What I learned about learning how to read....Chapter 11 (part 2)

I remember enjoying learning how to read, and I also believe that I can recall the process that my teachers used to teach me reading. From first and second grade, I definitely remember applying what Bruning calls the "alphabetic principle:" my teachers taught me the sounds the letters make and to identify those sounds in words. A more precise term is given later: the Phonetic-Cue Reading model. Although, our teachers were not as forgiving of misspelling as much as Bruning (or in this case, Bruning describing Ehri's models) would be seem to be. Around third and fourth grade, we started to learn about prefixes and what they could mean: bicycle and biplane are two words that come to mind. By the fourth and fifth grade though, I can't remember any teachers trying to model/demonstrate reading strategies....

As a general metalinguistic observation, I'm not a particularly strong reader (it was my lowest score on the ACT) and yet, I love to read. I actually had a hard time with page 250's decoding of the "Chronicle" passage. Although, I had taken some Russian history in the past and thought it was Cyrillic, I didn't really tackle it until I read a bit further. But once I "got it" decoding it was still a slow process. But going back to my self observation, I figure that I read to get better: I have always tried to make reading as automatic as possible. It also helps that I have a link to an online dictionary: if I'm not maintaining my personal dictionary, then I'm constantly looking words up to make sure their meaning is known and automatic. The automaticity of meaning is especially important for words where nuance or similarity in spelling plays a key role in decoding (like dichotomy and diametric...I've always confused the two).

As for what I do to teach kids how to read, the only child in my life that is really curious about reading is my best friend's daughter, Stella (She's 5). For the last two years, her parents and I have been reading to her...I always use my finger to point to the word I'm currently reading. Why? Well, that's how I remember being read to, I point to get her to realize that what I say comes directly from where my finger is on the page, and I hope she develops a sight recognition of the words. For the last several months, she has been identifying letters with sounds! Although I think I upset her mother when I explained what a question mark and an exclamation point looked like and what it meant. She thought it was too advanced for Stella: I thought I explained it very simply. Oh well, there's always their younger son and my nieces and nephew to see what else I can do to facilitate their journey into the written word.