ABOUT READING
 
 No matter if your child is in kindergarten or third grade, first grade or second, he or she will be 
learning to read in a variety of ways. The point of reading is not just to decode, or unlock the way to 
say the words, but to make meaning of the passage in which they are imbedded. This two-fold 
process is complicated and tricky.
 
 Children come to school with a variety of experiences with print and a variety of skill levels. In 
first grade some children are becoming "early" or even "emergent" readers while other children 
have essentially broken the code and are focused on combining the cueing systems smoothly as they 
confront more difficult material. And a few others have achieved an automaticity with the decoding 
part and are now working on extending their comprehension abilities.
 
 As I share with you my feelings about reading, I will from time to time mention "stages of 
reading." What I am referring to is the progression or continuum of skills children acquire as they 
become proficient readers. You will notice on the First Grade home page an icon labeled 
Reading Continuum. It lists the various stages of reading along with brief descriptors of the traits 
you will find in each stage. Children move through these stages at their own pace, acquiring skills in 
one stage while tentatively developing traits of the next. Think of the continuum as a path rather 
than a ladder. No big leaps, though progress may be rapid at times and at others not so apparent.
 
 These stages are not particularly linked to "grades in school." Typically a child may move through 
one or two stages within a school year and spend a long time, as much as a year or more at another 
stage. Each stage is a big place and becoming a 'proficient' reader requires time, effort, opportunity 
to learn, practice, and of course, the desire to read. The speed with which a child moves through the 
stages is not so much a factor of intelligence as it is of brain maturation and the development of 
logical thinking. Some children are "wired" to remember at an early age. Memorizing is easy for 
them. Having that ability certainly makes it easier to associate letter names and sounds, acquire a 
large sight word vocabulary, and remember how the words look. These traits help a child become a 
confident reader of words but it is the process each child takes to create mental structures that are 
needed for logical thinking which determines how well any particular reader is able to comprehend 
WHAT they read. A first grader's instructional level (with the direct instruction and support of the 
teacher) is typically to be found at the Early, Developing, and even perhaps the Transitional Stage. 
 
 The reading journey can be slow and sometimes difficult or conversely almost like "falling off a 
log", particularly the decoding part. As a teacher I find it perplexing that some children take to 
reading naturally and others move through the reading stages at a slower and sometimes painful 
pace. Children with similar backgrounds, indeed growing up in the same families, demonstrate 
these wide differences. In any particular classroom you will find, like physical growth, the reading 
ability of the children varies greatly.
 
 In order to meet the needs of the children in the class regardless of which stage of reading they 
are in at the moment, I use a wide variety of materials and modes of instruction. You will not hear 
about the bluebird group or the redbird group in my class. In one day a child might read with a 
partner, be in a small skills-based instruction group, have a reading conference with me and/or join 
the whole class for a shared reading experience. When I consider my reading program I know that I 
need to include Read Alouds, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, and Independent Reading for each 
child to have their just-right balanced reading diet.
 
The Materials: They are varied. Among them are basal collections of textbooks (by that I mean 
graded series of reading books assigned a particular grade level designation, usually one for each 
child), trade books (books you find at the library and bookstores), charts, stories we've written 
together on the overhead, and even the newspaper.
 
The Process: That means the cueing systems. It is what we all use to read: phonics and word 
structure (the clues that are within the word) and semantic and syntactic cues (the clues that are in 
the text surrounding the word.) Of course beginning readers rely heavily on pictures to supply 
context too. In plain English all that means is that the unknown word must match the letters, make 
sense, and sound right. Phonics, semantics, and syntax.
 
PHONICS Our school is committed to teaching phonics with the Intensive Phonics Program. This 
program teaches word sounds in isolation in a predetermined order. Children in kindergarten learn 
the sounds for b,d,f,g first by themselves, then combined with short a, and then combined into a 
consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. And example would be b(uh), ba, (as in baa, baa black sheep) 
and then bad or baf or bag. These combinations do not need to make sense. The focus is in 
blending the consonants and vowel sounds together. The progression continues through the 
alphabet in this way until most of the consonants and all of the vowels are dealt with. If you would 
like a copy of this sequence, let me know. In first grade the consonant blends, digraphs, 
diphthongs, and other letter clusters are examined too.
 
 We also study phonics in context, picking out certain word patterns we are reading. Beginning 
readers work with a lot of rhyming books. Rhymes use lots of similar letter patterns. Think of "The 
Cat in the Hat." Rhyming books are good for another reason -- they help children develop auditory 
discrimination.  It is difficult at first to hear the difference between m and n or b and d (not to 
mention getting the writing of them straight!) Some of the other ways we learn to use phonics is by 
working with word roots (or stems). We also address phonic issues through Phonics/Spelling 
lessons, which also incorporate writing in context.
 
 Structural Analysis, the second part of studying individual words means just that, how the word 
looks -- its structure. Prefixes, suffixes, contractions, compound words, the number of letters, even 
the way the word looks as a whole give children cues in unlocking words and remembering them.
 
 This combined phonographemic cueing system is an important one, but I can't resist a note of 
caution here. IT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT SYSTEM FOR EMERGENT AND BEGINNING READERS TO USE. 
Telling a child to 'sound it out' is almost useless information because, well, consider the following 
list of words all containing the letter A. See if you can pick out the words with the most common A 
sound -- short a as in apple.
 
 say, was, said, plaid, plain, bake, real, says, ocean, garage, caught, 
 taupe, task, fail, air, father, Martian, toad, dinosaur, barn, head
 
 Did you find two words? Of those two words with a short a sound, only one of them follows the 
rule. Task. The other word, plaid, is an exception to the long a rule which states that when two 
vowels are together in a word the first one will have a 'long' sound and the second one will be silent.
 
 Before I talk about semantics and syntax, I would like to digress for a moment since we are on the 
topic of phonics. Phonics seems to be a hot button to push when there is any discussion about 
reading. Throughout my teaching career I have been compelled to teach reading in a variety of ways 
driven mainly by the type of basal texts the school district in which I worked had adopted. When I, 
myself, was in first grade I learned to read with Dick and Jane. Dick and Jane were the main 
characters in a strongly Whole Word reading series. This approach (often called by its detractors, the 
"look-say" method) used controlled vocabulary but not particularly limited in its phonic elements. 
The tip-off with this approach is that the text is painfully repetitive. "See Spot. See Spot run. Run 
Spot Run. Dick, see Spot run." You get the picture. At least by the time my own boys went to first 
grade, this type of reading book was updated to "Teddy looked out the window. Teddy saw a big 
truck. Teddy saw signs on the truck. The signs said, "Carnival." 
 
 The other main type of basal series was the Phonics approach. This method employed extremely 
controlled and limited vocabulary. A primer might go something like this. "The man ran. The man 
ran to the van. The man ran to the tan van." In subsequent lessons the phonic elements are 
increased (slightly). The man and dad can tap the tan van!" Words like 'Chevrolet' and'magenta' 
would never enter the picture. Yet, ironically, beginning readers would remember those words better 
because they don't all look alike. This phonics approach was traditional and used by most schools 
across America if they weren't using the Whole-Word method, and are still used to this very day. 
Both systems of reading instruction are trying to utilize elements they want to stress in a contrived 
way to give students practice in decoding those particular word elements. Both ways are almost sure 
to make reading more difficult because it isn't interesting, it isn't how real language sounds, and a 
lot of the time it doesn't make very good sense. Moreover, the stress in decoding is limited to each 
individual word. "Sound it out" or "remember it" children are told.
 
 To complicate matters for the beginner, many words that are encountered are not phonetically 
regular -- words like says, said, to, so, was, want, what, who, the, and of -- to name a few. It is very 
difficult for children to apply phonics rules successfully since there are so many exceptions in the 
words they are first expected to read. And you can only memorize so many words before you reach 
a plateau and need help of another kind.
 
 Luckily, help came in the form of a new wrinkle for textbook companies to grapple with. 
Educators in Australia came up with something called Whole Language. (I'm pretty sure that many 
teachers in one-room school houses across America also invented this approach though I only know 
of one personally, my aunt who taught 4 grades plus kindergarten in one room in the middle of 
Montana. I was the one kindergartener.) This approach as adapted in America has been around now 
for over 30 years and is the type of textbook we have on our shelves here at Forest Ridge. And 
because it is on our shelves and because I am glad of that, I am going to tell you all about Whole 
Language. Well, not all. You would stop reading long before I would get to the end. Some of you 
may have learned to read using this approach.
 
 Remember back a few paragraphs, I was talking about the cueing systems -- phonographemic, 
semantic, and snytactic? Well, the Phonics basals use the "phono" part of phonographemic (or 
graphophonic as the new teachers say) and the Whole Word texts use the "graphemic" part. So that 
leaves semantics and syntax for the Whole Language guys. There was once a huge study done on 
American schools (in the late 50s or early 60s). And then a book was written about the study called 
"Becoming a Nation of Readers." I read that book. The research essentially said that what most 
adults do when they come to a word they don't know is to think of what makes sense in the sentence 
and begins with that letter. That means they use semantic and syntactic cues first combined with 
simple phonics.  Do they 'sound out' the word? Probably not. They look for meaning. Even words 
like wind require context for correct pronunciation. Good readers are constantly looking for 
meaning and that is where Whole Language comes in.
 
 For reading comprehension to take place, children must understand that print is supposed to 
make sense. The Whole Language approach allows the child to respond first to the largest unit of 
meaning -- the entire selection -- and then proceed to the smaller units: paragraphs, sentences, 
words, and letters. The teaching sequence moves from the whole to the smaller parts, just the 
reverse of previously mentioned methods.
 
 But how can beginning readers read a whole selection when they can't read, you ask. Well, of 
course, they can't. But they can listen. And follow along. They have large speaking vocabularies and 
even larger listening vocabularies. They understand spoken English. Therefore the teacher or parent 
can read the selection. Children become familiar with the meaning and because sentences now have 
significance they can be examined and key words can be explored. By looking at words which they 
now understand and can read, the children add to their knowledge of phonic generalizations, word 
parts, and add new vocabulary to their 'can read' list. 
 
 Before I go on, I need to go back and catch you up on some of the ways semantics and syntax help 
children decode and comprehend. As you know if you have tried to put a swing set together by 
reading the directions, just saying the words isn't quite enough. Semantic cues depend on the 
reader's prior general knowledge of the subject matter. For most first graders, the most difficult 
passage in "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" is 'Peter got caught in a goose-berry net and gave himself up 
for lost but the sparrows implored him to exert himself . ..' Children might not be familiar with the 
words 'implored' and 'exert'. Since that is often the case, in class we would use the general context 
to make some predictions about what these words could and could not mean. "Winnie-the-Pooh" 
and "Harry Potter" pose similar problems. English vocabulary is sometimes different than American. 
For adults, the following passage would cause problems unless we were famliar with the game of 
cricket.
 Compton, caught in the slips off a yorket, was retired with a duck;
 another wicket maiden for Mulgrave.
 
 As you can see, even though we can pronounce the words in the above passage, background 
experiences are very important to its understanding and therefore being a successful reader. And 
this is why programs like Head Start have an impact on reading readiness. And it is why educators 
urge parents to take their children places and TALK about what they see and think.
 
 Syntactic cues depend on a knowledge of common sentence patterns, allowing even beginning 
readers to predict upcoming words. When reading, we are constantly asking ourselves, "Does this 
sound like language?" If I asked you to complete the sentence below, I am sure you would have no 
difficulty putting the adjectives in the right order. And it isn't because an English teacher in your 
past made you learn some rules.
 
 I remember _______________________________________________ boots with red stitching.
 (cowboy, grandfather's, black, my, leather, old)
 
 You know what sounds right because of your knowledge of the English language, especially 
spoken English. And so do children. They talk a lot and also hear a lot. When we read stories to 
them, they are hearing literature patterns which they will apply to their own reading and writing. 
Incidentally, there is a difference in how spoken and written English sounds. This is another reason 
why it is important to read to children, even good readers.
 
 By this time I hope you aren't saying, "but they need to learn phonics!" If you are, I will certainly 
agree. But not in total isolation. Research suggests that even good readers do not memorize 
phonics rules and apply them in decoding. Yet, there is actually one program in some school 
districts right now (not ours) that urge parents and teachers NOT to let children have a book until 
they have mastered every letter and every sound it makes. Think of those A sounds! And pity the 
children who are not yet auditory learners. It is no wonder some children hate reading. We make it 
so hard. Using the techniques of whole Language combined with elements of Whole Word and 
Phonetic programs help me find the right mix for each child.
 
 Every day, your child may select 2 books to take home to read overhight. These books are 
'leveled' books your child and I have selected. I try to find ones that are at his or her independent 
reading level -- ones that are pretty easy with only a few words to struggle over. Sometimes your 
child may select a book because of the topic. It may be a bit too difficult but it's okay to help or even 
read it to your child. The textbooks I use at school are the hardbound whole language basals I 
referred to earlier. I won't, as a rule, send them home for practice. They are at the children's 
instructional level which means support must be given to reading them. They are also a perfect 
vehicle for learning and practicing reading strategies. Whole language basal texts are collections of 
good literature mostly reprinted from library books, with permission of course. Stories are selected 
for their 'readability' at a particular stage of reading. Length, format, topic familiarity, illustrations, 
rhyming words, word or phrase patterns are all factors that make a selection easier or more difficult. 
 
 Our basal texts are very lovely and the children enjoy the stories. In addition, I also use 'trade' 
books - books you find in the library or book stores which Developing and Transitional readers use 
to develop and extend vocabulary and learn comprehension skills. These books may be picture 
books like 'Where the Wild Things Are' or 'Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel' or beginning chapter 
books like 'Henry and Mudge' or 'Nate the Great' or more advanced chapter books like the Boxcar 
Children series.
 
 Finally, what does reading instruction 'look like' in my classroom? Every day children have 
multiple opportunties to read. Usually at the beginning of the day as the children arrive they may 
select a book from the shelves, either fiction or non-fiction and find a cozy spot to get acquainted 
with the book, either alone or with a friend. Later in the day, during Guided Reading, I will 'guide' a 
group (sometimes the whole class) in reading a selection. Often it is from our whole language basal 
texts. There are enough that each child can have a copy. Often I will distribute the children into 
three or four smaller groups for a book study. Each group has their own book. As it turns out, many 
of the children in the class are in the same stage on the reading continuum and are working on 
similar strategies. We are fortunate to have an experienced educational assistant to help work with 
the groups. Maybe you will volunteer, too. We take turns so that one day i may be working with the 
'Annos's Journey' group and the nex day I will be working with the whole language basal group, or 
'Rosie's Walk' group. Lots of direct instruction in reading comprehension and decoding strategies 
takes place in these small groups. The group membership varies too so that children have an 
opportunity to read with a different set of children throughout the year.
 
 Another important reading time during our day is during Independent Reading time. First there is 
a Read Aloud, The children listen to an expert reader, usually me, but any passerby may be enlisted. 
Feel free to pass by and read to the class. (We have a large selection of books to choose from or 
bring your own favorite.) At the end of the story and after we have decided who gets to take the 
book home that day, the children take their reading boxes to their seats and select a book (one of 
ten that they have selected from among the 1200 titles I have collected over the years) to read by 
themselves. The books in their reading boxes should be at their independent reading level as I 
mentioned earlier. As the children are reading to themselves I will be listening and conferencing 
with various individual children. Perhaps I will record how they are reading. You will see some of 
these 'records' at parent conference time and in their portfolios at the end of the year. By observing 
how a child reads, I learn many things -- is the story just right, too hard, or too easy; what cueing 
systems does the child use (remember phonographemic, semantic, syntactic); and what reading 
strategies such as reading through the word, self-correcting, skipping and going back is the child 
using. We may have a little discussion about the book -- what it's about so far, what might happen 
next, about the author, etc., or even a little discussion about reading in general -- what kinds of 
books he or she likes, has read in the past or would like to try to read in the future (usually chapter 
books!) 
 
 Speaking of chapter books, the hard thing about them for first graders is that many are too 
difficult from a comprehension aspect. The sentences are too long, the dialogue to 'trendy', the 
references too sophisticated, or the topics not age appropriate. Some of the children in our class can 
decode lots of words fluently but not understand the story because of the factors just stated. I have 
lots of books. I am sure we will over time find the just right ones for each child in the class. So 
independent reading time usually turns out to be one of the students' favorite times of the day.
 
 The class participates in many types of shared reading. This is an opportunity for everyone to 
work together. What follows is a description of a 'whole language' lesson as it might occur in a 
primary classroom in September. But first, here is a little mini-lesson designed to help children use 
the cueing systems they know best - semantics and syntax. 
 
 One day I invited the students to come join me near the white board and sit on the carpet so that 
they could all see the words I had written on the board. I asked the children to find the words they 
could read and be ready to help me. Here is what I wrote.
 
 Once upon a time there were four _____________ rabbits, Flopsy, Mopsy, 
 Cottontail, and ___________. They _____________ with their mother 
 underneath the ____________ of a very big ___________ tree.
 
 The children were puzzled by the blank places. Here is the conversation that followed, more or 
less.
 
Teacher (me): Who would like to start?
Student: I think it says 'Once upon a time there were four furry rabbits.'
Teacher: Why do you think is says 'furry' here where the blank is?
Student: It just makes sense. Rabbits are furry.
Teacher (asking the whole class): Could that blank be any other word beside furry?
Students: Maybe it could be fuzzy.
 I think it is bunny, like bunny rabbits.
 I know, It think it is baby.
 Or maybe it is supposed to say little. (Teacher writes down each suggestion.)
Teacher: Would it help if you knew the starting letter?
Students: Yes, tell us.
Teacher writes l (L) at the beginning of the blank. Immediately the response is that the word must be 
'little' since it is the only one that begins with an L.
Teacher: (for the benefit of the less experienced readers):  Well, let's see. (Teacher points to each of the 
 words that were suggested, underlining the first  letter.) Yes, you are right. 'Little is the only one 
 that starts with an L. How did you know that was the missing word?
Student: It is the only one that makes sense and starts with an L.
Teacher: I think you are right about that. Sometimes you don't even need to sound out the word to
 figure out what it is. Let's look at the next part. Who would like to try? Start from the
 beginning.
Student: Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and ______. Uh, 
 could it be Donny?
Student: Oh, (excitedly) I think it is Peter. I know a story about Peter Rabbit.
Teacher: How will we know for sure if it is 'Peter'?
Student: Well, I just remember that story and I think it is Peter.
Student: If we knew that the first letter is P, then we would know for sure.
Teacher: (writes in the letter P at the beginning of that blank.)
Students: (cheer) Yes, it's Peter.
Teacher: You are doing a great job of figuring out words without seeing the whole thing. Knowing
 the first letter is like a little clue, isn't it. What do you think the next word could be? Who
  wants to try? Start from the beginning again so we can hear the sense of it.
Student: Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. They
 lived with their mother underneath the ....hummmm, maybe that word is ground.
Teacher: Well, let's stop here for a minute. When you were reading you said 'lived" here for this 
 blank without even stopping to figure it out. What made you think' lived belonged there?
Student: It just made sense there.
Teacher: (to the rest of the class): Do you all agree or do you have different ideas about this? 
  (They think 'lived' has to be the right word so we move on to the next blank. Other suggetions
 were given in addition to 'ground' and written on the board, incluuding 'roots'. Immediately
 the children thought that one was the best and wanted to know if R was the beginning letter.
 
 The lesson continued until they thought of a kind of tree that began with f, which was a clue I 
provided, since they ran out of tree names before thinking of fir on their own. Once they saw the f at 
the beginning of the blank, several children thought of fir tree. This type of lesson will be repeated 
again and again, but probably in small skill-group settings and/or with individual students during 
their independent reading conference times.
 
To the students: DOES IT SOUND RIGHT/ DOES IT MAKE SENSE? DOES IT MATCH THE LETTERS?
 
 What follows below is a description of a Whole Language lesson using a poem by Eileen Fisher that 
I wrote on a chart ahead of time. I also prepared a second copy, separated into individual line stips 
to be examined on subsequent days.
 
 SEEDS by Aileen Fisher
 Seeds know just the way to start -
 I wonder how they get so smart.
 
 They could come up in garden beds
 Feet first by standing on their heads.
 
 They could forget if they should grow
 Like sunflowers high, or pumpkins low.
 
 They could forget their colors, too,
 And yet they never, never do.
 
 
 First I read the poem to the children, who were sitting on the floor in front of the chart so they 
could follow along as I moved my hand along the print. Then I read it again, leaving words out for 
the children to supply, which they could do using semantic, syntactic, and rhyming cues. We did this 
several times. Next, the class was divided so they could take turns reading the lines together. 
Perhaps the boys would read the first line, the girls the next. Or perhaps the children on the left 
would begin first. When the 'early' and 'emergent' readers were familiar with the poem the real work 
would begin. "Find the line that says, 'sunflowers high and pumpkins low', I ask. Volunteers waved 
their hands. Someone would go to the chart and point to it. Usually I will ask the more able readers 
to play the game first. 
 
 As the students complete their turn I give them something else to do at their seats while I work a 
whole longer with the rest of the class until everyone has had a successful turn in finding a line. 
Sometimes if a child is unsure, I ask the other children to think of a clue to help him or her. It is 
interesting to see if they come up with a phonic clue, spelling clue, semantic clue or even something 
I wouldn't have thought of. This finding game is repeated in different contexts, looking for lines, 
and then specific words or phrases, and finally letters or letter combinations. And each time a child 
locates their part, they are asked how they know. In this way children teach each other their 
strategies for reading.
 
 The next day, the lines of the Seeds poem would be examined separately and mixed up. With a 
partner and later individually, the children would read and organize the lines in the order they appear 
in the poem. They may also make little books of the poem to read during independent reading time. 
This same general sequence of reading instruction is applied every day for inexperienced readers - 
from charts generated by the class to whole short stories in the basal texts and in picture books, like 
'Rosie's Walk".
 
 This approach isn't just for emergent and early readers. Developing and transitional readers also 
gain knowledge and skill because elements chosen for them to examine are those that they will 
encounter in their own reading. For more experienced readers in the primary grades, just listening 
to the selection will provide enough support that they can then take the book and reread it. This is a 
useful technique for parents who want to support a chid who is just beginning to read chapter 
books.
 
 Often the focus for transitional and independent readers is in making sense of what they have 
read and applying decoding strategies they have learned. For example, while reading 'The Black 
Stallion' children in a 3rd grade class might share strategies for decoding the word 'bedlam', 
'muzzle', or ' brilliantly'. Some ideas they might volunteer are: try sounding it out (phonics), see if it 
has smaller words in it (structural analysis), skip it and then go back (semantics and syntax.)
 
 Group discussions are valuable ways for children to come together to share their reactions and 
think about the plot and character development. Many a 'grand conversation' about literature takes 
place on a corner of the carpet in a primary classroom. Children learn to take notes and come 
prepared to discuss the question of the day and show examples in the text that support their view.
 
 One More Thing: Standarized tests stress the mechanical aspects of decoding but they provide 
little information about children's understanding, language development, interest in reading, or 
determination to learn. Thank goodness we don't have standardized tests in first grade a Forest 
Ridge. But next time you see reading test scores published in the newspaper just remember what 
they don't test.