Children's reading
Fluency in reading
While the ability to read words accurately is a necessary skill in learning to read, the speed at which this is done becomes a critical factor in ensuring that children understand what they read.
Children vary in the amount of practice that is required for fluency in reading to occur. Some youngsters can read a word only once to recognize it again with greater speed; others need 20 or more exposures. The average child needs between four and 14 exposures to automatize the recognition of a new word.
Therefore, in learning to read, it is vital that children read a large amount of text at their independent reading level (with 95 percent accuracy), and that the text provide specific practice in the skills being learned.
It is also important to note that spelling instruction fosters the development of reading fluency. Through spelling instruction, youngsters receive many examples of how letters represent the sounds of speech and also alert the young reader to the fact that written words are made up of larger units of print (like syllables). This insight lets the developing reader know that word recognition can be accomplished by reading words in larger "chunks" rather than letter-by-letter.
Other factors that influence learning to read
Good readers are phonemically aware, understand the alphabetic principle, can apply these skills to the development and application of phonics skills when reading and spelling words, and can accomplish these applications in a fluent and accurate manner.
Given the ability to rapidly and automatically decode and recognize words, good readers bring strong vocabularies and good syntactic and grammatical skills to the reading comprehension process, and actively relate what is being read to their own background knowledge via a variety of strategies.
As children are exposed to literacy activities at young ages, they begin to recognize and discriminate letters. Without a doubt, children who have learned to recognize and print most letters as preschoolers will have less to learn upon school entry. The learning of letter names is also important because the names of many letters contain the sounds they most often represent, thus orienting youngsters early to the alphabetic principle or how letters and sounds connect.
Ultimately, children's ability to understand what they are reading is inextricably linked to their background knowledge. Very young children who are provided opportunities to learn, think, and talk about new areas of knowledge will gain much from the reading process. With understanding comes the clear desire to read more and to read frequently, ensuring that reading practice takes place
A study done by the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2001) concluded that children must be taught phonetic sounds explicitly in order to learn to read.
The difference between spoken and written language
Spoken language and written language are obviously related. One of the clearest examples of this is in the acquisition of vocabulary words. Language experts tell us that in everyday conversation, we use about 5,000 words on a regular basis, and another 10,000 a little less frequently. That gives us about 15,000 "common words", as they are called.
That leaves tens of thousands of other English words. How are they learned? The more complex a text is, whether it's a book, newspaper or magazine article, or webpage, the greater the percentage of "rare words" they contain; that is, words that fall outside of the 15,000 common words. Clearly, the more you read, the bigger your spoken vocabulary.
Speaking and reading are connected through decoding. Decoding is the process of pulling apart the sounds that each letter makes, and then putting them back together to make a word. It's much easier for a child to sound out a word on the page that they've already heard in conversation, than a completely new word. There's less information to process since the meaning and pronunciation of the word are already known. A child who has heard more words spoken is at an advantage when learning to read.
Reading for young children
Many baby and toddler books aim to help with speech development by providing pictures for children to label objects. Nouns and adjectives are the most common word classes in early books that contain only a few words. These link children's literacy experiences with the equivalent stage of speech acquisition, by giving labels for objects and increasing children's knowledge of their immediate environment.
Early story books are designed to be read to children, not by them. They contain complicated words and grammatical structures that children can understand, even though they cannot read them or use them in their own speech. Children's understanding of words and structures is ahead of their ability to use them.
Books for young children aim to be enjoyable and act as a shared experience; such books introduce children to stories and storytelling, as well as often being instructional. Reading schemes for school-age children are slightly different in that, although entertaining, they have been created to help in the formal learning process, being graded to assist children in acquiring fluency skills.
Children become independent readers around the age of 8. Books for older children are still entertaining, informative and instructive, but are centered on them as active, solo readers.
Bibliography
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-do-children-learn-read
http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/Children-Reading_ep_46-1.html
AQA English Language B A2 2nd edition
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