Section 3: Preparing to learn and teach early reading

Introduction

Figure 3.1: Reading time

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A teacher and class wearing masks and reading.

Figure 3.1: Reading time

This section presents ideas and resources that can be used to help children develop their early reading skills through:

• asking and answering questions
• thinking about daily routines
• looking at pictures and responding to them
• physical movement
• songs and rhymes.

Throughout, the emphasis is on speaking and listening.

You will:

• consider how asking children questions can develop thinking skills
• explore how to develop children’s speaking and listening skills through using pictures
• understand the contribution that physical movement makes to early literacy.

As children move into learning how to read, it is important that they are given a range of opportunities to talk with you and with each other. Speaking and listening underpins the successful development of their early literacy skills.

Children enjoy and learn through play and they also learn through experimentation, exploration, and trial and error. Songs and rhymes based on the children’s own everyday experiences (such as shopping, or travelling to the market) are useful, because they draw on shared experiences while supporting early literacy skills.

Through active participation, such as asking and answering questions, children will also develop thinking skills. Instead of listening to the teacher and memorising answers, children are required to verbalise their thoughts aloud. In reading lessons, children need to talk about the story, predict what happens next and answer questions.

The more enjoyment and enthusiasm for reading you can generate among the children, the more your class is likely to want to learn to read – you are a reading role model for your classes. In Section 1, you reflected on your own experience as a reader and writer, and how you use literacy in your daily life. As a teacher, it is important that your children see you reading and writing, and that you become a role model for them.

In this section we focus on how the four specific strategies to support children’s early reading development:

• everyday routines and activities
• using pictures to develop speaking and listening
• using physical movement to support early reading
• songs and action rhymes for reading.

We start by learning more about comprehension and developing thinking skills.

Developing comprehension and thinking skills through questioning

Young children need the security and memory-building that comes from repeated activities, stories, games and songs – all of which support the development of early literacy skills.

But they also need their minds to be constantly challenged. When children are learning to read, asking questions helps them to make meaning or comprehend what’s been read.

The purpose of reading is to understand what’s been read. Young children do this by listening to the teacher read and joining in with familiar words and phrases. They can then answer questions about what’s happened or what they think might happen next, such as ‘Who knocked on the farmer’s door?’ or ‘What animal do you think has eaten all the maize?’. As children learn to read independently, they can ask and answer each other’s questions, as well as answering the teacher’s.

Even very young children can benefit from being asked questions in every lesson, and there are lots of ways of doing this. You can ask questions that encourage young children to think and talk about their lives and ideas. You can also ask questions after you have told or read a story – asking questions encourages children to develop their comprehension skills, a key skill for reading.

Comprehension questions can mainly be divided into two types: closed and open-ended.

Questioning in the classroom

In Case Study 3.1, Patrick uses a picture storybook to get his class thinking by asking different kinds of questions. As you read the case study, think about how you can use these ideas in your early reading teaching.

Case Study 3.1: Using questioning in the classroom

Patrick teaches at a school not far from Kigali. Unlike any other countries in Africa, almost everyone in Rwanda speaks one language: Kinyarwanda. He is a qualified and experienced primary teacher, although he has not taken any early childhood education qualifications, which have only just been introduced into pre-service courses at teacher training colleges. Teaching at pre-primary level is something that has only recently become widespread in Rwanda and schools lack resources for early childhood development (ECD).

Patrick has also recently come across the ASb website and wants to try and use a storybook in his class in order to extend the children’s thinking and speaking skills. He chooses the storybook Where is My Cat?, because it has very simple pictures with a repeating pattern in the text. It is also full of questions and opportunities for children to express their own ideas. It is available in both Kinyarwanda and English, and Patrick thinks he can use it in many ways to develop his children’s early reading skills.

Having downloaded and printed a copy of the book, Patrick brings all the children to a sitting space at the front of the class. He wants every child to be involved and brings them close to him so that they can all see the book and he can glance around and catch every child’s attention. All of his children are very excited.

Figure 3.2: Four pages from Where is My Cat?

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Four pages from Where is My Cat?

Figure 3.2: Four pages from Where is My Cat?

Patrick decides to introduce the book by showing only the title page, which has no writing. He sits on a chair, shows the first picture and asks a closed question: ‘What animal is this?’ All of the children can answer that it is a cat. He asks another closed question: ‘What colour is the cat?’ Nearly all of the children are happy to chorus that it is a black cat. He asks some more closed questions: ‘Can you see the eyes?’ ‘Can you see the legs?’ All of the children are able to answer.

Then Patrick decides to ask an open question: ‘What do you think this story is about?’ He expects lots of hands up, but no one wants to answer. There is silence. He realises that there are lots of possible answers to this open question, and no child wants to get it wrong!

He decides to ask the children to hold hands with one neighbouring child: this is their talking partner. He tells the children they can talk over the question with their talking partner. He again asks: ‘What is this book about? What is the cat doing and what happens to him or her? Talk it over with your partner. I will raise my hand when I want you to stop talking.’

All the children begin talking to their partner about what the book can be about. Patrick moves around the pairs listening in to their conversations. When he thinks that all pairs have had a good chat, he raises his hand to stop the talking and asks the children to raise their paired hands if they have thought of an answer.

Patrick is delighted! Now nearly all the pairs of hands are raised. Even children who normally never put up their hand are happy to do so with a partner. The children have thought of lots of possible answers:

• ‘The cat is hungry and wants some food.’
• ‘The cat is lost and is looking for his home.’
• ‘The cat is lonely and wants a friend.’
• ‘The cat is a mummy who has lost her kittens.’

Some children even think the book will be about lots of animals of different colours. The children have thought of these imaginative ideas by working in pairs and Patrick is very pleased with how much thinking and speaking has taken place in his classroom. The storybook has really captured their interest: the children are now very curious to find out what the story is really about …

In future weeks, Patrick is able to read the whole book to the children. Because it has repetitive text, the children begin to know it by heart and are able to:

• answer the closed questions on every page (such as ‘Is the cat under the bed?’ ‘NO!’)
• think of a name for the cat and imagine where it is going in between each picture
• draw and cut out a cardboard cat and furniture to use as props as they retell the story.

Eventually Patrick is able to use this storybook to introduce reading skills. (See Section 4 for different approaches to teaching reading.)

This case study is also available to download.

Patrick’s reading lesson was very successful. By asking both closed and open questions, he was able to encourage the children to think about the story, and could identify which children had understood the question.

In the next activity you’ll return to the storybooks you looked at in the last section of the course.

Children’s everyday lives as a resource for reading

Figure 3.3: Three children at a table

How can the everyday activities that children are already familiar with be incorporated into your teaching of early reading?

You can choose books and stories that you know will be meaningful to the children in your classes. Return to the ASb website and select a story that you know your children will relate to. Find time in the week to read it to them and notice their reactions. Did they enjoy the story? Did you enjoy reading it and talking about it? Encourage them to learn the story and share it at home. Do they have family routines they could tell you about?

How did you select a storybook? You may have looked at the words first and thought about the story, or you may have chosen the storybook because the pictures were engaging and interesting. Next, you are going to learn more about the importance of pictures for early reading development.

Using pictures to support early reading skills

Having selected a storybook you think your children will enjoy, reflect on the decisions you took to make your selection.

Figure 3.4: Pictures with no text

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Flashcards of a series of animals with empty speech bubbles.

Figure 3.4: Pictures with no text

Children who are ready to learn to read will begin to explore the relationships between objects, pictures, sounds, letters and written words.

When we are adults, we take for granted how important the combination of words and pictures is to help us make sense of things. We read newspapers with photographs, we see illustrations on signs, we notice images and labels on posters, and we recognise logos on food labels. You may know children in your classes who are able to recognise long before they can decode letters and sounds in books.

Figure 3.5: The McDonald’s and CAF logos, and an Aids ribbon

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An image of the McDonald’s and CAF logos, and an Aids ribbon.

Figure 3.5: The McDonald’s and CAF logos, and an Aids ribbon

A good way to help children grasp the relationship between images and words on a page is through the use of pictures and picture books. Some children will have enjoyed sharing picture books from an early age at home, but others will have had limited access to any books. As their teacher, you need to think of different ways to give every child the opportunity to enjoy the experience of picture books. Pictures are a very important part of telling a story, and for early readers the pictures are useful in helping to remember the sequence of the story and ‘what comes next’.

You may already use pictures in your lessons – drawing three simple pictures on the blackboard, for example, to show the beginning, middle and end of a simple trip to the market. Children are then encouraged to retell the story in simple sentences: ‘I went with my brother to market. We bought maize and coffee beans. Mama was happy.’ This simple starting idea can be extended and made more interesting:

• The children could work in small groups to act out their story, adding details and characters that they meet along the way. Their excitement and enthusiasm for these stories can be greatly increased by adding sounds to the story: footsteps, knocking on a door or speaking in different voices for each character in the story.
• You could also read a local traditional tale aloud and ask the children to draw pictures to match the story as you read. They can then share their pictures with each other, make up their own stories and perform them.
• Create picture cards from a favourite story – you can download pictures and print them out, find pictures in magazines or newspapers, or draw them. A storybook like Look at the Animals has some easy pictures to copy. Hand out the picture cards and ask the children to hold up their picture when you tell their part of the story.

Discuss these ideas with colleagues and choose one to try out in your classroom next week.

Now read Case Study 3.2 and try the activity that follows it.

Using physical movement to support early reading

Children like to play games. Many of the games they play – especially those with songs, rhymes or actions – help them to practise early reading skills.

Learning songs and joining in are important foundations for the development of children’s early literacy skills. These experiences provide the building blocks for early reading development and encourage active participation.

In order to become effective readers, children first need to be ready to read. Factors that influence children’s readiness to read include:

• having an interest in becoming a reader
• listening carefully for meaning and follow and imitate sounds, practising fine motor control in hands and fingers
• developing spatial awareness and whole body coordination.

All of these games support children’s readiness for reading. Sally Goddard Blythe (2000) argues that even though learning takes place in the brain, it is a child’s motor skills that evidence the developing maturity of the body and brain relationship, expressed through movement, balance and posture. Reading is an oculo-motor skill: being able to track words on a page is connected to the motion of the eye. She argues that a child who is better coordinated has fewer learning problems. Incorporating physical movement and promoting coordination in lessons through games will support children as they begin to develop their early reading skills.

(You may like to read Sally Goddard Blythe’s article  in full.)

Figure 3.6: A teacher leads an activity game

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A photo of a teacher and children playing an activity game.

Figure 3.6: A teacher leads an activity game

Now read Case Study 3.3 and try the activity that follows.

As well as helping develop co-ordination and vocabulary, songs can help children develop phonological awareness.

Songs and action rhymes for reading

Children come into your classrooms listening and hearing sounds in their environment. This is called phonological awareness.

You can help children to develop this awareness by taking them on a listening walk – into the yard, for example, and asking them to listen out for sounds. What can they hear? You may have cattle in the field next door or community leaders meeting outside the school fence. Maybe there’s a road nearby, or children playing.

Asking children to ‘tune in’ to the different sounds and then – very importantly – asking them to point to where the sound is coming from is a crucial skill in learning to read. Being able to hear different sounds in the environment is the step before being able to break down sounds in words into their smaller parts. It’s also rather fun to go outside on a listening walk. Alternatively, this can be done in the classroom with objects that make sounds, such as a rattle made of bottle tops.

Learning songs and joining in are important foundations for children’s early reading development. Songs and rhymes build children’s internalisation of rhyming strings. The ability to hear and predict rhymes is a predictor of reading ability. Choose songs and rhymes with words that you break down into sounds before building them back up again. Activities like this help children to feel confident in playing with letters and sounds, and supports their understanding of how words are put together.

For example, choose a song or rhyme about a cat. At some point in the rhyme, say ‘CAT’. Then break it down into its three sounds, ‘/C/A/T/’, and then build it back up again to say ‘CAT’. The children can try and say the word all at the same time – this makes it fun and engaging. Try this with other simple words before moving onto words like ‘DUCK’. This is a word with four letters (‘D’, ‘U’, ‘C’, ‘K’) but only three sounds (‘/D/U/CK/’). At this early stage, you want children to learn about the sounds within words. Fun songs and rhymes are a good way to do this.

Finding a good storybook

Most children love any story. We want children to have good storybooks so they learn to love telling stories and reading.

You can find many storybooks using the African Storybook Reader app. In the next activity you will use this app to find a story and then decide if it is a good storybook for your children.

Before you do the activity follow these steps to download and get started with the African Storybook Reader app:

Download the free African Storybook Reader app from Google Play or the App Store. Install the app on your phone or tablet.

1. Go to EXPLORE to find storybooks to save in your LIBRARY.
2. On the EXPLORE page, choose a language. Tap in the white spaceat the top of the screen to open the Language list. You can also open the Language list in the MENU (tap on the three dots at the top right of the screen).
3. Select the language that you want for storybooks.
4. The App will list all the storybooks in the language. You can organise the list by TITLE (alphabetically), by DATE (when it was published) or by READING LEVEL. You can search the list of storybooks by typing a key word or words.

A downloadable resource  on how to get started with the African Storybook Reader app is available from Downloads: additional resources on the course content page.

In the next activity you will practise using these criteria so that you can become an effective critical reviewer of storybooks.

As you read more storybooks, you will get into the habit of critically reviewing them by using the criteria in Activity 3.10. Also listen to your children. Let them tell you why they did or didn’t like a story. This will help them to choose books as they become fluent readers.

Planning a classroom activity

In this final activity, you are asked to plan a classroom activity to help children get ready to read. You can plan an activity that uses pictures and questions, or songs, rhymes and games.

If possible, incorporate pair work in to your activity. This is an easy way to get children talking, even if you have a large class. You may find this TESS-India key resource on pair work helpful as you think about how to organise the activity in your class. Work with a colleague and critique each other’s plans.

Assessment

In the following activity you will share a resource, idea or activity that you have developed while studying Sections 1–3 of this course.

Moving forward

In this section you have further developed your content/subject knowledge for early reading. You have learned about the types of questions that support reading comprehension. You have also learned about the importance of active participation in lessons, and about how songs and rhymes are useful strategies to promote engagement.

You have learned the importance of effective questioning and appreciate the difference between open and closed questions, and when to apply them in literacy activities. Activity 3.9 has given you the opportunity to share your learning so far.

In the next section  you will learn more about specific methods for reading and how children require a range of learning activities to support them in learning to read, including the role and importance of their home language which you began to think about earlier in Section 1.