Nature vs Nurture Physical Development

Reading is an acquired skill, developed through explicit teaching and founded upon a child’s innate ability to hear and process sounds from birth. Beginning at birth exposure to oral language, gestures and the functions of communication (Fellows & Oakley, 2010 p.165) allows exploration of sounds and words and their connection to each other, and introduces cue systems that will later assist in decoding complex text as development of reading ability occurs. Cue systems including linguistic rules of speech, such as grammatical, pragmatic, semantic and syntactic structures (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, p. 324), provide readers with strategies and knowledge for comprehension and phonological awareness (Gascoigne, 2005, p. 1). Rich language exchanges

1. Some people have argued that the Johns Hopkins psychologist used this opportunity as an experiment to test his nurture theory of gender identity. What are the expected results of this experiment, assuming that the nurture theory is valid?

The Simple View of Reading (SVoR) model suggests that children must have language comprehension and word recognition skills to be proficient readers, Medwell et al (2014). Jim Rose’s report (2006, p. 40) outlined the Simple View of Reading as a useful framework, which would make explicit to teachers what they need to teach about word recognition and language comprehension (see appendix 1). Before the Rose report, reading was defined as decoding black marks, Graham and Kelly (2012). After this the searchlights model suggested that phonics, grammatical knowledge, reading comprehension and graphic knowledge are equally useful tools when learning to read, Ward (2008). The Rose report’s Independent Review of the Teaching of Early reading reconstructed this model and created the SVoR. Rose (2006, p. 38) determines word recognition as a process which allows you to use “phonics to recognise words” and language comprehension as the means by which “word information, sentences and discourse are interpreted.” The SVoR suggests that, to become a fluent reader, the skills of language comprehension and word recognition are equally important and dependent on each other. Gough and Tummer first mentioned this model, as stated that “comprehension is not sufficient, for decoding is also necessary” Wyse et al (2013, p.

| |improvement by increasing children's comprehension and vocabulary development (Trostle & Hicks, 1998). The development of language and | |

233). Reading and reading comprehension is a basic skill that scholars will be able to use all along their lives and it all start here by encoding, decoding, adding and deleting sounds. This research will make use of CVC as a beginning set of letters that five year olds start manipulating nth verbally and in writing.

Comprehension is also an important factor when speaking of literacy. Students should be taught the many strategies that will help them with comprehension and word recognition. In my experience in a first grade classroom I used many of these strategies. Within my lessons I included the activation of prior knowledge to construct meaning, the use of context clues in a sentence, pictures clues, predicting, and drawing inferences about ideas or characters in the text. I always made sure that I modeled the strategy for the student before they set of to do it.

Many students who struggle with reading ask why should we read, what is the point? The point is that being able to read opens you up a whole new world of knowledge and imagination. But to have that new world opened up you need to be able to comprehend what you are reading. The primary goal of reading is to determine the meaning of

This is a very important strategy for the students to learn so that they are able to read more independently. The students are taught how to take a difficult word that they do not know how to read and break it down into small parts to read it. We want the students to become independent readers. To do this we are taking different things that the students already know and using them to help them uncover new words. Not only does this help the students to decode tricky words, but it also helps them to better comprehend what they are reading. The students are using context clues and making connections to decide what the word is and if it makes

“ Models of the reading process often depict the act of reading as a communication event between a sender and a receiver of information ”(Vacca et al., 2012). Models are developed to describe the reading process and how a reader interprets language and gains meaning from print. Bottom up models of reading “assume that the process of translating print to meaning begins with the print”, where as a top down model of reading, “assume that the process of translating print meanings begins with the reader’s prior knowledge” (Vacca et al., 2012). The bottom up model of reading is driven more by data where as the top down model is more conceptually driven. When using a bottom up model, letters, syllables and words are used in order to initiate reading. The use of letters, syllables and words helps the reader to form meaning. Where as the top down model is based off of a reader’s prior knowledge and experience. With many different literacy programs, a teacher’s belief system helps to determine how students can best be taught how to read. “One way to examine your beliefs about reading and learning to read is to connect them to theoretical models of the reading process” (Vacca et al., 2012). Depending on the teacher, he or she may have a bottom up approach or a top down approach. Teachers, who feel a bottom up method is best, may feel that his or her students must decode letters and words and feel

Moats passage presented the reader with an interesting statement about decoding and its purpose. Decoding can refer to a conversion, analyzing, or interpreting. Moats focuses on the importance of a child’s ability to decode. It is stated that to further become an effective reader, understand the significance of words, appreciate reading, and be more likely to then expand one’s knowledge from reading one must practice decoding. Four key points that Moats demonstrates to be important are the alignment of decoding instruction with the stages of reading development, alignment of decoding instruction with the structure of the English language, teaching the code the way children learn it most easily and the current trend.

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

The fluency is defined as "'the ability to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly, and automatically with little conscious attention to the mechanics of reading, such as decoding" (Meyer, 1999). The fluent readers are able to read automatically with

Reading to a child has a tremendous impact on their language development. The more a child is read to the more connections are made in the brain. Rereading the same book helps the child make connections between the way the words look and sound.

Oral language is also an important component in reading. When a child enters school, they enter with an amount of oral language and background knowledge that would come from their experiences so far. This knowledge helps them to understand their peers and others around them. The amount of oral language development within is student, directly reflects upon their reading level. The easier it is for a child to speak, the easier it is for them to pick up reading. Reading is not an easy task, but oral language does help with the process. Additionally, oral language would also help with the recognizing and association of words to text that is being read. There may be a situation in which the student is reading about for which they can relate too. This could be due to their prior oral language development. Associating words that are recognized in their vocabulary with words that are in the text creates a link that the student can expand on. This

When data from students who had average accuracy and fluency scores, but lower comprehension scores were compared to data from those with similar accuracy and fluency but average comprehension, the consistent differences were found to be lower oral language and vocabulary skills in the poor comprehenders upon entry into formal schooling. (Nation, Cocksey, Taylor & Bishop) Thousands of dollars each year are spent on intervention, trying to improve the reading of children that show delays. When one reads, the clear goal is comprehension of what is read. Without communication of ideas between the author and reader, decoding texts is pointless. Most intervention programs are focused on phonics and word decoding. Oral language interventions concurrent with vocabulary and comprehension tasks at age eight have been shown to lead to significant improvements in reading comprehension. (Nation, et al., 2010). Reading comprehension is not merely a product of being able to decode words and sentences. How we teach children to process and integrate the ideas found in text can have a large impact on their ability to function in a world of ever expanding knowledge and information.