Big 5 Components

Phonemic Awareness

• Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words
• Children who have phonemic awareness skills are likely to have an easier time learning to read and spell than children who have few or none of these skills.
• Effective phonemic awareness instruction teaches children to notice, think about, and work with (manipulate) sounds in spoken language.
• Helps students to read and spell

Phonics

• Phonics instruction teaches children the relationships between the letters of written language and the individual sounds of spoken language.
• Leads to an understanding of the alphabetic principle—the systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds.
• Significantly improves children’s word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension
• It is most effective when it begins in kindergarten or first grade.

Fluency

• Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately and quickly
• Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.
• Fluency develops gradually over considerable time and through substantial practice.

Vocabulary

• Vocabulary refers to the words we must know to communicate effectively.
• Oral vocabulary refers to words that we use in speaking or recognize in listening.
• Reading vocabulary refers to words we recognize or use in print.
• Readers must know what most of the words mean before they can understand what they are reading.
• Vocabulary can be developed directly and indirectly
• Directly, when students are explicitly taught both individual words and word-learning strategies.
• Indirectly, when students engage daily in oral language, listen to adults read to them, and read extensively on their own

Comprehension

• Comprehension is the reason for reading. If readers can read the words but do not understand what they are reading, they are not really reading.
• Comprehension can be developed by teaching comprehension strategies such as, through explicit instruction, through cooperative learning, and by helping readers use strategies flexibly and in combination.