Reading

Question 1

Phonics

Answer 1

Linguists (and educators) debate over how we should teach children to read and the biggest rivals are the phonic and the whole word approaches.

Question 2

The phonics approach

Answer 2

The phonics approach is all about learning what combinations of graphemes (letters) correspond to sounds.
* For example, they would learn that the orthographic aligns with /d/, with /ɒ/

Question 3

Phonetic approach popularity

Answer 3

• This approach is incredibly prominent in schools currently.
• As a result, you may hear younger children pronounce their alphabet as /æ b k/ rather than the traditional pronunciation, as this gets children learning the most common pronunciation of letters.

Question 4

Issues with the phonics approach

Answer 4

• It does not teach meaning.

* It doesn’t prepare children for words that have no phoneme-grapheme correspondence.

Question 5

Phoneme-grapheme correspondence

Answer 5

Phoneme-grapheme correspondence (also known as PGC and grapheme-phoneme correspondence) is the link between the sound and the letters of a word.

For example, the word ‘cat’ has phoneme-grapheme correspondence, as it is pronounced as it is written.

Question 6

Partial/no phoneme-grapheme correspondence

Answer 6

• A word like ‘coat’ isn’t fully pronounced as it is written, as it would be pronounced (using phonetics) as ‘co – at’.
• Therefore it only has partial phoneme-grapheme correspondence.
• A word like ‘hour’ has no phoneme-grapheme correspondence.

Question 7

Whole Word Approach

Answer 7

• Opposed to the phonics approach is the whole word approach.
• The idea of this is for the child to learn (memorise) how each word is pronounced.

Importance of meaning

• In this approach, meaning is at the heart and focuses also on getting children to understand what each word means (starts with common words and works its way up).
• In this sense, it is sometimes nicknamed the ‘look and say’ approach.

Question 8

Issues with whole word approach

Answer 8

The issues with this approach are that:

• It doesn’t prepare children to pronounce words that they haven’t learned.
• It assumes that a child will be able to memorise great numbers of words.

Question 9

The Psycholinguistic Model

Answer 9

An approach which challenges the phonics and whole word approach is the psycholinguistic model. * In this approach, the child learns based on the environment from which they live and their interactions with caregivers.
* This works by the child having to think about what a word might mean through the use of clues like other words they have encountered before, pictures and other contextual knowledge.

Question 10

The Psycholinguistic Model - Decoding meaning

Answer 10

In this sense, the approach focuses on decoding (when a child phonetically breaks down a word) meaning rather than the symbols.

Question 11

The Psycholinguistic Model- Limits

Answer 11

However, the method does not always cover all bases and has the potential of the child not guessing or guessing wrong – it is up to luck as to whether a child learns certain words.

Question 12

The Psycholinguistic Model Support

Answer 12

This model has been supported, however, by the ‘Gray Oral Reading Tests’ (GORTs) which proved that the bottom 5% of adults can understand shapes of graphemes, but generally do not decode them or find meaning.

Question 13

Real use

Answer 13

• It is worthy of note that often these approaches do not exist in isolation of each other – many caregivers will uses a mixture and combination of all of these models to effectively learn to read – you should state this in your answer to let your examiner know you know about the ‘real’ use of these models.
• In reality, most caregivers use multiple methods.

Question 14

The ‘Traditional’ View

Answer 14

A first view of reading might be called the ‘traditional’ view. It is also called the ‘bottom-up’ approach, so-called because of its prioritisation of language.

Question 15

The ‘bottom-up’ approach

Dole (et al)

Answer 15

• This view is all about having the reader having a set of skills which are built upon to gain full comprehension.
• Dole (et al) believe that the text holds clues, meaning and opportunities to learn and that it is the reader’s job to decipher these.
• In this method, the reader takes a passive role.

Question 16

Traditional? Nunan

Answer 16

Nunan believes that the child learns to decode written symbols into their aural equivalents (link the phonics method here).

Question 17

Traditional? McCarthy

Answer 17

McCarthy built on this saying that the traditional view is less ‘bottom-up’ and more ‘outside-in’ in the sense that meaning already exists, and the reader has to take this meaning in.

Question 18

The ‘Cognitive’ View

Answer 18

The next view is called the ‘cognitive’ view. In opposition to the ‘traditional’ view, it is ‘top-down’ by which it means that the knowledge must be in place at the base.

Question 19

Schema theory

Answer 19

The next view is called the ‘cognitive’ view.
In opposition to the previous view, it is ‘top-down’ by which it means that the knowledge must be in place at the base.
Linked in most closely with this is schema theory (you may remember this from spoken acquisition).

Question 20

Rumelhart

Answer 20

Rumelhart believes that reading requires the ‘building blocks of cognition’ in order for the reader to be able to process the information they are receiving.
As a result, missing schema (or building blocks) can prevent a child from properly understanding and processing what the information means.

Question 21

The psycholinguistic model

Answer 21

You can link this to children who have an excellent ability to read books, but a very poor ability to comprehend what is going on.
This view has also been equated with the psycholinguistic model.

Question 22

Goodman

Answer 22

Goodman states that the reader is at the heart in the process of learning to read and that the reader makes hypotheses as they read to confirm or reject ideas

Question 23

The ‘Metacognitive’ View

Answer 23

The third and final system is called the ‘metacognitive’ view. In this, the reader thinks about what they are doing when they are reading (metacognition – thinking about thinking).

Question 24

Metacognition Block

Answer 24

Block believes that the other two views are irrelevant because the reader controls their own ability to understand a text.
In this respect, he believes that reading is an active process.

Question 25

Metacognition Share

Answer 25

Linked to this, Share believes that there is a process which takes place called phonological recoding in which the reader recodes what they know of phoneme-grapheme correspondence in order to correctly read words.

Question 26

Klein (et al) Metacognition

Answer 26

In addition, Klein (et al) believes that metacognitive readers do the following whilst reading a text:
Finding purpose of the reading (this occurs before reading).
Deciding what the form (type) of text it is (this occurs before reading).

Question 27

Klein Metacognition continued

Answer 27

Look for features and conventions which typify the form of the text identified in the above.
Projecting the author’s purpose of writing the text onto the text.
Deciding whether to scan or to read in detail.
Predict what will happen in the text as they read (based on what has already happened, their existing knowledge and chapter endings).

Question 28

Frith’s Model

Logographic stage

Answer 28

At this stage, the child is chiefly concerned with graphemes as visual objects which they are able to recognise by sight (as they would recognise what a chair is from what it looks like).
As such, they will first learn that image of a word represents a thing. For example, they will probably recognise their own name written down.
At this point, letters aren’t seen as individual and combinations as making sounds.

Question 29

Frith’s Model

Alphabetic stage

Answer 29

At this stage, the child starts to differentiate between words and other symbols and as a result, develops the concept of letters and sounds having a relationship.
The child learns some phoneme-grapheme correspondence and the ability to combine sounds in order to form words. They acquire knowledge of letter order and phonological factors affecting pronunciation.
They begin to decode words they are unfamiliar with.
Some linguists have said that the child can do this as part of their natural development, but most agree that this comes from exposure to reading and other literacy activities.

Question 30

Frith’s Model

Orthographic stage

Answer 30

At this stage, the child does not need to phonologically recode very much, but can, more often than not, recognise the word and its meaning (from their internal lexicon).
When they are repeatedly exposed to the same sequence of graphemes, they store their knowledge of the word in an orthographic and phonological lexicon to save time phonologically decoding the word each time.

Question 31

Challenges

To Frith

Answer 31

This theory is challenged as dyslexic children struggle with the alphabetic stage and often move straight onto the orthographic stage which delays the reading process.
A possible alternative is found in Ehri’s model.

Question 32

Ehri’s Model Pre-alphabetic phase

Answer 32

Words are read through memorisation or from guess based on context.

Question 33

Ehri’s Model- Partial-alphabetical phase

Answer 33

Some letters are known and their respective phonemes are learned – words are learned by sight in relation to context.

Question 34

Ehri’s Model- Full-alphabetic phase

Answer 34

There is extensive knowledge of phoneme-grapheme correspondence and unfamiliar words can be decoded and store these in their memory post-analysis.

Question 35

Ehri’s Model- Consolidated-alphabetical phase

Answer 35

Larger words and differing phonemes and meanings are learned (awareness of homophones etc here too).

Question 36

Ehri’s Model- Challenges

Answer 36

Beech challenges Ehri’s model by saying that it is unclear whether a child progresses from one phase to the other or whether a child can be in 2+ phases at the time.

Question 37

Chall’s Model - model the stages and process a child goes through when they are learning to read. Stage 0

Answer 37

Stage 0: pre-reading (pseudo reading) - up to 6 years:
Mock reading – will repeat what has been previously read to them.
Can name letters of the alphabet.
Reliant on images.

Question 38

Chall’s Model- Stage 1

Answer 38

Stage 1: initial reading and decoding – 6 to 7 years:
Learns that there is a relationship between letters and sounds.
Simple texts with high frequency words and words with phoneme-grapheme correspondence can be read.
Monosyllabic words can be ‘sounded out’.

Question 39

Chall’s Model- Stage 2

Answer 39

Stage 2: Confirmation and fluency – 7 to 8 years:
Simple and familiar stories can be read – this will be increasing fluent.
Decoding ability improves.
Number of words than can be read by sight improves.
Awareness of context improves.

Question 40

Chall’s Model- Stage 3

Answer 40

Stage 3: reading to learn – 8 to 14 years:
Reading is used to acquire knowledge.
Experience of new feelings.
Learn new attitudes.
Generally, one point of view.

Question 41

Chall’s Model- Stage 4

Answer 41

Stage 4: multiple viewpoints – 14 to 18 years:
Reading is done widely through a large range of material (often complex material, too).
Descriptive, informative and narrative texts are read.
Different views are encountered.

Question 42

Chall’s Model- Stage 5

Answer 42

Stage 5: Construction and reconstruction – 18 years plus:
Reading is done for the reader’s needs – this may be personal or professional.
All about the integration of knowledge that you hold with the knowledge that others hold – synthesis.
Rapid and efficient.

Question 43

Clay

Answer 43

Clay says that when they are reading, children will notice mistakes that they make if they don’t fit with the rest of the text (and doesn’t make sense) – in this instance, the child will go back and repair what they said.

Question 44

Making links

Answer 44

You can link this when looking at books for children – the books for the younger learners will have a more predictable linguistic structure and as the reader becomes more advanced, the books become less predictable.
You could link this to Goodman’s theory about the confirmation or rejection of a hypothesis when reading.

Question 45

Perfetti

Answer 45

Perfetti believes that reading is first and foremost about increasing the amount of words the child understands.
From this, he argues, children learn patterns of phoneme-grapheme correspondence.
Following this, the child then learns to accept or reject certain patterns in certain words. For example, the child may accept that the digraph in ‘ghost’ is pronounced as /g/ and reject it in something like ‘cough’.
As a result, competency can come before comprehension in some cases (as the child may be able to say a word, but not know what it means).

Question 46

Hirsh-Pasek

Answer 46

Psychologist, Hirsh-Pasek’s research states that when a child learns to read, they first go through a stage of decoding, followed by looking at the whole word’s semantic meaning.
This is followed up with an understanding of the inferred and pragmatic meaning. Once this is developing, the child starts to gain an understanding of syntactic meaning.
Following this, the child then learns how to comprehend strings of syntactical units in a wider discourse. In addition, Hirsh-Pasek believes that reading enriches the spoken language because it expands vocabulary and explores words in new and different contexts and it encourages interaction with caregivers (‘what does this word mean, mummy?’).

Question 47

Gough and Hillinger

Answer 47

Gough and Hillinger say that children go through two key stages in reading:
The first being ‘early visual association’.
The second being ‘decoding’.
You should be able to link this to many of the other theories.