Children struggle with reading for a variety of reasons. Reid Lyon G. (2000) posits that among the myriad of factors that contribute to difficulties in reading , the following four must be borne in mind: limited experience with books, speech and hearing problems, and low phonemic awareness.
Competent readers are phonemically aware, understand the alphabetic principle, apply these skills in a rapid and fluent manner, possess strong vocabularies, grammatical and syntactical skills, and relate their reading to their own experiences.
The writer suggests that difficulties in any of these areas can affect reading development. In addition, children with stimulating literacy experiences from birth onward tend to have an advantage in vocabulary development, understanding the goals of reading, and also develop an awareness of print and literacy concepts.
It is suggested that children raised in poverty , those with a limited proficiency in English , those from homes where the parents ' reading levels and practices are low , and those with speech , language, and hearing handicaps are at an advances risk of reading failure.
Deficits in the development of phoneme awareness skills definitely have a negative effect on reading acquisition. Therefore, children need to develop phonics concepts early and apply these skills fluently in text.
Teachers and all educators need to be aware of these factors so as to effectively deal with their students.
Sometimes I am baffled by our education system and even those in authority in society for the lethargy with which they deal with certain problems. Studies upon studies have shown that children who come from homes where the parents read to them, adjust and perform better in school. Yet very little information is reaching the parents as to their role and function in their child's success at school.
ReplyDeleteParents need to know that if they do not read to their children or practice literacy skills in the home them their children's performance will lag behind that of their classmates.To ensure that their is a consistent decline in the number of students who score below 30% in SEA examination much more needs to be done to inform the parents.
Hi Adesh
ReplyDeleteI love the title of your blog -Why read? I appreciated the way you highlighted those four factors which could either make or break the emergent reader. Although we would have gone through these factors in each of our reading courses, something about the way you stated them reminded me that I needed to work on each factor. If the student is competent in three and has trouble with any one the reader would struggle with reading and understanding content. Case in point, one of my students has terrific vocabulary knowledge, comes from a middle class background therefore he is exposed to various reading material but he has one downfall, he struggles with basic phonetic analysis. I need to maintain the other factors but focus on strengthening his phonemic ability. He was not one that was diagnosed early but it is never too late to correct phonemic challenges.