Early+Years+Readers


 * // What have you learnt about Early Years reading practice in terms of identifying suitable texts, assessing fluency and comprehension through your engagements with early years learners? // **

Through actively engaging with students from prep to grade 2 it was discovered that reading, writing and gaining word knowledge is a developmental process and there are many ways to determine a student’s phase of literacy (Hill 2006). The phase of literacy development is a guide as to the reading, writing and word abilities of students. The phase of literacy is a guide only and is not age related as student's develop at different rates and have different abilities (Hill 2006). In order to determine suitable text, assess fluency and a student’s comprehension it was revealed that a teacher needs to access student’s symbolic and social resources. This means the teacher need to find out more about what the students brings from home to school and then adequately assess and facilitate learning (Hill 2006) A teacher could conduct a reading interview to find out more about what a child already knows about reading. Our group has chosen one student as an example of what we learnt about choosing suitable texts, assessing fluency and comprehension. After finding out what Anna already knows about reading it is apparent that she has some awareness and enjoyment of reading therefore, it made it easier to chose books that were appropriate and assess her comprehension and reading fluency. An age appropriate text was selected for Anna* called //‘My “B”Book’// (1991) by Jane Belk and illustrated by Linda Hohag. The book was about a little girl called “B” who had a box and wanted to fill it up with objects that start with the letter ‘B’. Anna was able to read the book with some variation of rate to suit the text. She predominately read word by word, although she was also able to read 2-4 word sentences. Anna had some awareness of the punctuation and was able to read left to right and top to bottom. Anna had moderate awareness of expression and emphasis on words to reflect the meaning of the text. She was also able to sound out words that were unfamiliar to her with some assistance. Based on the assessment of Anna’s reading abilities she was placed at level 2 of the reading fluency rubric (Hill, 2006). Go to: @Early Years Writers Go to: Home
 *  After close analysis of Anna’s responses to her reading interview it was observed that Anna enjoyed listening to her parents read stories and was often read to at night. Her favourite book to read was ‘//Angelina Ballerinas sleepover party’// (Holabird, 2010) because “she forgets her pants and that’s funny”. Anna’s parents did not allow her to watch excessive amounts of TV and she was allowed limited amounts of TV. Anna was encouraged to read or play with her brother rather than using electronic based activities. Her family was observed to have had a very active outdoor lifestyle, such as bike riding, swimming, playing at the park and going for walks along the beach. Anna’s mum primarily read to her and Anna reported that she enjoyed her mum reading to her given that her mum read her favourite chapter books. In her family her parents read the newspaper while eating breakfast and also read books that were developed into motion pictures; the example Anna provided was “//The Magic Faraway Tree//”(Blyton, 1943). Anna indicated that she read to her parents at night and to her school teacher during school hours. When asked why people read, her response was “because people just liked to”.
 * Anna’s comprehension of the text was evaluated as very good. When asked a literal question such as “what was this book about?” she responded by saying “this book is about little ‘B’ collecting things that start with the letter ‘B’ like the Baboon, Baby, Bicycle and Bunny”. This demonstrated her ability to recall literal information in the written text such as various objects that were collected by little ‘B’.
 * When asked a more interpretive question such as “why do you think little ‘B’ is collecting things that start with the letter ‘B’?” she responded by saying “because she wants to put them into her box so she can play with them”. This demonstrated her ability to comprehend and articulate her interpretation using evidence from the book such as the ‘box’.