How The Brain Learns To Read
Published on Nov 20, 2015
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
How the Brain Learns
to Read
Latasha Morgan
January 23, 2014
RDG-522
Dr. Marchessault
THE EARLY STAGES
- Prior to reading, children should get a grasp of spoken language.
- It is imperative to correct words that are mispronounced.
- Children need to begin recognizing the alphabetic code.
- Recognizing the alphabet is an excellent precursor to individual sounds.
During the early stages of reading, or the pre-reading stages; it is necessary to communicate clearly with children. The pronunciation of words will affect a child's understanding of various word formations. To avoid ambiguity, it is important to correct mispronounced words as often as necessary. This is a good time to introduce and familiarize a child with each letter and sound of the alphabet.
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
- Becoming phonologically aware is not automatic.
- It is developed through a child's exposure and instruction.
- Learning to break down the smallest words into letter segments is a great practice for this.
Because reading is not a natural ability, the understanding of all things phonological is a learned discipline. It is important to introduce a child to things like rhyme, alliteration, and syllabication in order to increase awareness. A good practice would be to play with word patterns within the smaller words. Cat, hat, bat, and the like will give a child the opportunity to recognize how words can be altered through the switch of a letter.
PHONEMIC AWARENESS
- Children are more skillful at exchanging phonemes.
- Phonemic awareness is closely related to phonological awareness.
- This practice requires the understanding of how to alter the smallest unit of sound.
Although phonological and phonemic awareness are closely related, they are not the same. Phonemic awareness involves the ability to be more specific and intent with the use of phonemes. A child who has phonemic awareness is able to recognize that the smallest units of sound are both interchangeable and can manipulate words with more ease.
A great exercise at this stage is to practice placing alternate beginning and ending letters (phonemes) to make new words and recognize the difference.
A great exercise at this stage is to practice placing alternate beginning and ending letters (phonemes) to make new words and recognize the difference.
SOUNDS TO LETTERS
- Letters are a the equivalent of a foreign language to a novice of written words.
- The ability to identify letters is imperative to memorize matching sounds.
- It is important that a child is taught proper sounds for each correlating letter.
- Letters are an abstract representation of language.
- If a sound does not directly relate to a letter, it is not as easy to learn.
The brain must memorize letters, because letters are more of an abstract symbol without immediate meaning. Learning the alphabet is a wonderful time to introduce the phonemes/letters matching sounds. Due to our difficult orthography, the English alphabet is not as simple to manuever. American English letters often have more than one sound, and a group of irregular sounds when various letters are blended.
PRE-ALPHABETIC PHASE
- The brain does not make connections naturally between letters and sounds.
- There is no real system in place to address this.
- A child; however, is able to add to his/her lexicon through visual encounters with similar patterns.
- Some word patterns can become overwhelming due to such close similarities.
Although the pre-alphabetic phase sounds as though it relates to that time prior to learning the alphabet, it is something entirely different. This phase pertains to a child's ability to use clues in order recall or remember words. Children will sometimes pay attention to the hanging of a lowercase "g" in dog, or the number of "l's" in bell, according to Sousa(2005).
A practical exercise during this phase is to have simple words printed on cards for the child to see, and get accustomed to. It would add meaning if pictures were included with the simple text being learned.
A practical exercise during this phase is to have simple words printed on cards for the child to see, and get accustomed to. It would add meaning if pictures were included with the simple text being learned.
PARTIAL ALPHABETIC PHASE
- During this phase, a child is more experienced with identifying letter sounds and combinations.
- Blended sounds become easier to read, because the child can often recall how certain letters sound together.
- Sight words are more common and the child's understanding; a little more reliable.
Recognizing words for a novice is hard, but for a child in the partial alphabetic phase; the job becomes a little less painful. Children, in this phase, are more inclined to recall more sight words. Although, they are not yet professional readers, their understanding of language and written words are connecting more and their abilities are maturing (Sousa, 2005).
An excellent activity at this time would be partner reading, where a parent or caregiver shares in the reading or recognition of words in simple books. The child will be proud of the progress, and excited to read with mom and/or dad.
An excellent activity at this time would be partner reading, where a parent or caregiver shares in the reading or recognition of words in simple books. The child will be proud of the progress, and excited to read with mom and/or dad.
FULL ALPHABETIC PHASE
- In full alphabetic phase, a child is able to make more accurate phoneme/grapheme connections.
- Recognition of consonant blends increase during this time.
- A child's memory of words is no longer based only on visual recall, but the child has a better understanding of how the sounds work...
Full alphabetic phase is a place of literary maturity for any individual child. It is the ability to not only recall words due to familiarity, but also because of an understanding of how various phonemes and graphemes, (or vowels and blended consonants) sound when placed together. Through practice, the brain has placed many of these patterns, words and sounds into the child's long term memory.
An exercise to try would be to begin writing the words and drawing pictures of what the child understands each word to mean. It is important to make this enjoyable so that the child will add meaning to this experience. Writing the words will help to shift them from short-term memory to long-term memory.
An exercise to try would be to begin writing the words and drawing pictures of what the child understands each word to mean. It is important to make this enjoyable so that the child will add meaning to this experience. Writing the words will help to shift them from short-term memory to long-term memory.
MORPHEMES
- As practice continues, the brain begins to recognize morphemes.
- At this stage, the child can see past the simplicity of phonemes and graduates to a more complex system.
- Recognizing morphemes allows the child to quickly decode words that are unfamiliar.
- Free morphemes and bound morphemes aide in the understanding of new words, or the alteration of an old word.
Being able to recognize the various morphemes of a word, allows the child to read more words with less strain. Bound morphemes, or morphemes that can only exist as a suffix or prefix, are easily identifiable and offer the child more word options. The understanding of morphemes allows the child a freedom to break words apart and examine them by their root word (Sousa, 2005).
SPELLING
- Correctly spelling words is vital to the experienced reader.
- As the child-reader becomes better at spelling, his/her decoding skills improve greatly.
- In the American English language, many phonetic rules have an exception attached.
- Many skilled readers/spellers at this point, are able to recognize words based on their morphemes.
A child's brain must connect the dots between spelling and reading words. With proper spelling knowledge, it is easier to move forward in the decoding of more complicated words. The rules begin to make more sense, but through practice; so will the exceptions. It becomes easier for a child to quickly identify new words based on proper spelling and the understanding of phonemes.
WORDS TO SENTENCES
- In line with learning words is the progression to understanding sentences.
- Properly understanding the formation of how words transform into sentences is crucial.
- Moving from words into simple and complicated sentences opens the door for better comprehension.
SYNTAX AND COMPREHENSION
- Understanding syntax is paramount to grasping comprehension.
- As a child makes the progression from simple sentences to more complex sentences, syntax becomes more relevant.
- Simple sentences are harder to misunderstand; whereas, more complex sentences can present confusion to the reader.
In the progression from words to sentences to comprehension, there must exist an understanding of syntax. Syntax is simply the sentence structure that makes meaning possible. It is important for goal of comprehension. If a sentence is written improperly, or out of order, the reader may miss its meaning entirely.
