Literacy foundations

There are two main theories when thinking of how literacy and language form. This first example is called the woven robe theory. As you can see many aspects of reading and language first form loosely together, and as new knowledge is acquired the strand becomes a tight rope. Background knowledge, vocabulary, phonological awareness sight recognition all build upon each other, and there is no real order in which these things happen. This can depend on the child, environment and experiences. Once the rope becomes tighter, a skilled reader is born.

This second theory is called the "green monster". In this model, There are 5 reading panel categories, phonemic awareness, word attach or phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency. These five categories then are linked to various language aspects. Both models work very well to describe the process that children go though when learning to read, it just depends what model makes more sense to you.





Comprehension:
    Just because a student read a word or passage correctly does not necessarily mean that the student understood what they read. Being able to identify a word, and comprehend the word are two very different things. For example, if you are not in the medical field, you might be able to read out of a medical textbook but you might not understand what all the words mean. What would you do to understand? Look for pictures or diagrams? look for other words that you know around the trouble word? These are the exact strategies that children who are learning to read or who are having difficulty reading go through. Students are told to look for their context clues to get information, looking at pictures, the title, setting, and other words that they know to get an understanding of what is going on.





What can you do at home?:

• While reading with your child predict what will happen in the story before you read and during your reading.
• Pick out words that your child knows, use highlighters or sticky notes to "pick' them out.
• Use pictures! Even older children can still benefit from picture clues, if the book you are reading does not have pictures have your child illustrate the story for you. Or ask your child to draw their favorite part of the story.
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