Early+Years+Readers

Early Years Readers

 **__Identifying suitable texts: __**

 **-Allowing students to pick a book or text that they enjoy; Encouraging students to enjoy reading. **

 The reading interview was quite enjoyable for Lisa, she was excited to read to me which exhibited self-assurance on her behalf. She was quick to run to get her favourite text to read to me and was able to tell me all about the story line. Lisa likes to read at night before she goes to sleep, and prides herself on being able to read Chapter books now. She also enjoys reading her school reader with her mum and participating in reading in a group with her family.

 **- Link other aspects of literacy learning into the shared reading time. **

 Teacher A established this at the start of the class through the use of the “//Let’s look at Waves” // program on the interactive whiteboard. She allowed students to choose a topic from those listed in the program, and then read the text based on that topic, asking the students to __identify synonyms, compound words and describe the use of various punctuation marks__ throughout the text whilst reading and interpreting the information given about waves and the beach in this particular text.

 **-Independent Reading **- to build fluency and motivation for reading.

 When the role was called at the start of the lesson, each student read aloud a joke they had chosen from a class set of joke books.

 **-Shared Reading **- led by the teacher but the children can participate.

 The teacher informed me that on a Monday, to start the week’s literacy lessons, she has a ‘shared reading’ (Hill, pg. 73) experience with the whole class using a ‘big book’ (See Figure 2, pg. 4). This big book is used throughout the week and links to literacy, maths and their current inquiry unit.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">- Guided Reading **- 4 to 6 children reading individual copies of the same text.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> The students were asked to read pages of “A Fair Swap” individually before discussing it as a group. This encouraged them to feel comfortable to read at their own pace and to not be influenced when making predictions of where the story may lead. When a child was not confident with the meaning of a word he/she were directed to the dictionary where they learnt how to research.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> The steps undertaken by the teachers in this group enforce Susan Hill’s idea of what guided reading actually is, “...reading individual copies of the same text...” (Hill, p.80)

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">- Modelled Reading **

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> The teacher in the observed class read a book aloud to the whole class however it was a book that the students chose themselves because they liked it so much. There was a unanimous vote for the text “My Aussie Dad” therefore the book did not seem to provide students with new vocabulary as the book had been read before. However the slang vocabulary in the text was discussed throughout the reading.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> **__<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Assessing fluency and comprehension: __**

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Learning to place the students we interviewed in an appropriate VELS level based on: **

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">-__Phrasing, pace, pitch, tone, stress, intonation and expression__ while reading. **

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> The rate of Kim’s reading was at times smooth and showed some variation, generally maintaining appropriate pace to suit the text putting her between level 2 and 3. Her phrasing displayed a mixture of word-by-word reading and phrased reading denoting level 3. The comprehension of punctuation, understanding and voice acting it out, was displayed with attention from the written text earning a level 3. She occasionally read in monotone followed by flourishes in pitch, tone, and expression.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">- Predictions during reading and retelling of the main points in the story after the reading have been completed. **

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> This can be shown by her skill at working out meanings of unfamiliar words by the context of the story and can read a text that could be seen as slightly challenging, independently. She understood that the text was not a real story and she recognise that they story was about a child making new friends. Kailee predicted the likely event that Humpty would indeed make friends and went on to suggest games they could all play together.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Running Records **

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> In Class A, the Guided Reading time was used by Teacher A as a time for conferencing students, to evaluate a benchmark or goal for each student. Two groups were involved in Guided Reading in this classroom. The first group (of approximately four students), who were all reading at a relatively fluent level, each had individual copies of the same book and were asked to read the first four pages independently then retell the story one-by-one to the rest of the group, as well as read a section of the book aloud to Teacher A. The second group was two students who had been struggling to keep up with the class in their reading levels. The text used for these students was therefore a much simpler level and the students were asked to read one sentence each at a time, ‘chunking’ syllables to form words which were unfamiliar to them.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> A standardised rubric was being used by the teacher for ‘running records’, Hill asserts that ‘A fluency of reading rubric is useful for monitoring the child’s development of reading fluency’ (Hill, p.169).

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Literal, Interpretive and Inferential Questions **

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> __Literal__

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> How many pets are there now? (On a couple of pages)

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> __Interpretive__

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> Which pet do you think would make the biggest mess?

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> What do you think will happen on the next page?

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> __Inferential__

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> What do you think Emily will do on the farm to help?

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> What do you think Emily could do next?

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> Kailee was extremely competent with comprehending ‘One More Pet’ (Fernandes 2002). Her responses were thoughtful and she clearly enjoyed having a story read to her. She was involved with the questions, quick with responses or keen to find out the answer.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> Angus’ answers to six literal, interpretive, and inferential questions indicate he has a sound comprehension of the text he read. (See Apendix). Angus was quick to respond to the literal questions, however thought quite carefully before answering the interpretive and inferential questions.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Continue on to Early Years Teaching Practice...