A Spotlight on Learning

A word from the Learning Specialists…

Last term, we met each of our four Learning Specialists – Hayley, Jess, Kate and Steph. This term, we will continue to highlight some of the work they are doing in Learning Communities and beyond.

This week, our Learning Intervention and Support leader, Jess Argento, will talk about how you can support and encourage your child with their reading at home.

Supporting your child to become a confident and fluent reader

Hello families!

We are currently in an exciting and somewhat ‘revolutionary’ period when it comes to reading instruction. An increasing body of research continues to highlight the critical skills possessed by strong readers. In the last issue, Hayley discussed the broad field of work known as the ‘Science of Reading’ and this week, we will look more closely at how you can support your child at home to foster these important skills.

Learning to read is not natural like learning to speak. Around 5 percent of children pick up reading very easily, and a further 35 percent get by with broad instruction and immersion in texts. The majority though, require explicit, structured teaching of letter/sound correspondences (phonics) and targeted instruction in other key reading skills. Children with learning difficulties or disabilities need the same instruction, but greater repetition and opportunities for practice. Here at ACS, we teach reading through ‘The Big Six’, with sequential, considered instruction in the areas of phonics, phonological awareness, fluency, vocabulary, oral language and comprehension.

Let’s look at each of these areas and how you can build these skills at home:

Phonics – this one is especially important in the beginning stages of learning to read. At school, your child is involved in either Sounds-Write or Spelling Mastery every day. This is where they are explicitly taught the different spellings for each sound, and how these can be applied to decode (read) words and texts. If your child is in the lower years, they will have been provided with login details for ‘Wushka’, an online library of texts that enable them to practise these decoding skills at home. We encourage you to spend time each evening reading these texts with your child. Prompt them to look at the spellings and consider the sound/s they might represent. Have your child say the sounds out loud and blend them to hear the whole word. We actively discourage students from guessing words based on initial sounds, or using pictures as clues – these are not helpful reading strategies. ‘Keep your eyes on the word and say all of the sounds’ is a helpful prompt.

Phonological awareness – is about hearing sounds in words. Syllables and rhyme are a great starting point for very young children, moving on to the beginning sound in a word (not the letter name) and eventually recognising and hearing all of the sounds. Being able to blend sounds translates to decoding, as described above. You can support your child’s early phonological awareness through games like ‘I Spy’ using sounds, rather than letters… ‘I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with /sss/’ as well as noticing and discussing rhyming patterns in stories and songs.

Fluency – fluency comes from automatic and accurate decoding. The very best way for fluency to develop is to practise, practise, practise reading! While fluency includes things like expression, phrasing, stopping at full stops, etc. we focus heavily on confident and automatic decoding to increase speed, without compromising on accuracy. Time spent listening to your child read, providing encouragement and feedback, will support them to become increasingly fluent. Fluent readers are better able to make sense of what they are reading, rather than labouring over each word and losing track of what is happening in the text. This one is a big focus from Year 3 upward, as children typically move from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’ where their phonic knowledge is good, and decoding words tends to happen more easily. Selecting their own texts from classroom libraries, home libraries or our fabulous public libraries, based on their interests, is the perfect approach to home reading in these upper levels.

Vocabulary – knowing and being able to use a vast bank of words is a powerful skill. As you can imagine, a child who knows the meaning of lots of words will find it easier to understand what they are reading, and when decoding, can ‘scan their brain’ to find a match between what they are seeing and the words they know. Vocabulary development is a great one for home. Life experiences – camping, going to the beach, visiting places like zoos or museums – are all ways to expose your child to a variety of words. Talk to them – describe things, share your knowledge, and don’t always feel the need to use ‘kid speak’ – often our kids can understand far bigger and more complex words than we give them credit for!

Oral language – encompasses vocabulary, but includes much more. Knowing how sentences are put together, understanding morphology (e.g. common word endings and their meaning – for example, ‘-ed’ generally indicates past tense, something that has already happened) are both examples of important oral language skills. Modelling and using correct grammar, asking your child questions and again, spending time talking to your child about their thoughts, feelings and ideas, are all ways to build oral language skills.

Comprehension – a fancy word for simply understanding what we are reading. The good news is, this will happen when all of the above fall into place! In most cases, a child who is able to fluently read a text, and who has a good vocabulary and knowledge of the topic being read, will comprehend what they are reading. By reading to and with your child from a young age, and chatting about what you have read, you are modelling the process of taking meaning from texts. By all means, ask questions, encourage your child to think about and reflect on stories and written information, but trust that comprehension really comes from fluent reading and strong topic knowledge.

So, there are just a few ideas for ways you can support your child to become a strong reader. If you have seen this through to the end, a big well done! As you can tell, this is a real area of passion for me. If you would like to chat more about your child’s needs, or how you can help them, I would encourage you to speak to your child’s teacher, or reach out to me via email on jessica.argento@education.vic.gov.au. Always happy to chat everything literacy!

Jess 😊