The act of reading is a very complex task, especially for the young reader. As adults, we sometimes forget all the necessary components for reading to occur. For many of us, we have been reading for a long time, and since we have been doing it for a long time, we forget how we learned and feel that things just ‘happened naturally’.

However, reading is a very complex task. There are essentially two components to reading. The first component is decoding. This is where the emerging reader learns the mechanics of the reading process and happens to be where most grade 1 students are at. The second, and more essential component, is the comprehension. Comprehension is understanding what the words are trying to convey. As emerging readers, the decoding is a crucial step and the main focus so that when the reader becomes stronger, the focus can then turn to comprehension, which is actually the key component in reading and ultimately learning the material.

One component essential to the emerging reader is becoming acquainted with the “frequently used words” (sight words or common words). These are the cards with the “word of the day” that your children have been bringing home since we began school in September. Unfortunately, many of the words in early readers and board books do not follow the phonemic rules. For example, words such as the, of, because, said, some, have, cannot be sounded out phonetically and must be memorized. Therefore, consistent repetition of these words is an essential step in helping to build reading fluency. One way this repetition can be done is by having your child read the flashcards frequently and consistently. Another way is by looking at and reading books with your child often so that when they can recognize these words in print. This will help your child to better transfer that understanding more contextually as they see the words in the books. Therefore, reading with parents, older siblings, and other adults will help this transformation take place. As an aside, once your child knows the words, continual practice is recommended as knowing the words is an essential part to the writing process. Learning to spell the words is not necessary, but familiarity with the words will help tyour child to use them once we begin writing more independently in our class.

Another component to decoding is phonemic awareness. This is our focus presently and needs to become a solid foundation before reading can take place. Phonemic awareness is knowing the individual sounds (phonemes) that a word makes to help in sounding out unfamiliar words. The phonemes can be the individual letter sounds, digraphs, vowel team syllables, or r-controlled syllables combined with an understanding of the heard vowels when saying the word (i.e.  closed syllable, open syllable, magic e). The more familiar a reader is with the phonemes the easier reading becomes.

Once a reader has an understanding of the sight words and phonemic awareness, fluency will begin to emerge. Fluency is the flow in which the words are read and this cannot occur if the reader has to stop and sound out each word. That is why recognition of the sight words is crucial to building fluency.

This phonemic awareness helps to build the vocabulary and an understanding that words follow certain rules. The sight words and an understanding of phonemic awareness is not only important in building stronger readers, but also becomes helpful during the writing process especially when it comes to homophones. The spell check function does not detect an incorrect use of there, their, or they’re even though the word is spelled correctly. Again, the more books and stories read, the greater the knowledge and spelling skills.

As readers become stronger, it is important that reading continues to be modelled so that other cues continue to be strengthened by reading aloud to them. Reading according to the punctuation is necessary so that correct meaning can be conveyed. Voice inflection and expression are also needed to gather the correct information. Further, dialogue and conversations about the material helps to strengthen the overall understanding of what was read. Asking various questions about the story helps children to recall, reflect, and think about what was read. Although audio books and stories are good in listening to reading being modelled, the interactions with other people through the conversation that occurs about the story ultimately strengthens children’s learning.