Young Children Reading

At home and at school

Rachael Levy

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781446292563
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Lehrmethoden für Lesekompetenz

Developing and supporting literacy is an absolute priority for all early years settings and primary schools, and something of a national concern. By presenting extensive research evidence, Rachael Levy shows how some of our tried and tested approaches to teaching reading may be counter-productive, and are causing some young children to lose confidence in their abilities as readers. Through challenging accepted definitions and perspectives on reading, this book encourages the reader to reflect critically on the current reading curriculum, and to consider ways in which their own practice can be developed to match the changing literacy landscape of the 21st century.

Placing the emphasis on the voices of the children themselves, the author looks at:

- what it feels like to be a reader in the digital age

- children?s perceptions of reading

- home and school reading

- reading in multidimensional forms

- the future teaching of reading

Essential reading for all trainee and practising teachers, this critical examination of a vital topic will support all those who are interested in the way we can help future generations to become literate. This book will encourage researchers and practitioners alike to redefine their own views of literacy, and situate ?reading literacy? within the digital world in which young children now live.

1

Becoming a reader in a digital age

Chapter Overview

Issues surrounding the teaching of reading are complex. Part of this complexity arises from the fact that definitions of the terms ‘reading’ and ‘being a reader’ are becoming increasingly open to debate. As highlighted in the Introduction, children’s exposure to texts are changing in the light of developing technologies and advancements in multimedia and with this change comes a demand for readers to learn how to employ a variety of reading skills in order to access both paper and screen-based texts. However, if these skills are not recognised within the school system, then the issue does indeed become one of contention. If teachers are to help young children develop confidence in themselves as readers, then there is much to gain from understanding how young children are making sense of the terms ‘reading’ and ‘being a reader’ themselves. In particular it is important that early years educators recognise how the settings of home and school influence the ways in which young children come to define reading and the impact this has upon their confidence in themselves as readers and their motivations to read. These issues are examined in detail in the chapters to follow. The purpose of this chapter is therefore to provide a foundation for this discussion. To begin, the chapter presents a brief reflection on the different ways in which definitions of reading have been perceived and documented in the literature. This provides a useful backdrop for the rest of the book which invites the children’s voices into the debate. This is largely achieved through reference to a case study that was conducted with twelve children who were in their early years of schooling. As this study has played a pivotal role in the formation of this book, this chapter also describes how the research was developed. In particular, given that the research was specifically designed to access the voices of these young children, this chapter explains how various play-centred techniques were developed and implemented in order to acquire reliable and valid data from these young children.

Definitions of ‘reading’

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This following section explores some of the theoretical perspectives within the field of reading education which offer definitions of the terms ‘reading’ and ‘being a reader’. Though many definitions are in existence, for reasons of clarity these have been classified under four broad headings using the work of Hall (2003) to structure the discussion. In her insightful publication Listening to Stephen Read: Multiple perspectives on literacy, Hall invites the reader to consider a variety of perspectives on reading through direct consultation with well-known reading scholars. While it must be stressed that these perspectives rarely operate in isolation from one another, a point emphasised by Hall herself, and that many teachers and early years professionals have drawn implicitly and eclectically from them over the years, these perspectives allow us to reflect on some of the specific ways in which young children may be influenced by the discourse on reading.

The cognitive-psychological perspective

This perspective on reading relates to the somewhat traditional phonetic approach, whereby children are taught to decode words by building an awareness of the segmental structure of language. This emphasis on the systematic teaching of word recognition and response to print is described as ‘the hallmark of a cognitive-psychological perspective’ on the teaching and learning of reading’ (Hall, 2003: 77).

One particular assumption behind this approach is that children learn how to read in stages. For example, Gough and Hillinger (1980) argue that the first stage is one of ‘paired-associate learning’, where children initially begin to associate spoken words with particularly salient visual clues, often within their local environment. For this reason Gough and Hillinger maintain that this stage often involves the reading of environmental print. Stanovich and Stanovich (1999: 21) argue that this is a ‘natural’ stage. However, they go on to claim that ‘normal progress in reading dictates that the child makes the transition to the next stage of acquisition, which requires some degree of visual and speech analysis’. They stress, however, that this stage is not ‘natural’ and argue that some degree of intervention is almost always required from an outsider.

This intervention is associated with the structured teaching of phonics. Many researchers argue that children need to be able to tackle words using their phonetic knowledge, especially when faced with unfamiliar words or when contextual clues fail to be of use (Nicholson, 1993; Gough and Hillinger 1980; Stanovich, 1980). It has also been argued that children who are reading ‘well’ by the age of 6 are those who have developed phonological recoding processes (Stuart et al., 1999). The structured teaching of phonics currently occupies a substantial component of the Primary National Strategy¹, especially within Key Stage 1. The government document Progression in Phonics (DfES, 1998) was used widely in schools as a means of teaching young children phonetic knowledge before being adapted (Playing with Sounds, DfES, 2004) to ‘take account of more recent research on the pace and sequence of phonic teaching’ (UKLA, 2006: 3.21). Both documents have now been replaced with a new scheme entitled Letters and Sounds (DfES, 2007).

Given that such national strategies for the teaching of literacy encourage teachers to employ a range of techniques to promote reading at the level of the letter, word, sentence and whole text, structured phonetic knowledge has generally been taught alongside other skills to acquire meaning from texts. Indeed the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) recommends that ‘the existing pace of phonics teaching … is retained’ (2006: 3.23). However, there is substantial concern that the government’s recommendation to base early reading instruction on synthetic phonics² (Rose, 2006) is inappropriate and unjustified by research.

Firstly, it has been documented by the US National Reading Panel (NRP) that while ‘specific systematic phonic programs are all significantly more effective than non-phonic programs … they do not appear to differ significantly from each other in their effectiveness’ (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000: 93). Subsequently, similar findings have also been reported within UK (Torgerson et al., 2006) and Australian (Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training, 2005) contexts. Secondly, the Rose Report (2006: 29) claims that it is ‘highly worthwhile and appropriate to begin a systematic programme of phonic work by the age of five, if not before for some children’. While it has now been reported that the government will not proceed with the proposed curriculum, based upon the Rose Review, it is clear that the suggestion raised serious, justified and on-going concerns amongst early years educators (Wyse and Styles, 2007). Wyse and Styles argue that it is highly inappropriate to impose such a curriculum on young children, especially given the fact that ‘the majority of evidence in favour of systematic phonics teaching refers to children age 6 and older’ (2007: 37). Finally, there is concern that the context within which the Rose Report suggests phonics teaching should be implemented contradicts much previous evidence generated from research in reading over the last few decades. In particular the approach has been criticised for being ‘over-prescriptive’ (UKLA, 2006: 9.1) and disconnected from whole text work (Wyse and Styles, 2007).

The psycho-linguistic perspective

Much of the writing on the psycho-linguistic perspective on learning to read is derived from the belief that ‘all language is used for authentic purposes’ (Hall, 2003: 41). This commitment to ‘authenticity’ resulted in one particular movement in the teaching of reading, known as the ‘real book approach’ (Waterland, 1985). In brief this involved the use of ‘real books’ in the teaching of reading, rather than using structured reading scheme material.

Yet as highlighted by Campbell (1992: 1), the term ‘real books’ relates not just to the actual books children are given to read, but to ‘the methods to be used and … the teaching and learning environment to be provided’. In other words, the real book approach is a philosophy of teaching and learning that centres on the book, child, teacher and the whole interaction with the book, to ensure that the task is meaningful for the child. With specific reference to the Australian context, Turbill describes ‘the age of reading as meaning-making’ as the time in which readers were seen to ‘bring meaning to print’ as well as ‘take meaning from print’ (2002: 4). In the USA, Goodman (1986) defined a similar philosophy to the teaching and learning of reading as the ‘whole-language’ approach, where again the focus was on understanding the meaning of language as a whole, rather than on simply decoding the minutiae of print.

This approach has also been described as a ‘top-down conceptualization’ (Smith, 1971). This largely means placing emphasis on the contextual clues within a text, encouraging the reader to make full use of syntactic and semantic information available. Stanovich and Stanovich (1999: 14) point out that this strategy, whereby children are encouraged to guess at words based on the context of a previous passage, is still regarded as an ‘efficacious way of reading and of learning to read’ by many advocates of ‘whole-language’ approaches today. Yet, as exemplified in the work of Waterland (1985), this approach to the teaching of reading was never divorced, by most advocates, from the teaching of phonics or whole-word recognition skills.

However, both of the approaches so far discussed fail to acknowledge the complexity of issues surrounding the ways in which children learn to read and become readers of a variety of different texts. The next two sections examine some of the broader perspectives on reading which look beyond the ‘primacy of mind’ (Hall, 2003: 134) and recognise that learning to read is a complex process, rooted in social, cultural and political practice.

The socio-political perspective

The socio-political perspective regards literacy as being ‘embedded within discourses of power’ (Hall, 2003: 153). This notion of literacy as a powerful discourse has been raised by many; for example, Crowther et al.’s (2001) Powerful Literacies aims to promote literacy as a potent tool for challenging existing inequalities and dependencies. Similarly, Luke and Freebody (1999–2000: 4) also postulate that the social practice of literacy is ‘necessarily tied up with political, cultural and social power and capital’, and stress the importance of context within the construction of meaning in texts.

Certainly schools appear to have much power in determining what is meant by terms such as ‘literacy’ and ‘reading’. Indeed, studies have demonstrated, for example, that many parents feel insecure about the ways in which they can support their young children in literacy development, as they fear they are not using ‘correct’ methods of instruction (Hannon and James, 1990; Oritz and Stile, 1996). Yet it must be recognised that schools themselves are governed by the requirements of a curriculum such as that set out in the National Literacy Strategy. Many would agree with Hall that the emergence and rationale of this strategy, with the ‘highly prescriptive nature of its content and pedagogy’ (2003: 189), makes it difficult for teachers to incorporate critical literacy practices into their delivery of the curriculum.

The ways in which children’s and parents’ views of literacy are influenced by governmental power is one aspect for consideration within a socio-political perspective on reading. But to return to Hall’s definition of this perspective, she argues that this connection between literacy and power is also related to the ability to ‘determine underlying assumptions and hidden biases in texts’ (2003: 176). Jones also refers to the power within texts in his elaborate portrayal of the reader–writer–text relationship. He argues that reading is a highly complex process, through which the reader is actively involved in a cycle of interpretation and response. Rather than such ‘response’ being necessarily reflective, he argues that the term ‘points to the pragmatic force of reading [and] its power to prompt changes of thought or action’ (1990: 163).

Hall argues that this approach to reading means that one ‘sees literacy not as neutra...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Dedication1
• List of tables and figures
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Becoming a reader in a digital age
• Chapter 2 Children’s perceptions of reading: defining reading’ in the Nursery
• Chapter 3 Children’s perceptions of reading: defining ‘reading’ in Reception
• Chapter 4 Perceived uses and affordances of book texts
• Chapter 5 Reading in multidimensional forms
• Chapter 6 What reading means at home and at school
• Chapter 7 From research to practice
• Conclusion
• List of references
• Index