Teaching reading the two main methods
- 1. By Rachel Aird The Family Africa Teaching Reading : The two main methods
- 2. Children learn more in the first five years of life than in the rest of their lives.
- 3. Believe it or not………. Children can learn to read more easily than learning to write. It is very difficult for a child to write when they are under 4 years old because they have not yet developed the necessary hand eye
- 4. Pencils can seem very big and difficult to use to a small child!
- 5. Read to your children
- 6. Reading to your children What ever method you choose to teach reading, reading to the children is extremely important. Also encourage parents to read to their children. It inspires children to want to read, teaches them reading left to right as you point to words and they may even learning some words as you read when there is a lot of repetition in the story.
- 7. Treat books with care Always teach children that books are special and should be treated with care. Teach them how to look after them and how to turn pages without ripping them. Teach children a love of books
- 8. Two main methods of teaching Reading 1.Using phonetics ; the sound of the letters not the names. Building up words from the sounds
- 9. 2. Sight reading Look/ say or whole word method Using Flash cards with the whole words as English is not a very phonetic language e.g. try reading rough cough bough Or: here they whether
- 10. Or they can be combined It is also possible to teach children to read combining phonetics for simple words and “Look, Say” (reading whole words ) for the non phonetic words.e.g. C a t cat phonetic
- 11. Sight reading /Look Say method As I said it is easier for a child to read than it is to write. It is about recognising shapes and lots of repetition.
- 12. Young children can memorise hundreds of words from the shapes of the words. I have used this method for over 40 years with my children, grandchildren and groups of
- 13. But I will always teach them phonetics as well in the end because it is useful for building new words and for spelling.
- 14. Meaning and context are very important to a small child. Don’t make it more difficult by giving them boring things to read!
- 15. When using sight reading or look say method Meaning and context are very important. Pictures are helpful because they add meaning and context. Lots of repetition Make it fun. Keep them motivated Use games. Never spend too long on reading new words when they are small children..
- 16. Children love to read!
- 17. A child wants to learn and they are in fact learning all the time and they become bored when there is nothing to learn.
- 18. Learning to read their name Write the children’s names on cards and stick them on the tables and get the children to find their name. When they are good at it. Move the tables around and get them to find their name again. You will see it is much easier to
- 19. Look at the outline of the shape of the word.
- 20. Why use flash cards? You are teaching them the shape of the word. Look at these two words Hippopotamus dog
- 21. The words look very different and children can learn to recognise them. Easiest words to teach are nouns e.g. names of animals, Names of things in the classroom, colours.
- 22. What is a noun? A person, place or thing.
- 23. Examples of nouns? dog cat horse Or table, chair, window
- 24. If you choose animals you can show a picture of the animal with the word. Show them two animals with the corresponding words Then ask one of the children to put the right word with the animal.
- 25. Or verbs (action words) jump sit hop
- 26. Teaching children whose first language is not English To begin make BIG flash cards which can be used in a group. Use action words and have the children look at the cards and act it out eg, jump sit stand go hop
- 27. Write to lower case (small) not capitals. Write clearly and evenly.
- 28. Say the words as you show the cards Then act them out Do this several times for each new word .
- 29. When you have shown the children two words indivudally, then show them together and act out each one. Then say to individual children Which one says e.g. jump and let them point to it. Which one says : sit and let
- 30. Then just show the card without saying the word and see if the children can do it
- 31. If they can’t…….. Don’t get angry, just show them again until they get it. Use lots of praise.
- 32. Next use nouns (things) Children find it easier to learn words like table , chair ,dog, cat, horse than words like is, the, this, Label things in the classroom Show pictures with the words so the children understand them.
- 33. Using the Early Bird Readers Only use with the older children (4- 6) Have small group facing you who can see the flash cards clearly Teach the words in order Each card has a number on it which goes with the book number Teach all the words which go along with Book one first and then have
- 34. Using other sight reading books You will find simple sight reading (Look say method) on the resource kit both in the original kit and in part 2. There are books you can print out and make or show to a group on a TV screen.
- 35. How to use the flash cards Take two cards e.g. Tom and Meg Show each card and same the name and get the children to repeat Jumble up the cards and put them on the table Then ask them to pick up “Tom” or pick up “Meg” Don’t test them until you are sure they know the difference between the two
- 36. The next day Introduce two more cards and do the same Then include the cards from the day before as well so they can choose from 4 cards. Again help them by saying “Pick up... and you say the word. Always make it fun and always help the child to succeed.
- 37. Give lots of praise. Children love praise and it works much better than getting angry when the child
- 38. Read, read, read Children will love to read if you read to them and if you make it lots of fun. If the child is tired or bored ... Stop!
- 39. When the children know 30 or more sight words You can continue with more sight words if they are really enjoying them 0r you can start with individual sounds and teach them to build them into words.
- 40. Teaching to read phonetically Building words from individual sounds
- 41. Every letter has a name and a sound. Most people teach the names of the letters A B C etc. But it is more important for them to learn the sounds and to use lower case letters which is how most words are written. So they need to learn the phonetic alphabet a, b. c E.g. a is for apple ( the first sound
- 42. Most of the sounds are the same in Zulu because Zulu was written down phonetically but English often is not phonetic E.g. though, trough, tough, bough
- 43. If you have forgotten them……. Just think of the first sound of the most common nouns used to teach the alphabet a is for apple b is for ball c is for cat d is for dog.
- 44. Once they know their sounds You can introduce the idea of building words E.g c a t spells cat b a t spells bat r a t spell rat.
- 45. Words which go together It is good to use nouns especially if you have pictures to go with them and also words which go together in a pattern (these can be found on the resource kit) Like cat , mat, hat,
- 46. Just use phonetic words for sound building. The words which are not phonetic and easy to be built from the individual sounds can be taught by sight reading the whole words.
- 47. For teaching reading phonetically I am now going to show the book series on your resource kit which shows you exactly how to do it. Introducing the Alphabetti Books……..
- 48. We love books!
- 49. Just try this Test to see if you have understood the main points before taking the google form test which will be more detailed. The answers follow the questions. 1. When a child is small, it is easier to for them to read words than to write them; True or False
- 50. 2. There are two main methods of teaching reading : the phonetic method and the sight reading or Look/Say whole words method. True or False
- 51. 3. With the phonetic method we only teach whole words not sounds. True or False
- 52. 4. With the whole word, Look Say method we teach using sounds and build up the sounds to make the word. True or False
- 53. 5. Which words are the easiest to teach children to read with the sight reading or look/say method? Choose two correct answers: A) Nouns like dog, cat, table B) words like: this the a C) verbs like : jump, hop, stand D) all words are too difficult to learn until you are 7 years old
- 54. 6) It is not important to read books to children True or False 7) It is Ok for children to throw books around, after all we cannot expect them to look after them. True or False
- 55. 8)The letters of the alphabet have a name and a sound. True or false. 9) For building words we should teach children a) The names b) The sounds
- 56. 10) Which language is more phonetic: A) English B) Zulu
- 57. 11.The two methods of teaching reading can be combined. True or False
- 58. 12. What is a noun? A) A person, place or thing B) An action word 13. What is a verb? A) A person, place of thing B) An action word.
- 59. 14. Why is it best to teach nouns and verbs when starting to use the sight reading method A) Because nouns and verbs can be easily visualised, understood by a child and are more interesting to them than words like “are”, “they” or “here” B) It really doesn’t matter because all words are too difficult for children under 7 to learn.
- 60. 15. Whatever method of teaching you use if the child gets something wrong you should: A) Shout at them B) Make fun of them in front of the whole class C) Be patient, let them try again and when they get it right praise them. D) Tell the child he is stupid and will
- 61. Answers
- 62. Thank you!
- 63. Test 1. When a child is small, it is easier to for them to read words than to write them; True
- 64. 2. There are two main methods of teaching reading : the phonetic method and the sight reading or Look/Say whole words method. True
- 65. 3. With the phonetic method we only teach whole words not sounds. False
- 66. 4. With the sight reading whole word, Look Say method we teach using sounds and build up the sounds to make the word. False
- 67. 5. Which words are the easiest to teach children to read with the sight reading or Look say method? Choose two correct answers: A) Nouns like dog, cat, table C) verbs like : jump, hop, stand
- 68. 6) It is not important to read books to children False 7) It is Ok for children to throw books around, after all we cannot expect them to look after them. False
- 69. 8)The letters of the alphabet have a name and a sound. True . 9) For building words we should teach children b) The sounds
- 70. 10) Which language is more phonetic: B) Zulu
- 71. 11.The two methods of teaching reading can be combined. True
- 72. 12. What is a noun? A) A person, place or thing 13. What is a verb? B) An action word.
- 73. 14. Why is it best to teach nouns and verbs when starting to use the whole word method ? A) Because nouns and verbs can be easily visualised, understood by a child and are more interesting to them than words like “are”, “they” or “here”
- 74. 15. Whatever method of teaching you use if the child gets something wrong you should: C) Be patient, let them try again and when they get it right praise the child.
- 75. Congratulations you have finished the workshop on The two main methods of teaching reading.