Cultivating a love for reading

Cape Town 15. 05.11. In June 2015, 1000 schools offering Grades 1-3 will be implementing the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA). The EGRA is an international benchmarked assessment which assesses reading proficiency through letter sound recognition, word recognition and passage reading.Picture Cindy Waxa.Reporter Ilse/Argus

Cape Town 15. 05.11. In June 2015, 1000 schools offering Grades 1-3 will be implementing the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA). The EGRA is an international benchmarked assessment which assesses reading proficiency through letter sound recognition, word recognition and passage reading.Picture Cindy Waxa.Reporter Ilse/Argus

Published Jul 19, 2015

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Cape Town - Former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Anan once once said: “Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.”

I quote his words because if one is literate, you are free. Think about the world around you. Everything we encounter on a daily basis encompasses words. Imagine yourself in a foreign country, how insular you feel, estranged and limited. An illiterate person feels the same way in their own surroundings, which leads to isolation, embarrassment and possibly rebellion.

The biggest problem I find in my practice is not remediating the illiterate child, but cultivating a love for reading. There can be many aspects acting as a barrier to reading, including:

 

Anxiety

Anxiety prevents children from embracing reading in its entirety because it acts like a barricade blocking our cognitive abilities to not only read the words accurately but also pay attention to other aspects of reading such as punctuation, grammar and understanding the text read.

Anxiety can be inherent, however. Very young children often inherit and display characteristics that their parents exhibit. For example, a mother who reads to her baby whilst in the womb may contribute to calmer and reader friendly children.

A mother who habitually reads to her children every night before bed cultivates a reading routine and interest in her children.

A mother, however, who places her children in front of the television and is not seen reading will unknowingly pass on a disregard towards reading.

 

Lack of interest

I find this the most problematic to rectify because, as with anything, you don’t acquire something easily or sometimes at all if you have no interest in it.

For this reason I am going to give you a few ideas at the end of this article on how to cultivate an interest and love for reading with your child.

 

Eye problems

Eye problems are a huge factor contributing to today’s reading problems as they often go undetected. Some of the students I am currently seeing have been diagnosed with:

- Colour blindness

- Tracking difficulties

- Squints

- Far sightedness (Mytopia)

- Near sightedness (Myopia)

- Astigmatism

- Allergies

- Lazy eyes

When I assess my pupils, I conduct basic tracking and visual perceptual assessments and should there be major pitfalls I refer them on before starting therapy.

 

Reading rate

This refers to the child’s ability to read fluently. If the child reads at a gradual and staggered pace it often affects the understanding of a passage as well as creates anxiety on time constraints and embarrassment if it is done in a group setting. This will therefore exacerbate a child’s dislike for reading.

 

Visual memory

I have coupled visual memory and attention together because if a child’s attention is a problem then it will affect visual memory greatly. No concepts or rules will be able to be grasped, mastered and retained due to this. For that reason, attention difficulties should be addressed beforehand.

Visual memory means a child’s ability to recall what has been seen. In the preschool years a child’s visual memory is already being developed with memory picture games, at a later stage in primary school with sight words that cannot be sounded out like “the, where, one, two” and many more.

 

Phonological awareness

There are some words that we can analyse and synthesise (break down and blend) and this requires phonological awareness. This is the individual’s awareness of the sound and structure of the words, which is obviously a crucial component to reading.

 

As you can see, there are many reasons why our children of today and a great deal of our adult community today cannot read.

Let’s unite in reading and breaking barriers to literacy, and in turn empower our nation as a whole.

*Lee Koetser is a qualified remedial therapist with more than 10 years’ experience. She specialises in identifying problem areas and then puts programmes together to build learning bridges for pupils.

 

Five easy steps to help make reading fun for little ones

 

Stepping stones

- Make cards with consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel etc. All the consonants in blue and all the vowels in orange.

- As the child practices stepping and balancing he has to sound. B A D = bad and then the next.

- Start with all words that have “a” first, then those with “i”, then those with “u” and “o” and lastly those with “e”.

- Put the vowels in that order to separate their similar sounds.

- Make sure that each day deals with a different sound.

 

Memory word twister

If you have a Twister mat it’ll help. You could, however, always make your own.

- Spin the wheel.

- For each circle there is a sight word.

- Write them on the circles on the underside of the mat.

- Progress in the game depends on the player’s stages of readiness

- If your child has not mastered all the words then they cannot move onto the next level.

 

Ability to recognise words

- Time each attempt. This can help the correct hemisphere of the brain to recognise words.

 

Reader theatre

- Kids love dressing up. Let them act out what they read.

- You can download free scripts on line at www.aaronshepep.com

 

Eye-spy treasure hunt

This is my children’s favourite. I give a list of things they have to find in each room of the house. Each game works in a specific room to eliminate items and confusion, as well as to establish a certain category. One side of the paper has pictures and the other side (at level 2) has just the words on it. Basic words. For example, the kitchen: cup, mug, bin, lid, mop, tap, egg.

 

I hope that you enjoy these games and use them as a unifying experience with your child. Perhaps with your love for introductory reading, you will instil a passion into your child too.

Cape Argus

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