reader must possess. Acquisition of these skills can begin as early as pre-kindergarten. Clearly, it is imperative that a foundation of skills is laid to prevent reading failure. States have adopted grade level standards that are aligned with these skills, in an effort to ensure that students aren’t plunged into reading without the needed skills. However, it is up to the teacher to tailor instruction to the students’ needs for reading achievement to occur.
The development of phonological awareness skills typically occurs in the following order: rhyme skills, spelling, recognizing words with similar beginning or ending sounds, recognizing the number of sounds in a word, spelling vowel-consonant, consonant-vowel, and consonant-vowel-consonant style words, and manipulating the sounds in a word. Although the acquisition of these skills occur in this order, children may be at different skill levels within the process.
Being that phonological awareness skills are a precursor to reading skills, students not achieving mastery quite possibly will encounter problems with their reading abilities. Children with reading problems have phonological awareness problems as well. These problems are generally related to the ability to manipulate smaller phonemic units within rhyming words. They have to be familiar with rhyming and alliteration. This familiarity lends itself to the ability to produce words with the same beginning or ending sounds. Literature-related activities that facilitate play with language throughout the text helps students focus on words and their manipulations. Poetry can be a scaffold for language learning. Young children enjoy listening to the rhythmic language and sharing catchy phrases. Books such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?, nursery rhymes, and the Five Little Monkey series books are a favorite amongst young children. Reciting rhymes, producing rhyming words, clapping sounds and syllables, playing word games, and singing are all activities that strengthen phonemic awareness (Zeece, 2006). As students acquire phonological skills and learn the connection between letters and sounds the possibility of reading difficulty diminishes.
Holl, Robert, & Morgan, Frances. (2002). LearningA-Z.com. Your Reading Resource Center. Retrieved from www.readingaz.com.
Luna, Michelle, Urbanski, AnneMarie, White, Susan (2002, May). Motivating Students to Read for Enjoyment. Dissertation. Retrieved on April 18, 2010.
Zeece, Pauline Davey. (2006, October). Sound Reading and Reading Sounds: The Case for Phonemic Awareness. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(2), 169-175.
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