Helping Young Children Read and Write at Home

How to Get Children Off to a Good Start With Literacy

Sep 16, 2009

Reading and writing development often "takes off" when children start school, so this is a really good time to give them all the support they need.

School is no longer solely concerned with the "3 Rs" and children should enjoy a curriculum that is broad and balanced these days. However, literacy is still considered to be a core subject, important in its own right, but also because literacy skills underpin learning in other areas of the curriculum.

Families often find that children’s reading and writing skills make rapid progress during the reception year (second year of the Early Years Foundation Stage). This may be due to a combination of factors: children mature and reach a stage of development at which they become “ready” and interested in these kinds of activities; skilled teachers and practitioners are on hand to provide the right kind of encouragement and learning opportunities (although these skilled adults are not confined to schools, and may be found in other early years settings).

Mark-Making

When children first put pencil to paper, their marks are very exploratory – a mixture of pictures, symbols and pre-writing patterns and shapes. When children “read” back what they have written, they may well say different things every time. However, just because their marks are random, this does not mean that they are without meaning, and this is important because children need to realise that print conveys meaning and can be used to represent spoken words. They should, therefore, be encouraged to share what they have written, and to feel that their writing voice is worthy of being read and listened to.

When children share their writing they should also be encouraged to point to the marks that they have scribed, as they are read. Adults can provide crucial role-models by showing children how to point to words as they go along. This 1 to 1 correspondence is an important concept which children need to understand, i.e. that the flow of speech can be slowed down and broken into individual words, and that each spoken word will correspond to a written word (or cluster of marks). Adults should make children aware of the directionality of texts as appropriate to the language in question – left-to-right and top-to-bottom in the case of English.

Contexts for Writing

Writing is an integral part of everyday life and can provide lots of valuable learning opportunities. “Writing for a purpose” has long been a staple of the literacy curriculum, stimulating children’s motivation by giving them a real sense of purpose and practical outcome. Such contexts may include writing shopping lists, reading food labels or recipes, writing party invitations or greetings cards, sending emails, reading TV guides or shop signs.

If adults model their reading and writing skills in these situations, this will deepen children’s understanding, reinforce the importance of these literacy skills and help motivate children to read and write themselves. This kind of “modelling” is rather like thinking aloud – adults talk through the process or give a commentary which explains what they are doing and why, giving children the opportunity to join in wherever possible.

Modelling the Reading and Writing Process

“I’ve got lots of things to buy in town today, so I’d better write a list to help me remember. Now then, what do we need? Stamps – what does “stamps” start with? “S” – s-t-a-m-p-s. What else do we need? Bread – I’ll write that on the line below so that I don’t muddle up my list; “b” for bread – b-r-ea-d, bread. We also need today’s newspaper – that’s a long word, isn’t it? Newspaper – I’d better write it over here (on the left-hand side) so that I have enough room. Shall we count how many letters it’s got in it? Let’s write our name on this list in case we lose it …”

Having demonstrated the writing process, the adult should also read it back to check what has been written. This will provide an opportunity to consolidate the learning and will encourage good habits, i.e. proof-reading. When the writing is subsequently used in a real life situation (e.g. at the shops) this reinforces the learning still further.

It is also worth noting that schools currently tend to use phonics to teach reading and spelling. This is a sound-led approach which emphasises the phonemes within words. Children are taught to recognise sounds (instead of learning the traditional alphabet), so it is very important that they have opportunities to hear correctly articulated phonemes.

Sounds Within Words

In a phonetic approach, letters have a pure sound. For example, letter “M” makes a /m/ (/mm/) rather than a long /muh/; /T/ makes a short /t/ rather than a /tee/ or /tuh/. This makes it much easier for children to build words by putting sounds together. For example, the word “mum” is relatively easy to read if the child “sounds it out” by blending together /m/ /u/ /m/ (rather than having to blend /muh/ /u/ /muh/).

Literacy is an important part of everyday life and learning opportunities can be found in lots of different situations. Children learn from good role-models and seeing writing used in the world around them, so parents and family members can provide invaluable reinforcement of key skills and even inspire children to read and write themselves.

The copyright of the article Helping Young Children Read and Write at Home in Primary School Curriculum is owned by Jane Kelly. Permission to republish Helping Young Children Read and Write at Home in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.