Graduation Speech : A Secondary School English Teacher

Learning to read is a complex task which involves active problem solving through the implementation of several intertwined skills. When providing reading instruction, it is not feasible to expect that children will pick up these skills implicitly. Effective reading instruction requires an explicit and systematic approach which aims to develop the specific skills and understanding required for successful reading. As children move through the stages of reading, learning is supported through methodical and integrated instruction in concepts of print, phonemic and phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. However children are active learners rather

he most fundamental responsibility of schools is teaching students to read. Indeed, the future success of all students hinges upon their ability to become proficient readers. Recent scientific studies have allowed us to understand more than ever before how literacy develops, why some children have difficulty, and what constitutes best instructional practice. Scientists now estimate that fully 95 percent of all children can be taught to read. Yet, in spite of all our knowledge, statistics reveal an alarming prevalence of struggling and poor readers that is not limited to any one segment of society:

Phonemic awareness is a vital role in literacy instruction. Many schools and districts adopt a commercially published basal reading program and it becomes the cornerstone of their instruction ( (David Chard, n.d.). We also know that through investigation and research it has shown us that word-recognition instruction and instruction in oral language skills related to word recognition were inadequately represented. (David Chard, n.d.) The same researchers have found that the reading passages that students are reading didn’t relate to the words they were learning. In order for students to read at grade level or above a supplemental program should be implemented. I have found that at my school we are lacking a phonics program that will reach different students abilities and make them successful in reading. My goal for this paper is to show my district that using a supplemental phonics program aside from our basal phonics program will prove beneficial to strategic readers who fall below grade level.

Reading is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information which is essential in being a productive member of society. If and when a student missed an opportunity to learn the skills necessary for reading, it’s has a profound impact on their lives. As educators we realize that teaching all children to read requires that every child receive excellent reading instruction. We are also aware that children, who are struggling with reading must receive

There are many components to building a student’s reading skill set. One skill that is introduced in preschool and developed through the primary grades is phonemic awareness. The term phonemic awareness is defined as the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes – individual sounds. The child becomes aware of how sounds are connected to words prior to reading. This awareness creates the understanding of how phonemes explains how the smallest part of sound creates a difference in sound to the meaning of a word. Therefore, the ability to dismantle words, and reassemble them, and then to alter the word into something different explains the concept behind phonemic awareness. It is the primary foundation in which other reading skill sets are according based.

A doctor once said ‘the more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go’. That doctor was, of course, Dr Suess in his book 1978 book, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!. Reading is the orchestration of many skills. It is much more than simply decoding words. The National Reading Panel Report (A Closer Look, 2004, p. 1) summarised a child’s reading process and teachers’ effective reading instruction into five essential components. These five critical elements are phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Each element is individually important; however, each cannot occur independently of one an other. The most effective way to teach these elements is through a balanced

Nonetheless, as a child strengthens their oral language concept through print, and phonemic awareness more reliable predictions of reading abilities in the future can be made. “Phonological awareness is the understanding of different ways that oral language can be divided into smaller components and manipulated” (Chard &

We learn literacy through phonological practices prompted in reading development to increase fluency and comprehension (Konza, 2006). Phonological awareness concerns itself with manipulation of sound patterns related to speech and intonation and has a relationship to phonemic awareness, being the smaller components of language such as individual letter sounds (Hill, 2012). Rose recommends that synthetic phonics are needed for ‘letter-sound correspondence’, learning how words are blended and broken up for spelling and finally being able to recognize words in print, as well as singularly (2006, p. 18). Understanding of these literacy components culminate to skills required to read (National Reading Panel, 2000). Oral language is casual and elusive in syntactical meaning, so in order for children to become effective readers they need to have exposure to formal and ‘decontextualized’ language properties (Konza, 2006, p. 35). Students will not be able to associate speech to written language

The lack of interest in reading is due to many things, but tends to begin with young children. Schools and parents do not encourage their children to read for fun (Charleston). Parents do so because they were not taught to enjoy reading, or they do not have time. Schools, on the other hand, create an environment where reading becomes more of a chore than a fun activity (Denby). Schools do try to teach kids to enjoy reading, teachers will set times or page numbers for their students to read. A study on this method has shown that when told to only read a set amount of time or pages, children will only read the amount required by the teachers. The things that children read are normally not something they chose. This decision creates a hatred for reading in children, even if they loved to read before. “In many case, such as assignments make the students hate the book they have just read, no matter how

When I finished junior high school I enrolled in a training program to teach elementary students in some of the most remote regions of Mexico. I was excited about the prospect of teaching reading, writing, and mathematics to underprivileged students in areas of my country that needed education more than anything else to bring them into the modern era. I had seen the difference a few good teachers had made in my life. It was one of my earliest ideas to help the youth in my country rise above the limitations of their past and see the possibilities available to them with hard work in school.

As a student, I remember when I was really little and how much I loved to read. I’d have either myself or my mother read me a book every night before bed. I loved picturing the story within my head, but now as a freshman college student I do not enjoy reading. I only decide to read when its assigned, and even then it's still hard for me to focus, especially if the books not interesting. After reading this article called “How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading”, these are the three major points I related to; having children read out loud, making them stop reading to look up a word they don't know, and quizzing them on things they read. I realized that I related to all of them and remember going through that in school.

The purpose of this paper is to review the research and theories that support how students learn to read while reflecting on the best practices in reading instruction and how these theories have influenced my teaching as an elementary educator. The focus of this paper will be on the theories, theorists and models from the book, Lenses on Reading: An Introduction to Theories and Models, before formulating my own opinion on best practices in reading instruction. Theories and models within this paper will be connected to one or more of the thirteen core understandings about reading and learning to read. Finally, the influences these theories and theorists have in had in my own thinking and my personal beliefs about reading will be summarized at the conclusion of this paper.

How did you learn to read? Most of us do not put much thought into this question, but learning to read is a difficult task. According to Cervetti and Hiebert, the National Reading Panel identified five essential components that a teacher should use during reading instruction, which gives the student the highest chance of being an effective reader (2015, p. 548). These five essential components are also called five pillars of reading instruction. They are Phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. This paper will describe each of the five pillars, how they are related, the benefits, as well as give some effective methods of teaching phonics and phonemic awareness. It will continue by addressing the relationship between reading assessment and instruction and end by identifying ways to address the needs and different learning styles of a student. This paper will start by looking at a definition of phonics and phonemic awareness, then move onto the role that each play in learning to read, how they are related, the benefits and effective methods of teaching both.

My philosophy of literacy is centered on providing a learning environment rich in authentic literature, instruction that is engaging, fun, and balanced, collaborative, and also involving families in the child’s education. My ultimate goal of literacy instruction is to help children become lifelong readers and writers by providing the skills necessary to comprehend, construct, and make meaning of text, speak, and write. (Torgesen, 2002). According to the National Reading Panel, there are five essential components that must be taught in effective reading programs: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. (Reading Horizons). According to Konza (2014), reading instruction should be changed to six foundational reading elements, adding oral language and early literacy. I also believe that early literacy should be

English class seemed to be the most dreadful to take within school. Writing essays for most of my grade in a class is not what I was looking forward too. When I entered college I knew that it would be one of many challenging classes I would have to take. Starting from the lowest English class to moving on up, the writing assignments became longer and more thought out. The time came when I got into this class that I knew more work was going to have to be put into essays and thus brought out what I had not seen before in my work progress.