Readiness for Reading and Writing at the Primary level

School• First major experience the child is

exposed to outside the home• These early experiences

Mould children’s attitudes to life and learning

Develop skills that aid in growth and development of their potential

• Hurried child syndrome• Expectations and demands of

schooling leave child bewildered and handicapped for growth• Child needs to be prepared

What is readiness?

• Readiness – Essentially the state of receptiveness

– The ability to be receptive

• Time when the child’s– Physical, neural, intellectual, social and

emotional developments have advanced to perceive the problem

– to solve it with relative ease

• Readiness should be seen as– A means of increasing children’s capacity to

meet the academic demands of the first years at school

– Developmental orientation for learning rather than merely the development of pre requisite skills

School plays a vital role in readiness

It is imperative that readiness activities need to be incorporated in the primary classes

Inclusion of teachers in the development of such activities becomes critical

What happens when child is not ready?

Definition of reading readiness

• The teachable moment for reading: a point in time when the pupil is ready to learn how to read. (Dechant 1991)

• “A transition extending over several months during which time the child (student) gradually changes from a non-reader to a beginning reader. In this case the readiness program couples the (student's) past learning with new learning and brings the (student), gradually, through the transition." (Clay 1991)

Importance of reading

• Key to success in school• Stimulates thinking• Creates new interests• Leads to appreciation of

various kinds and types of literature besides contributing to personal and social adjustment

Components of reading readiness

Development of reading readiness

I) Initial stage of learning to read

• Knowledge of the alphabet/Letter recognition/associating sounds and symbol of the letter

• Children begin to develop basic sight vocabulary

• Directional orientation • Much of the reading is oral• Children realize that reading is talk

written down

Development of reading readinessII) Rapid development of reading skills

• Extension and refinement of the previous stage

• Child develops word-recognition skills

• Builds a substantial sight vocabulary

• Development of word meaning

III) Refinement of reading

• Development of advanced comprehension skills

• Attainment of study skills

• Increase in the reading rate

 

Preparing children to read

I) Developing desirable interest and attitude

• Develop interest in reading By providing picture books Pictures of children reading Read aloud stories Story making Information books Children’s craft books Newspaper/children’s magazine Visiting book fair/exhibitions

Preparing children to read• Helping children see the relationship

between the text and the experience

– Developing “Graphic Sense” (Writing carries a message)

• Bonding with books

All types of books- Picture books/ Three dimensional books/Pop-up books/Touch and learn books/cartoon books/comic books

Posters, pictures of children and adult reading

Scrap books

Preparing children to read• Providing a print-rich

environment An environment with bulletin board notices,

messages labels, dictated stories, notes, children’s personal files, labeling things in the classroom such as lockers, cupboards, book shelves, windows and doors

Name cards Glove puppets that can be used by children Reading corner with attractively displayed

books, flannel board equipped with characters from stories, newspapers and magazines

Early literacy album that is filled with List of favourite toys, food, game and so on Drawing with dictated stories Special scribble messages such as letters/ lists Wish lists

Preparing children to readII) Developing large speaking and listening

vocabulary

• Encouraging children to speak and experiment with different words and phrases (Free and structured conversations)

• Encourage small conversations between children

• Theme-based conversations

• Role playing and dramatisation

• Rhyming games

• Story telling and story making

• Listening games

• Show and tell activities to be continued even in the primary classes

Preparing children to readIII) Development of skillsAuditory perception skills

• Auditory perception refers to the ability of the brain to interpret and create a clear impression of sounds

• Good auditory skills enable children

to distinguish between different pitches volumes rhythms and sources of sounds and words

Preparing children to read

Auditory perception skills include

Children who have difficulties may have

• Problems identifying speech sounds • Poor listening skills, especially when there is

background noise • Difficulty discriminating between similar words

/rhyming words• Poor articulation of sounds and words • Kinesthetic strengths (and learn better through using

concrete materials and practical experiences) • Visual strengths (and enjoy learning through using

visual materials such as charts, maps, videos, demonstrations)

• Good motor skills (and have strengths in design and technology, art, PE and games)

Activities to enhance auditory perception skills

• Listening – listen to sounds on a CD/ real objects with eyes closed and then ask the pupils to:

– point to a picture of the object making the sound and name it

– point to a real object that makes the sound and then try it out.

• Sound bingo – listening to sounds and covering the correct picture

• Sound walk – pupils drawing pictures or writing down the names of the sounds they hear on the walk.

• Grouping sounds – animals, musical instruments, vehicles etc. Improvise the activity with words

• Odd one out – Initially with sounds such as sound that is not part of a group of sounds, eg. dogs barking, pig grunting, cow mooing, musical instrument playing. Then progress to words

• Musical discrimination – discriminating between loud/soft, high/low, fast/slow notes

Activities to enhance auditory perception skills

• Clapping or tapping rhythms – Can use pupils' names and polysyllable words. Linked with picture-noun recognition

Pupils can work in pairs, using picture-noun cards – take turns to clap syllable beats and choose the picture-noun card to match the number of beats

• Same/different 1 – listen to sets of two everyday sounds and identify those that are the same and those that are different

• Same/different 2 – listen to sets of two words and identify those that are the same and those that are different, eg. bat/bat, bat/bet

• Same/different 3 – listen to sets of two words and identify those that rhyme and those that don't, eg. cat/mat, bed/bud

Activities to enhance auditory perception skills

• Hands up 1 – Children put up their hands when they hear a particular sound/words (sounds given one at a time)

• Hands up 2 – Children put up their hands when they hear a particular sound against a background of other sounds (figure/ground auditory discrimination)

• Who is it? – Blindfold a child - ask another pupil to say a short sentence Blindfolded child identifies the child by name. Proceed to sentences later

• Sound bingo – discriminating between initial sounds

• Rhyme time with word cards

• Telephone talk

• Story telling

Visual perception • Visual perception refers to information

that is perceived through the eyes• Developing in preschool children and

continues to develop right through primary school.

• Important skill especially for school success

Helps to discriminate well Copy text accurately Develop visual memory of things observed Develop good eye-hand co-ordination and Integrate visual information while using other

senses

color perception and colour constancy

visual conceptualizing

visual analysis and synthesis

visual closure

shape perception and shape constancy

spatial relations

visual pattern-following

visual discrimination

visual figure-ground distinction

visual memory

visual sequence

Components of Visual perception skills

Children who have visual perception difficulties may

• Be unable to identify shades of colour and texture in pictures

• Confuse shapes and symbols in maths

• Confuse letters, words and objects that look similar

• Reverse numbers and letters when writing

• Have problems with learning sight vocabulary

• Find simple scanning activities difficult (eg. Word searches, dictionary work, using an index)

• Have problems with comparative language (Eg. taller than, shorter than, longer than)

• Have difficulty completing jigsaw puzzles

• Have problems with copying from the board

• Prefer to use multisensory strategies when learning

• Work with small amounts of visual material at a time

• Predominantly use phonic strategies when reading

Children who have visual perception difficulties may

Activities to develop visual discrimination skills

• Sorting – colour, shape, size and texture, move to letters and words

• Post-a-shape – matching shapes to the correct opening

• Matching silhouettes – pictorial/ shapes

• Pairs 1 – matching objects, shapes and pictures

• Pairs 2 – matching letters, using a choice of only four to six at first. Try to avoid the letters that are easily confused like b, d and p. Introduce those letters gradually

• Pairs 3 – matching words, using a choice of only four or five at first

• Odd one out – colour/ shape/ size/ pictorial (apple, orange, banana), then move on to words

• Spot the difference – visual similarities and differences between two pictures. Then letters &words(bat, but, bat)

Activities to develop visual discrimination skills

• Mix and match – making three-part flip-books where heads, bodies and tails of animals can be interchanged

• Match the detail – matching a picture of a detail (such as a window) to the picture from which the detail comes such as the house that has that window)

• Picture-word matching• Shape words – matching high frequency

words to a shape outline• Snap – matching a range of pictorial

cards• Lotto – matching word to word • Dominoes – matching picture to picture

or word to word

.

Activities to develop visual discrimination

• Words to sentence matching• Letter change (eg. cat, cot, cut) • Onset change (eg. sent, tent, went) • Odd word out – both oral and written (eg.

hand, land, lend, stand)• Pelmanism 1 – rhyming picture pairs • Pelmanism 2 – rhyming word pairs• Word searches – using high frequency words

or rhyming words or finding topic based words

• Simple crosswords• Puzzles• What will happen next? Through pictures• Post office corner- Shoe box filled with notes,

letters, cards, birthday invitations

Audio-visual discrimination• To establish association between sounds and

pictures/objects/words

Activities to enhance audio-visual discrimination• Listening games• Matching games with pictures and then move on

to words• Odd one out with beginning sounds – 4cards

having the same beginning word and one different- pigeon, potato, apple, parrot

• Command cards for action words• Activity sheets which focus on Beginning sounds,

ending sounds• Picture housie • Word housie• Substitution tables

Directionality (Left-right/top-down orientation)

• The skill of working from left to right and top to down direction.

• Is an important skill required for both reading and writing readiness

Activities that aid directionality• Book handling- encourage children to quickly

go through pages in the right direction• Activities with pattern making, sequencing,

ordering to be encouraged• Children must be encouraged to work from left

to right direction• Worksheets which focus on working form left to

right

Writing readiness

• The skills and understandings necessary for minimum success in completing a writing task.

• Learning to write is a difficult task.

• Readiness in writing begins when the child gets a good start in reading and thoroughly enjoys reading.

Prerequisites

Able to firmly grasp a pencil ( small motor or fine motor skill) Have eye-hand coordination Can follow handwriting "rules" Recognize letters of the alphabet Basic stroke formation in the form of vertical and horizontal

lines and circles Can follow verbal instructions Knows spatial and temporal words- above, below, on top of,

and between Dominant hand use Good attention span Memory skills to remember the formation Perception skills to visualize what the letter should look like Children should also know the letters in their name and

attempt to write them The willingness to try writing and drawing activities

Enhanced writing readiness enables the child to

• Colour or paint within a given shape• Trace and copy letters• Write letters• Copy complex designs from the

blackboard• Copy letters with the help of cues given• Discriminate differences between

similar-looking letters and then similar sounding letters

• Writing another word below the first• Interchanging the order of the letters

and point out to differences between them

Steps and techniques involved in preparing children to write

Developing interest and seeing relevance of skill of writing in daily life situation

Creating a need to express through writing

Developing skills

Developing interest and seeing relevance of skill of writing in daily life situation

• Develop interest in writing• This facilitates the child’s effort to

become literate and with this the learner’s desire for writing grows

• How to develop?• Posters and pictures of other children and

adults writing• Illustrated stories/ charts/pictures/words/labels

and other visual aids displayed on the walls• Bulletin boards - a good medium for fostering

interest in the written word and its meaning• Informative books• Story books with more written content• Display children’s written work

Writing tools• Children need many

experiences with tools such as paper, brushes, crayons, pencils to develop abilities not only in handling but also in making refined strokes

• Papers to write/coloured pencils/markers

• Pictures and magazines• Note pad to scribble on• Setting up a small writing corner

Seeing writing in meaningful context

• Recognition of words in day-to-day experiences. It is important because the child sees that writing is useful in her/his day to day experiences

Activities• Field visits- supermarket/ station/malls

where they see the importance of labels and that they tell something

• Reading their names and names of other children

• Reading traffic signs/street signs • Drawings with dictated stories

Creating a need to express through writing

 Providing a print rich environment

• Bulletin boards• Books• Value based stories• Chalk and talk stories• Stories made by children• Post office box• List of children and their phone

numbers• Calendars• Greeting cards• Invitations or advertisements for a book

week

Creating a need to express through writing

 Letter perception• Noticing similarities and differences

and recognizing the form of letters• Provide children with Books and magazines Domino cards Flashcards Various games and activities- Making

small words from one big word Collage composed of pictures that

begin with the same letters and then move on to words

Textured /Feely letters to make words

Creating a need to express through writing

 • Basic Strokes• Pattern writing in the

preprimary is an important prerequisite for writing readiness.

Developing skills

Small muscle development• As the children enter primary school

their small muscles are fairly well developed

• Activities that would further foster small muscle development

Jig-saw puzzles All type of creative art work/drawing

painting/Clay work Lacing Paper folding Playing a musical instrument

Developing skills

Visual-motor integration (VMI) is the ability of the eyes & hands to work together in smooth, efficient patterns & is required for writing/copying/drawing/pencil-paper tasks

It involves visual perception and eye-hand co-ordination

• High correlation between Visual motor integration and

writing readiness/handwriting skills/ coping abilities/reading/mathematical

abilities and academic performance

Developing skills

• 90% of learning disabled children have visual motor defects. (Tranopol)

• Such children have difficulty in doing the fine activities like

drawing geometric forms, cutting with scissors, tracing, copying design

pasting & coloring.• Can provide children with Lacing cards Joining dots Chalkboard board writing Writing in dramatic play (Providing print related

props- shopping lists/tickets etc) Completing mazes More time to complete written work, or the task

demand is reduced for quality, not quantity. Teaching computer skills is also a good

compensatory bypass strategy•  

The teacher

• Cannot make the child learn until the child herself/himself is not ready to learn

• Has to make the child receptive to learning

• Has to cater to differential levels of readiness in teaching a uniform syllabus

• Has to understand the basic concept of readiness

• Don’t condemn children as being dull and unintelligent

• Adopting methods of teaching and individualization.

• This problem can be overcome somewhat, but it is indeed a difficult task for the teacher

Summary

• Reading and writing follow a developmental progression in which graphic forms used convey a meaning.

• Each progressive stage of learning impacts the next more advanced stage.

• The ability to read and write depends on the methods we use to teach.

• If they are consistent with the developmental age, learning is bound to happen.

• Reading and writing readiness thus, is an important aspect in the teaching-learning process.

We are for children!!!!

Children are like wet cement, whatever falls on

them makes an impression

Dr.Haim Ginott