Reading with children and helping them practice specific reading components can dramatically improve their ability to read. Scientific research shows that there are five essential components of reading that children must be taught in order to learn to read. Adults can help children learn to be good readers by systematically practicing these five components:
Recognizing and using
individual sounds to create words, or phonemic awareness.
Children need to be taught to hear sounds in words and that words are
made up of the smallest parts of sound, or phonemes.
Understanding the
relationships between written letters and spoken sounds, or phonics.
Children need to be taught the sounds individual printed letters and
groups of letters make. Knowing the relationships between letters and
sounds helps children to recognize familiar words accurately and
automatically, and "decode" new words.
Developing the ability to
read a text accurately and quickly, or reading fluency.
Children must learn to read words rapidly and accurately in order to
understand what is read. When fluent readers read silently, they
recognize words automatically. When fluent readers read aloud, they
read effortlessly and with expression. Readers who are weak in fluency
read slowly, word by word, focusing on decoding words instead of
comprehending meaning.
Learning the meaning and
pronunciation of words, or vocabulary development. Children
need to actively build and expand their knowledge of written and
spoken words, what they mean and how they are used.
Acquiring strategies to understand, remember and communicate what is read, or reading comprehension strategies. Children need to be taught comprehension strategies, or the steps good readers use to make sure they understand text. Students who are in control of their own reading comprehension become purposeful, active readers.
Source: U.S. Department of Education
