Teaching Young Children to Read
How to Teach Early Reading Skills through Picture Books
Apr 28, 2009
Sharing books with young children is an invaluable learning activity. Not only does it present the opportunity to experience reading as a pleasurable pastime, but it also enables adults to model good reading behaviour and skills.
It is essential that young children develop confidence and feel like “readers”, right from the outset. This can be done by sharing picture books with an interested, supportive adult. Picture books are ideal for beginner readers as they have strong visual appeal, which makes them eye-catching and engaging. They also have a clear structure, with an illustration on each page to reinforce the meaning of the text.
Talking about Pictures
Reading involves the reader making connections between spoken and written words, and making meaningful guesses (predictions) about what the print says. It is, therefore, important for children to have frequent opportunities to hear a rich and varied repertoire of spoken stories. Exposure to this kind of oral story-telling will help children tune into the language of books – rhythm, intonation, vocabulary and characteristic phrases such as “once upon a time” and “they all lived happily ever after”.
The adult should read slowly, using lots of expression to bring the story to life, and allowing time for the child to scan the pictures and take in all the details. Sometimes, children become engrossed in particular illustrations, interrupting the flow of the story with questions. This is perfectly acceptable as it engages the child’s curiosity and involvement, and can provide further opportunities for language development and high quality interaction (sustained shared thinking) – the page in question can always be re-read to regain the momentum of the story.
Joining-in – Prediction and Repetition
Prediction is an important skill and can be encouraged through questioning – carefully chosen questions which guide the child’s attention and thinking. Prediction initially consists of guesswork on the basis of what is portrayed in the pictures. As the child's reading skills develop, this becomes more refined, drawing on other semantic and grammatical information, such as how a sentence starts, the context and overall meaning, and the sounds within words themselves.
Key questions:
- What do you think is happening?
- What might happen next?
- Why is that going to happen?
- What is the character in the story going to do now?
- What could he/she be saying?
Another useful strategy is for the adult to encourage the child to join in with familiar parts of the book (like repeated phrases) or for the adult to read the first part of a sentence (stopping at a key word) and asking the child to predict what the next word might be. If the child has already talked about the picture and established the general meaning of what is going on (the context) he or she can bring all this information together to make a meaningful guess. With practice, the child will learn to pay attention to the relevant cues automatically, without prompting, thereby becoming more independent.
Story Genre
Whilst children should be encouraged to enjoy favourite stories or characters, they also need to experience a wide variety of spoken and written language, including:
- Traditional tales
- Poetry and patterned texts
- Songs
- Rhymes, nonsense and other word-play
- Non-fiction
Exposure to a rich array of story language will increase children’s knowledge and understanding. Furthermore, it also provides a wealth of material and language models, which children can draw upon in their own writing.
