4)+Reading+Development+and+Teaching+Reading

‘First and foremost the job of elementary schools is to teach children to read’ (Hong, 2000 p.1). Combined with writing, reading is the most important process to learn throughout your own life. If you are unable to read this means you are unable to write and therefore are illiterate. Most people this century strive for a successful job that will support them throughout their life. However been illiterate makes the options of career choices extremely limited. Most careers paths require reading and writing fluency. Reading is the method of constructing meaning from print and also from symbols (Hill, 2006). Before children reach primary school many can associate symbols to meanings. For example the McDonalds sign of a big yellow M. Many children know that this is the symbol for the take away restaurant McDonalds. From these experiences they can’t bring their past knowledge’s into the classroom to help them understand the meaning of reading. ‘To identify words and comprehend written messages readers use their knowledge of language and their personal experiences’ (Strickland, 1998, p.15). When children begin to read they use their sources of information, these are known as cues (Hill, 2006 p.142):   The following link provides a learning letter graph, where children may learn letters from: [|Early Literacy]  (Department of Education, 2007, p.3) There are many different approaches for children to begin learning to read. The approaches can be selected to best meet student requirements depending on how much support the students need for a certain task. This also depends on the level of difficulty of the task rather than on the children’s capability (Wells, 2008). Approaches include (Honig, 2000 p.77):  The following link provides assessment sheets for assessing the children's development of reading: [|Reading Assessments] (Schumm, 2006 pp-156-162)
 * Semantic cues are information from knowledge and past experiences.
 * Syntactic cue is from the structure of language. How words are ordered to create a meaningful sentence.
 * Grapho-phonic cues are associating letters with the correct sound.
 * Modelled reading. Reading a narrative to the class as a whole.
 * Shared reading. Children participate in reading with the teacher as a whole class.
 * Guided Reading. Allows the child to use their knowledge of the letter sound relationship (phonemic awareness) and the alphabetic principle one-on-one with the teacher.