Cultivating a Love of Reading in Students

1. Read. Simple first step! If we're going to encourage kids to read we need to do
it too. Read for pleasure, information, instructions, connecting with others, and
so on. Read. Read a little more than you've been reading lately.
2. Share your reading experiences. Share with colleagues, friends and
students. Tell them what you've been reading, what you've gained or learned
from these texts, what you recommend.
3. Invite students to socialize around reading. Set up book clubs, reading
groups, literature circles. Many students (especially boys) need to interact with
each other around texts. It greatly enhances their comprehension and makes it
so much more enjoyable.
4. Organize a Read-a-Thon. A beautiful event that parents and administrators
can take a lead on setting up.
5. Take a field trip. This is another way to make reading social and exciting. Visit
your local library, a university library or a bookstore. It's not about checking out
or buying books -- it's about being surrounded by thousands of books, touching
their gorgeous pages, seeing the world of possibility in print, salivating over
what there is to know and explore. This is another event that parents can
organize and administrators can support or encourage.
6. Listen to audio books. Invite students to listen to them; play short passages.
While you're not developing decoding or fluency skills, you are acquiring
vocabulary, applying comprehension strategies, and enjoying stories or
accruing information.
7. Invite authors to speak. Another activity that can be supported by admin and
parents. Kids can be greatly impacted from hearing an author (if possible,
especially one from a similar background to theirs) speak about reading and
writing.
8. Make connections between reading and other issues. Books and reading
have always been political (think banned books, prohibitions on slaves
becoming literate, etc.). Help students see the wider, historical and political
context of the importance of reading to enhance their appreciation.
9. Learn about specific needs for specific populations. Those responsible for
teaching literacy also need professional development in how to serve specific
vulnerable populations. We need to meet the needs of all learners.
10. Teach reading strategies. Finally, I believe that all teachers, in every content
area, should be responsible for teaching reading. Text genres are different in
every content area -- teachers should receive PD in how to teach reading
strategies so that they can do so with students. Kids won't enjoy reading if they
can't do it -- no one loves doing something that's really hard. We must give
them the skills to read at the same time that we cultivate an attitude.
 How to Motivate Students to Love Reading

1. Let students see you read. If you are going to encourage your students to read,
then you better make sure you’re leading by example. Instead of grading papers
when students are silent reading, read a book. Talk about the book that you are
reading with them, and how you can’t wait to read before you go to bed.
2. Allow students to read the whole book before discussing it. Give students
the opportunity to read the book before you pull it apart and talk about literary
devices. Sometimes when all you do is talk about the plot, setting, or genre, you
are taking all the fun and pleasure out of the story. Give students the chance to
read it once through, then you can go chapter by chapter and dissect.
3. Invite a local author to class. A great way to promote a love of a reading is to
invite an author to your classroom to discuss their book. This may be just the
thing to inspire your students to read or even be an author themselves someday.
4. Teach students reading strategies. Many students don’t like to read because
it’s hard for them. Teach children reading strategies (i.e. repeated reading) to
help them feel confident and read fluently.
5. Set up a book club. Book clubs and reading groups are a great way for students
to socialize and share their thoughts. This interaction makes reading so much
more enjoyable, and it enhances their comprehension skills.
6. Let students choose their own books. Studies have shown that when students
choose their own books it will boost their reading ability. Make sure you have an
abundance of different genres and themes in your classroom library from which
students may choose.
7. Use technology to create an e-book. Children love technology, and there is
nothing is better than using these tools to get students to love reading. Download
an app like Book Creator or ebook Magic and have students create their own
works. Kids will love sharing their books with their peers and they can even
submit their stories to iBooks.
8. Introduce students to a book series. Whether students are into adventures or
fantasy novels, there is a book series for everyone. All you have to do is find out
what your students love and get them to read the first selection. Once they get a
taste of the set, they will definitely want to keep reading to find out what happens
next.
9. Allow students to dislike books. Think of it like Facebook—students can give a
“thumbs up” if they like it, or a “thumbs down” if they don’t. This will also help you
choose future class novels as well.
10. Helps students see the importance of reading. Sometimes just knowing the
facts can encourage someone to see their world differently. For example,
knowing that maintaining a healthy lifestyle may help us live a longer life can
motivate us to make better life choices. Laying out the benefits of reading may be
the best way to enhance appreciation and encourage them to pick up a book on
their own.
 Learning to Read and Reading to Learn

Learning to read is just that, a process. Through this process we are looking to attain
the skills necessary for reading. Unfortunately the discussion about learning to read
seems to hit a brick wall when those within the discussion are good readers. The
problem is that for those with the skill, it seems to have come naturally. No one can
remember the day when they couldn’t read or when they struggled with the reading. In
reality, the skill of reading has been built, brick by brick, to include cognitive, linguistic,
and social skills that have been cultivated years before reading actually begins.

Recently, doctors have come to understand the learning to read begins in infancy.
Pediatricians have even come to ‘prescribe’ reading to infants in an effort to expedite
the learning process.

This process continues throughout the academic careers of the children and overlaps
with the family network. Now here’s the debate… “when do children stop learning to
read and begin reading to learn”. This age is often defined as the stage called fluency or
comprehending reader. Many educators have identified as 4th grade. This MYTH has
been influencing reading instruction and educational policy for many years. The problem
is that it doesn’t work!
Children should be learning to read and reading to learn simultaneously and
continuously from preschool through middle school and even beyond that.
Comprehension is a critical piece of the learning process and cannot be left behind to
focus on sight words and phonics.
It is clear that the expectations change dramatically in the 4th grade. Students are now
expected to apply the skills learned earlier to the new more challenging content-area.
What we need to realize is that students may still need practice with these basic skills.

Our new focus comes in with the Common Core. Students are now expected to read the
complex text independently at every stage of development. Therefore, teachers much
teach reading explicitly. With the assistance of the teacher, students can acquire the
skills needed and the understanding of continued practice as well as a growth mindset
so that learning to read and reading learn becomes a lifelong process. Individuals can
increase in proficiency throughout their lifetime.
 Helping Students to Learn to Read

Create appreciation of the written word

 Share stories with children and invite them to explore a story's magic.
 Share informational texts and invite children to wonder about the new ideas
presented.
 Take every opportunity to point out the ways in which reading is essential to the
communications of everyday life (e.g., on labels, instructions, and signs).

Develop awareness of printed language and the writing system

 Make sure students know how books are organized. They should be taught the
basics about books – that they are read from left to right and top to bottom, that
print may be accompanied by pictures or graphics, that the pages are numbered,
and that the purpose of reading is to gain meaning from the text and understand
ideas that words convey.
 Read to children from books with easy-to-read large print. Use stories that have
predictable words in the text.
 Use "big books" to help children notice and learn to recognize words that occur
frequently, such as a, the, is, was, and you.
 Label objects in your classroom.

Teach the alphabet

 A strong predictor of the ease with which a child learns to read is his or her
familiarity with letters of the alphabet. This familiarity is a critical building block for
learning to read.
 It is important to go beyond knowing the names of letters. Students must also
develop a sense of the purpose of letters.
 Help them notice the letters in the print that surrounds them and that you share
with them every day.
 Engage the students in activities that will help them learn to recognize letters
visually.
 Help students learn to form the letters and encourage them to embellish their
work with their names and with other first attempts at writing.

Develop the students' phonological awareness

 In listening and speaking, we pay attention to the meaning of language rather
than to its sound. To learn to read, however, students must be taught to attend to
the sounds, or phonology, of language. This is necessary for them to understand
how speech is represented by print. Children with learning disabilities need
special help in learning to develop such phonological awareness.
 Model and demonstrate how to break short sentences into individual words. For
example, use the sentence "Frogs eat bugs," and demonstrate with chips, cards,
or other manipulatives how the sentence is made up of three words and how the
order of the words matters. Using manipulatives to make sentences, play with
each word and put it in order.
 Develop students' awareness of the sounds of individual words by asking them to
clap out syllables and to listen for and generate rhymes.
  Once children are comfortable in playing games with words, syllables, and
rhymes, move onto phonemic awareness.

Develop phonemic awareness

 Phonemic awareness refers to an understanding that words and syllables are
comprised of a sequence of elementary speech sounds. This understanding is
essential to learning to read an alphabetic language. The majority of children with
reading disabilities fail to grasp this idea.
 In teaching phonemic awareness, the focus of all activities should be on the
sounds of words, not on letters or spellings.
 Use strategies that make phonemes prominent in children's attention and
perception. For example, model specific sounds, such as /s/ in the word sat, and
ask children to produce each sound in isolation and in many different words until
they are comfortable with the sound and understand its nature.
 Begin with simple words and simple challenges, e.g., listen for initial /s/ in sat, sit,
sip, and sad... or for long /e/ in me, see, bee...
 Teach students to blend phonemes into words. Begin by identifying just one
phoneme, e.g., /m/-ilk, /s/-at, working gradually toward blending all the phonemes
in words, e.g., /s/-/a/-/t/.
 Teach students to identify the separate phonemes within words, e.g., what is the
first sound of soup? What is the last sound of kiss?Beginning phonemes are
easier to identify than final phonemes.
 Once students are comfortable listening for individual phonemes, teach them to
break up words, into component sounds, e.g., /m/-/oo/-/s/= "moose".
 Create a sequence of segmenting and blending activities to help students
develop an understanding of the relationship between sounds in words.
 Provide children with more support when first teaching a task. For example,
model a sound or strategy for making the sound, and have the children use the
strategy to produce the sound. Model and practice several examples. Prompt the
children to use the strategy during guided practice, and gradually add more
examples. As the students master these skills, provide less teacher-directed
instruction and more practice and challenge.
 Make teaching phonological awareness a top priority. Opportunities to engage in
phonological awareness activities should be plentiful, frequent, brief, and fun.
 Phonemic awareness is essential for learning to read, but it is not enough by
itself. It must be coupled with instruction and practice in learning the relationship
between letters and sounds.

Teach the relation of sounds and letters

 Students should learn the letters of the alphabet and discriminate each letter
from the other, because each stands for one or more of the sounds that occur in
spoken words.
 When presenting each letter, model its corresponding sound and have children
produce the sound themselves. For children with learning disabilities, the
teaching activities must be explicit and unambiguous.
 At first, teach and work with only a few letter-sound correspondences that have
high utility in many words (e.g., /m/ in man, mad, him, and ham). Postpone
teaching less frequently occurring letters until students have a firm understanding
 of how left-to-right spellings represent first-to-last sounds (alphabetic
understanding).

Teach children how to sound out words

 After students have mastered a few letter-sound correspondences, teach them to
decode words or sound them out. Begin with small, familiar words. Teach the
children to sound out the letters, left to right, and blend them together, searching
for the word in memory.
 Model sounding out the word, blending the sounds together and saying the word.
The ability to sound out new words allows children to identify and learn new
words on their own.
 Give children stories containing words that reflect the letter-sound patterns that
have been taught, and encourage them to sound out words whenever they are
uncertain.
 Help children learn spelling conventions, such as the use of final /e/'s to mark
long vowels, by comparing and contrasting lots of examples.

Teach children to spell words

 Teach children to spell words by sounding their letters one by one. Model the
sounding and spelling process for children as they spell.
 Begin with short words children can sound out, because these words follow
regular spelling conventions, e.g., cap, bat, and sit instead of cape, bait or sight.
 Begin with simple words that do not contain consonant blends,
e.g., ham and pan instead of slam and plan.
 Encourage students to use spelling knowledge and strategies regularly in their
own writing.
 Introduce spelling conventions systematically. Begin with words that exemplify
the most frequent and basic conventions, and provide support and practice to
help students generalize from these words to others. The goal is to help them
see the spelling conventions in the words.
 Use words in which letter-sound correspondences represent their most common
sounds (e.g., get instead of gem).
 Develop a sequence and schedule of opportunities that allow children to apply
and develop facility with sounds and words at their own pace. Specify what skills
to assess and when to assess them so that you will know when to move on. Take
into account each student's background knowledge and pace in moving from
sounding out to blending words to reading connected text.

Help children develop fluent, reflective reading

 Help children learn to read fluently by requiring them to read new stories and
reread old stories every day.
 Help children extend their experience with the words, language, and ideas in
books by interactively reading harder texts with them and to them every day.
 Relate information in books to other events of interest to children, such as
holidays, pets, siblings, and games. Engage children in discussion of the topics.
 In both stories and informational texts, encourage wondering. For example, "I
wonder what Pooh will do now?" "How do you think the father feels ?" or "I
wonder what frogs do in the winter? Do you think that's a problem? Why?"
 Model comprehension strategies and provide students with guided assistance.
 Point out how titles and headings tell what a book is about.
 Help students identify the main ideas presented in the text, as well as the
supporting detail. Graphics help to reveal main ideas, and the relationship
between text and graphics helps students understand what they are reading.
 Point out unfamiliar words and explore their meaning. Revisit these words
frequently and encourage students to use them in their own conversations.
 Show children how to analyze contextual clues to figure out the meaning of an
unfamiliar word. Research shows that most vocabulary growth comes from
learning new words in reading.
 BEGINNING READING

Most beginning readers are inconsistent. They may know a word one day but not the
next. They may read a particular word correctly on one page, but they have to stop and
sound it out again on the next page. When you listen to a beginning reader, you hear
short, choppy words with little attention to punctuation. Sometimes a new reader can tell
you very little about what they just read.

At the beginning stage of reading, all of these reading behaviors are to be expected.
Beginning readers are building their fluency. This means they're working to make
several skills, like matching a letter to a sound and decoding, more smooth, accurate
and automatic. Without fluency, each word must be decoded, and that takes time and
energy. This means that other reading behaviors like reading with expression and
comprehension have less of a focus.
When reading with a beginning reader, it's important to do the following:
1. Give them time to read. Reading is a skill, and like many other skills, it takes time
to develop. A beginning reader should spend at least 20 minutes a day reading to
or with someone. The books read during this time should be relatively easy for
your child.
2. Let them reread the same books. Rereading the same words over and over
again helps build fluency. Over time, you'll notice that your child will stop less
often to decode words.
3. Encourage attention to the print. If your child is stuck on a word, help him look at
the first letter(s) and encourage him to sound it out. If it's a difficult word, or one
that can't be sounded out, simply supply the word and continue reading.
4. Take turns reading. By listening to your fluent reading, your child will hear what
good readers sound like. After you've read a short passage, ask your child to
reread the same passage. This provides a chance for her to practice reading with
expression.
5. Have realistic expectations. For example, students should be reading
approximately 60 words per minute correctly by the end of first grade, and 90-
100 words per minute correctly by the end of second grade. Your child's teacher
can help you learn your child's reading rate.

It's important to nurture your beginning reader in a way that helps make reading a daily
habit and a lifelong love. By being aware of what's normal for a beginning reader, and
by knowing how to help them progress, you're sure to instill those qualities in your
reader.
 GUIDELINES IN TEACHING BEGINNING READING

Print Awareness
Guidelines for Promoting Print Awareness

 The organization of books

Make sure students know how books are organized. They should be taught
the basics about books – that they are read from left to right and top to bottom, that
print may be accompanied by pictures or graphics, that the pages are numbered,
and that the purpose of reading is to gain meaning from the text and understand
ideas that words convey.
 Read to students
Read to children from books with easy-to-read large print. Use stories that
have predictable words in the text.
 Use "big books" and draw attention to words and letters
Help children notice and learn to recognize words that occur frequently, such
as a, the, is, was, and you. Draw attention to letters and punctuation marks within
the story.
 Label objects and centers in your classroom
Use an index card to label objects and centers within the classroom with
words and pictures. Use an index card with the word "house" for the house center
and draw a picture of a house. Draw students' attention to these words when
showing them the different centers.
 Encourage preschool children to play with print
They can pretend to write a shopping list, construct a stop sign, write a letter,
make a birthday card, etc.
 Help children understand the relationship between spoken and written language
Encourage students to find on a page letters that are in their names: "Look at
this word, 'big.' It begins with the same letter as the name of someone in this room,
'Ben.'"
 Play with letters of the alphabet
Read the book ChickaChicka Boom Boom. Place several copies of each letter
of the alphabet in a bowl and ask students to withdraw one letter. When everyone
has a letter, ask each student to say the letter's name and, if the letter is in his or her
own name, have the child keep the letter. Continue until the first child to spell his or
her name wins.
 Reinforce the forms and functions of print
Point them out in classroom signs, labels, posters, calendars, and so forth.
 Teach and reinforce print conventions
Discuss print directionality (print is written and read from left to right), word
boundaries, capital letters, and end punctuation.
 Teach and reinforce book awareness and book handling

 Promote word awareness by helping children identify word boundaries and compare
words

 Allow children to practice what they are learning

 Ask them to listen to and participate in the reading of predictable and
patterned stories and books.
 Provide practice with predictable and patterned books
Also try using a wordless picture book like Pancakes. Go through each page
asking the children to tell the story from the pictures. Write their narration on a large
piece of paper. Celebrate the story they authored by eating pancakes!
 Provide many opportunities for children to hear good books and to participate in
read-aloud activities

A Sample Activity for Print Awareness

The beginning readers will be given a storybook and they will be tasked to identify and
show the following:
 The front of the book
 The title of the book
 Where you should begin reading
 A letter
 A word
 The first word of a sentence
 The last word of a sentence
 The first and last word on a page
 Punctuation marks
 A capital letter
 A lowercase letter
 The back of the book

Alphabet Knowledge

Definition

Alphabetic Knowledge is the ability to name letters, distinguish letter shapes, and
identify letter sounds. Some examples of skills included in this behavior are: pointing to
words in a book, reciting the alphabet, pretending to read, and connecting names of
letters with their shapes.

Alphabet Knowledge Activities

 Acknowledge the letters in a child’s name by naming these letters as you write
them.

 Play games with children’s names.

 Post children’s names in a variety of meaningful places in the classrooms such as

cubbies.

 Develop visual memory and visual discrimination by playing games such as

matching games.
 Model reading and writing behavior as a way to promote children’s interest in and
enjoyment of reading and writing.

 Describe actions as letters are written, say names of letters, and talk about specific
letter-sound associations during shared reading and writing.

 Familiarize children with the alphabet by teaching them alphabet songs, reading
alphabet books, and playing alphabet matching games.

 Provide tactile/kinesthetic manipulatives such as magnetic letters, sandpaper

letters, alphabet puzzles, and alphabet stamps.

 Assist children in learning about the differences in the shapes of letters through
activities such as playing alphabet matching games, sorting letters with curved lines
from letters with only straight lines, and forming letters with play dough.
 Write letters of the alphabet with children in sand, rice, and with sidewalk chalk or
with finger paint.

 Provide meaningful experiences for children to print their names by using a daily
sign-in or an “I am Here” chart and labeling activity

 Include floating letters at the water table and dig for letters in the sand table.

Phonemic Awareness

Definition

Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the
individual sounds in words. We know that a student's skill in phonemic awareness is a
good predictor of later reading success or difficulty. Find out what parents and teachers
can do to help children develop this critical literacy skill.

Sample Activity for Phonemic Awareness

Clapping Names: Awareness of Syllables

Objective
To introduce the children to the nature of syllables by leading them to clap and count
the syllables in their own names

Activity
When you first introduce this activity, model it by using several names of contrasting
lengths. Pronounce the first name of one of the children in the classroom syllable by
syllable while clapping it out before inviting the children to say and clap the name along
with you. After each name has been clapped, ask "How many syllables did you hear?"
Once children have caught on, ask each child to clap and count the syllables in his or
her own name. Don't forget last names, too! It is easy to continue clapping other words
and to count the syllables in each. If a name has many syllables, you may need to let
children count the syllables as they are clapping.

Alphabetic Principle

Children's reading development is dependent on their understanding of the

alphabetic principle – the idea that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of
spoken language. Learning that there are predictable relationships between sounds and
letters allows children to apply these relationships to both familiar and unfamiliar words,
and to begin to read with fluency.
The goal of phonics instruction is to help children to learn and be able to use the
Alphabetic Principle. The alphabetic principle is the understanding that there are
systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds.
Phonics instruction helps children learn the relationships between the letters of written
language and the sounds of spoken language.

Effective Alphabetic Principle Instruction follows the following model of

instruction:

1. Teach/model
2. Guided Practice
3. Corrective Feedback

Sample Activity for Alphabetic Knowledge

Matching Upper Case and Lower Case Letters

The reading teacher asks students to help the "Mama animals" (uppercase
letters) find their "babies" (lowercase letters). This game includes matching the
uppercase mothers with their lowercase babies.

Example:
Decoding

Decoding is the ability to apply your knowledge of letter-sound relationships,

including knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words.
Understanding these relationships gives children the ability to recognize familiar words
quickly and to figure out words they haven't seen before. Although children may
sometimes figure out some of these relationships on their own, most children benefit
from explicit instruction in this area. Phonics is one approach to reading instruction that
teaches students the principles of letter-sound relationships, how to sound out words,
and exceptions to the principles.

Sample Activity for Decoding

Provide each child a piece of paper with a collection of letters written at the top,
and enough space on the page to write 20 to 30 words. The letters should be a mixture
of vowels and consonants, with some of the common letters repeated, such as E, E, O,
O, L, L, N, S, T, W, Y. Ask students to generate as many words as they can use the
letters which are provided (for younger children, you may wish to give them manipulable
letter tiles, so they can move the letters around). Tell students letters may not be used
twice in a word unless the letter has been given twice. Some sample words that can be
generated from the letters above include ON, LOW, SNOW, SLOWLY, SWEET, and
YELLOWSTONE.

Irregular/High-Frequency Words

This includes recognition of words that appear often in printed English but are not
readily decodable in the early stages of reading. This allows early readers to familiarize
words which they find difficult.

Sample Activity

Word Search

In this activity, the teacher places word cards around the classroom in prominent
locations easy for students to see and reach. Then, she gathers students in the middle
of the room. Afterwards, she says a word, and tells students to look for that word on a
word card in the classroom. When they see it, they raise their hand. The first to raise a
hand is called on to get the word card. The child with the most word cards at the end
wins.

This activity does not only engage readers with their reading skills. This also
promotes enjoyment while learning.
Spelling and Writing

Writing, spelling, and reading reinforce each other. Spelling helps a child see the
patterns in language and understand how words are really put together. By learning
spelling, children realize that the English language follows rules, which makes it easier
for them to understand those rules when reading or writing.

In this field, it is important for beginning reading teachers to assist readers with
their learning needs as far as spelling and writing are concerned.

Sample Activities

Reading teachers may choose from the following spelling and writing activities
which are effective in engaging young readers with their own learning:

 Modelled writing
 Think aloud writing
 Guided writing
 Independent writing
 Spelling with a peer tutor or “spelling buddy”

Reading Practice with Decodable Texts

This is the application of information about sound-letter relationships to the

reading of readily decodable texts. In this particular reading strategy, reading
comprehension is the main focus.

Sample Activity

One reading activity that shows reading practice with decodable texts is
conducting an individual reading test among the learners wherein they perform the
following:

 Read the selection (appropriate for the reader’s level) prepared by the
teacher with correct pronunciation, stress, intonation, and juncture
 Ask questions to the teacher regarding difficult parts of the text
 Answer questions about the text to check comprehension of the selection
read
Accuracy and Fluency with Texts

This deals with practice in reading a variety of texts so that reading becomes
easy, accurate, and expensive. It can be entailed in this pedagogy that readers are
becoming less independent in reading as they become more learned. The students are
exposed to different kinds of text in order to attain accuracy and fluency in reading. With
this exposure by the readers, their reading competence is developed and enhanced
throughout time.

Sample Activity

Poetry Reading

In this activity, the teacher assigns a poem to be read individually by the class.
This will improve the reader’s critical thinking skills and creativity as they put meaning to
the text being read.
 Theories of Beginning Reading

Top-down

Top-down reading models teach students to read by introducing them to literature as a

whole. Instead of teaching students to read by sounding out each word in a sentence,
teachers read whole passages of a text. Students begin to use context clues to decipher
unfamiliar words. The National Capital Language Research Center reports top-down
reading models are helpful to those learning a second language because they help
students concentrate on the whole meaning of a passage. The theory also works with
those just learning to read, as readers rely on their previous knowledge to decipher text
or unfamiliar words.

The top-down reading model theory encourages students to focus more on

understanding the main ideas of a passage than understanding every word. Even if
students do not understand each word, they are likely to grasp the meaning of a text as
a whole. Babies learn to speak much the same way. Instead of teaching words one at a
time, parents use conversation to teach language to their children.
The top-down reading model encourages students to rely on their own knowledge and
use context clues to understand new concepts or words. The report by Hirotake Nagao,
“Using Top-Down Skills to Increase Reading Comprehension,” published on the
Education Resources Information Center website states readers use their knowledge of
the content matter instead of their knowledge of the vocabulary used in a particular
piece of text. Students could also use context clues to determine the meaning of words
that have more than one use. For instance, the word “read” is pronounced differently
depending on the context in which it is used. Students using the top-down reading
theory could rely on context clues to help them determine what pronunciation was
correct in a particular text.

The teaching model allows students choose books to read based on their own interests.
Teachers urge students to select materials of personal interest so they are more likely
to be motivated to read it. Instead of assigning one book for an entire class to read
together, the teacher might take the entire class to the library and allow them to choose
their own books. New readers will begin to understand new vocabulary and increase
reading fluency as they read engaging and interesting books.
Teachers will encourage readers to develop speaking and listening skills by reading
aloud to the class or to a smaller group of students. Instead of stopping students to
correct a pronunciation mistake, the teachers will urge the reader to continue reading,
even if struggling with a particular passage. Teachers might not correct spelling errors
during creative-writing exercises but would encourage students to take risks and
attempt to spell new and more difficult vocabulary words. Repetition of important or
meaningful passages is often used to help students understand and sometimes
memorize the reading material, resulting in a deeper understanding.

Bottom-up

Bottom-up theories hypothesize that learning to read progresses from children learning
the parts of language (letters) to understanding whole text (meaning). Much like solving
a jigsaw puzzle, bottom-up models of the reading process say that the reading puzzle is
solved by beginning with an examination of each piece of the puzzle and then putting
pieces together to make a picture. Two bottom-up theories of the reading process
remain popular even today: One Second of Reading by Gough (1972) and A Theory of
Automatic Information Processing by LaBerge and Samuels (1974). Gough’s (1972)
One Second of Reading model described reading as a sequential or serial mental
process. Readers, according to Gough, begin by translating the parts of written
language (letters) into speech sounds, then piece the sounds together to form individual
words, then piece the words together to arrive at an understanding of the author’s
written message. In their reading model, LaBerge and Samuels (1974) describe a
concept called automatic information processing or automaticity. This popular model of
the reading process hypothesizes that the human mind functions much like a computer
and that visual input (letters and words) is sequentially entered into the mind of the
reader. Almost without exception, humans have the ability to perform more than one
task at a time (computer specialists sometimes call this “multitasking”). Because each
computer (and by comparison the human mind) has a limited capacity available for
multitasking, attention must be shifted from one job to another. If one job requires a
large portion of the available computer’s attention capacity, then capacity for another job
is limited. The term “automaticity” implies that readers, like computers, have a limited
ability to shift attention between the processes of decoding (sounding out words) and
comprehending (thinking about the meaning of the author’s message in the text). If
readers are too bogged down in decoding the text, they will not be able to focus on the
job of comprehending the author’s message. An example of automaticity in action can
be seen in the common skill of learning to ride a bike. Novice bike riders focus so
intently on balancing, turning the handlebars, and pedaling that they sometimes fail to
attend to other important tasks like direction and potential dangers. Similarly, a reader
who is a poor decoder focuses so much of his attention on phonics and other sounding
out strategies that he has little brainpower left for comprehending. When this happens,
the reading act, like an overloaded computer, “crashes.” In contrast, children who are
accomplished bike riders can ride without hands, carry on a conversation with a friend,
dodge a pothole in the road, and chew gum at the same time. Like the accomplished
bike rider, fluent readers can rapidly focus on the author’s message because decoding
no longer demands the lion’s share of their attention capacity. In summary, the LaBerge
and Samuels (1974) model predicts that if reading can occur automatically, without too
much focus on the decoding process, then improved comprehension will be the result.

Teachers who believe that bottom-up theories fully explain how children become
readers often teach subskills first: they begin instruction by introducing letter names and
letter sounds, progress to pronouncing whole words, then show students ways of
connecting word meanings to comprehend texts. Although bottom-up theories of the
reading process explain the decoding part of the reading process rather well, there is
certainly more to reading than decoding. To become readers, students must compare
their knowledge and background experiences to the text in order to understand the
author’s message. Truly, the whole purpose of reading is comprehension.

Interactive

The Interactive Reading Model, as developed by David E. Rumelhart in 1977, describes

a model of the reading process and the way linguistic elements are processed and
interpreted by the brain. The model combines both surface structure systems -- the
sensory, bottom-up portion of reading -- with deep structure systems -- the thinking, or
top-down, aspects of reading -- to build meaning and memory for all learners.
Readers use both knowledge of word structure and background knowledge to interpret
the texts they read. For example, a student who encounters an unknown word might
use surface structure systems like graphophonic, or letter-sound, knowledge to decode
the word. A different student might find it easier to use deep structure systems like
semantic knowledge, such as meaning and vocabulary, to decode the same unknown
word. Each student makes connections in different ways. This process validates and
supports both methods of understanding, realizing that individuals process information
in very different ways.

Surface structure processing, also known as bottom-up processing, is the sensory

portion of reading. This method of understanding uses knowledge of letter-sound
relationships, lexical or word knowledge and syntactic or contextual understanding of
the text to make meaning of previously unknown material. This type of processing can
be assisted by the teaching of phonemic awareness and sentence structure skills.
Students who use only surface structure approaches to understanding often find it
difficult to comprehend the text.

Deep structure processing, also known as top-down processing, is the thinking aspect
of reading. This method employs vocabulary knowledge, background knowledge and
social construction to derive meaning from text. This type of processing is often easier
for poor readers who might have trouble with word recognition but have knowledge of
the text topic. Vocabulary instruction is imperative for these learners to build a larger
pool of knowledge on which to draw when faced with unknown text.

The most evident benefit of this model is the opportunity for the differentiation that it
provides students. Students are not required to fit into a set mold or have identical skill
sets to decode and interpret text. They are encouraged to use their own strengths to
gain understanding and new information. When used in the classroom setting, students
should be encouraged to share their knowledge with classmates or peers. This model
allows the reader to bring his own background knowledge to reading and to interact with
others to build meaning and memory from the text.
 Theories on Comprehension

Schema Theory

Gunning (1996) defines a schema as the organized knowledge that one already has
about people, places, things, and events. Kitao (1990) says the schema theory involves
an interaction between the reader’s own knowledge and the text, which results in
comprehension. This schema, as Gunning defined, can be very broad, such a schema
for natural disasters, or more narrow, such as a schema for a hurricane. Each schema
is "filed" in an individual compartment and stored there. In attempting to comprehend
reading materials, students can relate this new information to the existing information
they have compartmentalized in their minds, adding it to these "files" for future use.
Based on the Schema Theory, depending on how extensive their "files" become, their
degree of reading comprehension may vary.

Mental Model Theory

Another major theory we would like to discuss is the Mental Model. This model can be
thought of as a mind movie created in one's head, based on the reading content.
Gunning gives a detailed description of this process, stating that a mental model is
constructed most often when a student is reading fiction. The reader focuses in on the
main character and creates a mental model of the circumstances in which the character
finds him or herself. The mental model is re-constructed or updated to reflect the new
circumstances as the situation changes, but the items important to the main character
are kept in the foreground according to Gunning, (1996).

Perkins (1991) identifies that sometimes misconceptions about important concepts

reflect misleading mental models of the topic itself or the subject matter within which it
sits. There are, however, interventions the teacher can do to help the reader to stay on
track and create a more accurate picture. One suggestion is for the teachers to ask the
students to disclose their mental models of the topics in question, through analogy,
discussion, picturing, and other ways. This information gives the teacher insight on the
student's knowledge gaps and misconceptions, therefore allowing them to help students
reconstruct a more accurate picture.

Proposition Theory

The final explanation of comprehension we would like to discuss is the Propositional

Theory. This involves the reader constructing a main idea or macrostructure as they
process the text. These main ideas are organized in a hierarchical fashion with the most
important things given the highest priority to be memorized (Gunning, 1996).
 Theories in Vocabulary

Dual Coding Theory

The dual coding theory proposed by Paivio attempts to give equal weight to verbal and
non-verbal processing. Paivio (1986) states: "Human cognition is unique in that it has
become specialized for dealing simultaneously with language and with nonverbal
objects and events. Moreover, the language system is peculiar in that it deals directly
with linguistic input and output (in the form of speech or writing) while at the same time
serving a symbolic function with respect to nonverbal objects, events, and behaviors.
Any representational theory must accommodate this dual functionality."

The theory assumes that there are two cognitive subsystems, one specialized for the
representation and processing of nonverbal objects/events (i.e., imagery), and the other
specialized for dealing with language. Paivio also postulates two different types of
representational units: "imagens" for mental images and "logogens" for verbal entities
which he describes as being similar to "chunks" as described by Miller. Logogens are
organized in terms of associations and hierarchies while imagens are organized in
terms of part-whole relationships.

Dual Coding theory identified three types of processing: (1) representational, the direct
activation of verbal or non-verbal representations, (2) referential, the activation of the
verbal system by the nonverbal system or vice-versa, and (3) associative processing,
the activation of representations within the same verbal or nonverbal system. A given
task may require any or all of the three kinds of processing.

Dual coding theory has been applied to many cognitive phenomena including:
mnemonics, problem-solving, concept learning and language. Dual coding theory
accounts for the significance of spatial abilities in theories of intelligence (e.g., Guilford).
Paivio (1986) provides a dual coding explanation of bilingual processing. Clark & Paivio
(1991) present dual coding theory as a general framework for educational psychology.

Many experiments reported by Paivio and others support the importance of imagery in
cognitive operations. In one experiment, participants saw pairs of items that differed in
roundness (e.g., tomato, goblet) and were asked to indicate which member of the pair
was rounder. The objects were presented as words, pictures, or word-picture pairs. The
response times were slowest for word-word pairs, intermediate for the picture-word
pairs, and fastest for the picture-picture pairs.

Recall/recognition is enhanced by presenting information in both visual and verbal form.

Semantic Theory

Katz begins from a familiar place: Chomsky's characterization of the job of linguistics as
construction of a system of rules which represent ``what a fluent speaker knows about
the semantic structure of his language'' (519-20). Such a theory will take the form of
recursive rules which allow a speaker to compose and understand sentences in his
language.

On this account, a semantic theory must contain rules which represent the speaker's
knowledge of the semantic structure of the language and which allow the composition
and decomposition of sentences in that language to understand the meaning of the
sentences. Semantic theory consists of two parts: a lexicon or dictionary, and a `finite
set of ``projection'' rules' (520).

Katz assigns as input to the semantic theory, the output of the syntactic theory; thus all
sentences which the semantic theory encounters are by hypothesis well-formed. The
precise input is the sentence represented as a concatenation of morphemes which are
``terminal elements'' (521). Thus for the sentence

The boys like candy,

the input is `the + boy + s + like + candy.' It is the job of the semantic theory to assign a
semantic interpretation/meaning, or in case of ambiguity, multiple interpretations, to this
input in such a way that the meaning (or meanings) is revealed, along with other
semantic properties, including analyticity, et alia.

Thus, Katz needs to characterize: dictionary entry, semantic interpretation and

projection rule, which he does as follows.

 Dictionary entry: ``a finite number of sequences of symbols, each sequence

consisting of an initial subsequence of syntactic markers, followed by a
subsequence of 'semantic markers,' then, optimally one 'distinguisher,' and
finally, a `selection restriction'''(522).
 Semantic interpretation: A semantic interpretation is what Katz calls a path in the
semantic tree. See example below.
 Projection rule: There are two types of projection rules: type one and type two.

Type one projection rules utilize the information about the meanings of the
lexical items contained in the paths belonging to the sets of paths
assigned ...in order to provide a characterization of the meaning of every
constituent of the sentence, including the whole sentence (525)

The idea is to amalgamate various paths from a single node to form one path.
Katz includes what he calls an ``erasure clause'' to eliminate duplication of
semantic markers. The sample rule on 526 explains how modifiers are added to
nouns, see 527 for the example of `colorful ball.'