Teaching Reading and Writing for Young Learners

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Today I want share with you about Teaching Reading and Writing for Young Learners.

So, here we go ....

READING

English has some skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Beside these skills, reading becomes important skill that should be mastered by students since they are still young. Reading is one of English skill that is very important that should be taught and delivered well. Reading comprehension skills can be acquired easily through positive communication between the educator and the learner (Alharbi, 2015:1258).

Reading is one of the most important skills in language learning. It is a crucial skill for students of English as a Foreign Language (Debat, 2006:8). Being able to read, as well as to write, enables the students to speak more communicatively, which is the main goal of language learning. One of the milestones in children’s education is how and when they learn how to read. Brown (2001:298) stated that reading ability will be developed best in association with writing, listening, and speaking activities.

Here are some approaches to learning to read

1. The Phonics Approach

The phonics approach is probably the best known and widely used method to teach reading and writing in the English language. This approach generally emphasizes teaching children to match individual letters of the alphabet with their specific English pronunciations, with the idea that if children can “sound out” or decode new words, they will be able to read independently. They then will be able to blend two letters together to make simple words then three letters, then four and so forth. Decoding is the process of identifying the written words using the alphabetic code to determine pronunciation ad meaning (Riley, 1999, p.45).

Phonics generally involves teaching children the sound-letter relationships used in reading and writing. A related type of knowledge, phonemic awareness, involves children understanding that speech is made up of individual sounds, including such things as the ability to tell if two words begin or end with the same sound, and the ability to focus on the form of speech apart from focusing on its meaning or content (Strickland, 1998; cited in Ediger, 2001, pp.157-158). Phonemic awareness is also important for literacy development and frequently taught with phonics. 

Phonics is often taught in a rather mechanical way with the children memorizing a lot of rules, doing a lot of repetition, and reading and writing sentences that have little personal meaning for the children. It can be very dry, boring, and demotivating, if done in isolation, so it is probably preferable to incorporate five or ten minutes of concentrated phonics work inside other activities, such as story reading, class joint writing, song and rhymes, and others (Cameron, 2001, p.149). 

2. The Whole-word/ Key Words Approach

It starts from word level, with children looking at single words on cards to encourage rapid whole word recognition (Cameron, 2001, p.148). In the Whole-word approach, the children learn words such as cat, dog, or ship as whole, independent words. Other experts call this approach as sight word or look-say method, which teaches children to recognize whole words or sentences rather than individual sounds. Flash cards with individual words written on them (which are often accompanied with related pictures) are used for this method. 

Many children actually memorize the spelling. Whether or not the children picture the word as a whole or memorizing the spelling, the important point is that they are learning independent words and are not focusing on the connections between one word and another. The children may practice reading by drawing pictures next to words, by coloring the pictures, and even putting the words in puzzles, and these methods certainly do a lot to increase the children’s retention of the words. But the children are still focusing on independent items of knowledge rather than underlying patterns (Paul, 2003, p.85).

The term “key words” was used because the sight words taught were taken from the most frequently used words in English. This can help children quickly identify such common function words as of, and, for, and the. These words do not have clear lexical meanings but create meanings when they are used with content words. In learning to read, these words are probably better, and more easily, learnt through multiple encounters in contexts of use, rather than separated from other words on a card.

3. The Language Experience Approach

The Language Experience approach (LEA) starts children reading at sentence level, and its key feature is the child’s use of his or her own experience as the topic of the texts. This approach builds upon the notion that if children are given material to read that they are already familiar with, it will help them learn to read.

Ediger (2001, pp.158-159) summarizes that typically a class of LEA would follow a series of steps like this:

a)  The student or class dictates a “story,” usually based upon an experience they have had, that the teacher writes down on a large sheet of paper; \

b) the teacher then reads the story to the class (this “reading” may be repeated several times until the children are familiar with what have been written); 

c) depending on their level of ability and needs, the class will the engage in various extended activities based upon the original story, including focusing on individual words, letters, or meanings of various parts; 

d) finally, the children are expected to move from the stories they have dictated toward being able to read those written by others.

Because the children have “composed” the stories themselves,  there is a close match between their knowledge or experience and the texts they read.

WRITING

Writing is an integral skill of successful second language learning. McDonough and Shaw (2004: pg-152) defined writing as a vehicle for language practice and further added that it attempts to communicate with the writer's ideas and thought. Students have to go through a structured process of writing. In classroom, writing activities can be done in-group or individually. According to leamer's level teachers can design the writing task. McDonough and Shaw (2004: pg-155) have stated a process of writing according to which teachers should guide the leamers- "gathering ideas, working on drafts and preparing final version" that will establish a collaborative and interactive framework. To make the process fruitful teacher should make the learners motivated. 

Why is Writing Important?

• Writing is critical to becoming a good reader. 

• Writing is an essential job skill. 

• Writing is the primary basis upon which one’s work, learning, and intellect will be judged—in college, in the work place and in the community. 

• Writing equips us with communication and thinking skills. 

• Writing expresses who we are as people. 

• Writing makes our thinking and learning visible and permanent. 

• Writing fosters our ability to explain and refine our ideas to others and ourselves.

• Writing preserves our ideas and memories. 

• Writing allows us to understand our lives.

• Writing allows us to entertain others.

References:

Suganda, L, A. 2016. TEACHING READING FOR YOUNG LEARNERS IN EFL CONTEXT. JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LITERACY EDUCATION, 3, 80-84.

https://public.district196.org/District/CurriculumAssessment/Curr-Literacy/WhyIsWritingImportant.pdf