Readiness for Reading and Writing at the Primary level

1
Readiness for Reading and Writing at the Primary
level
Vidhya Satish SIES Institute of Comprehensive
Education
2
School

• First major experience the child is exposed to
  outside the home
• These early experiences
• Mould childrens attitudes to life and learning
• Develop skills that aid in growth and development
  of their potential
• Hurried child syndrome
• Expectations and demands of schooling leave
  child bewildered and handicapped for growth
• Child needs to be prepared

3
What is readiness?

• Readiness
• Essentially the state of receptiveness
• The ability to be receptive
• Time when the childs
• Physical, neural, intellectual, social and
  emotional developments have advanced to perceive
  the problem
• to solve it with relative ease
• Readiness should be seen as
• A means of increasing childrens capacity to meet
  the academic demands of the first years at school
• Developmental orientation for learning rather
  than merely the development of pre requisite
  skills

4
School plays a vital role in readiness

• It is imperative that readiness activities need
  to be incorporated in the primary classes
• Inclusion of teachers in the development of such
  activities becomes critical

5
What happens when child is not ready?
Not able to do the task
Hates the Task
Frustrated
Vicious Circle of Non-Readiness
Anxious Tensed
Fears Work
Avoids Tasks
Lacks Confidence
Negative Attitude
Dejected Depressed
Insecure
Develops Aversion
6
Definition of reading readiness

• The teachable moment for reading a point in time
  when the pupil is ready to learn how to read.
  (Dechant 1991)
• A transition extending over several months
  during which time the child (student) gradually
  changes from a non-reader to a beginning reader.
  In this case the readiness program couples the
  (student's) past learning with new learning and
  brings the (student), gradually, through the
  transition." (Clay 1991)

7
Importance of reading

• Key to success in school
• Stimulates thinking
• Creates new interests
• Leads to appreciation of various kinds and types
  of literature besides contributing to personal
  and social adjustment

8
Components of reading readiness
9
Development of reading readiness

• I) Initial stage of learning to read
• Knowledge of the alphabet/Letter
  recognition/associating sounds and symbol of the
  letter
• Children begin to develop basic sight vocabulary
• Directional orientation
• Much of the reading is oral
• Children realize that reading is talk written
  down

10
Development of reading readiness

• II) Rapid development of reading skills
• Extension and refinement of the previous stage
• Child develops word-recognition skills
• Builds a substantial sight vocabulary
• Development of word meaning
• III) Refinement of reading
• Development of advanced comprehension skills
• Attainment of study skills
• Increase in the reading rate
•  

11
Preparing children to read

• I) Developing desirable interest and attitude
• Develop interest in reading
• By providing picture books
• Pictures of children reading
• Read aloud stories
• Story making
• Information books
• Childrens craft books
• Newspaper/childrens magazine
• Visiting book fair/exhibitions

12
Preparing children to read

• Helping children see the relationship between the
  text and the experience
• Developing Graphic Sense (Writing carries a
  message)
• Bonding with books
• All types of books- Picture books/ Three
  dimensional books/Pop-up books/Touch and learn
  books/cartoon books/comic books
• Posters, pictures of children and adult reading
• Scrap books

13
Preparing children to read

• Providing a print-rich environment
• An environment with bulletin board notices,
  messages labels, dictated stories, notes,
  childrens personal files, labeling things in the
  classroom such as lockers, cupboards, book
  shelves, windows and doors
• Name cards
• Glove puppets that can be used by children
• Reading corner with attractively displayed books,
  flannel board equipped with characters from
  stories, newspapers and magazines
• Early literacy album that is filled with
• List of favourite toys, food, game and so on
• Drawing with dictated stories
• Special scribble messages such as letters/ lists
• Wish lists

14
Preparing children to read

• II) Developing large speaking and listening
  vocabulary
• Encouraging children to speak and experiment with
  different words and phrases (Free and structured
  conversations)
• Encourage small conversations between children
• Theme-based conversations
• Role playing and dramatisation
• Rhyming games
• Story telling and story making
• Listening games
• Show and tell activities to be continued even in
  the primary classes

15
Preparing children to read

• III) Development of skills
• Auditory perception skills
• Auditory perception refers to the ability of the
  brain to interpret and create a clear impression
  of sounds
• Good auditory skills enable children
• to distinguish between
• different pitches
• volumes
• rhythms and
• sources of sounds and words

16
Preparing children to read
Auditory perception skills include
17
Children who have difficulties may have

• Problems identifying speech sounds
• Poor listening skills, especially when there is
  background noise
• Difficulty discriminating between similar words
  /rhyming words
• Poor articulation of sounds and words
• Kinesthetic strengths (and learn better through
  using concrete materials and practical
  experiences)
• Visual strengths (and enjoy learning through
  using visual materials such as charts, maps,
  videos, demonstrations)
• Good motor skills (and have strengths in design
  and technology, art, PE and games)

18
Activities to enhance auditory perception skills

• Listening listen to sounds on a CD/ real
  objects with eyes closed and then ask the pupils
  to
• point to a picture of the object making the sound
  and name it
• point to a real object that makes the sound and
  then try it out.
• Sound bingo listening to sounds and covering
  the correct picture
• Sound walk pupils drawing pictures or writing
  down the names of the sounds they hear on the
  walk.
• Grouping sounds animals, musical instruments,
  vehicles etc. Improvise the activity with words
• Odd one out Initially with sounds such as sound
  that is not part of a group of sounds, eg. dogs
  barking, pig grunting, cow mooing, musical
  instrument playing. Then progress to words
• Musical discrimination discriminating between
  loud/soft, high/low, fast/slow notes

19
Activities to enhance auditory perception skills

• Clapping or tapping rhythms Can use pupils'
  names and polysyllable words. Linked with
  picture-noun recognition
• Pupils can work in pairs, using picture-noun
  cards take turns to clap syllable beats and
  choose the picture-noun card to match the number
  of beats
• Same/different 1 listen to sets of two
  everyday sounds and identify those that are the
  same and those that are different
• Same/different 2 listen to sets of two words
  and identify those that are the same and those
  that are different, eg. bat/bat, bat/bet
• Same/different 3 listen to sets of two words
  and identify those that rhyme and those that
  don't, eg. cat/mat, bed/bud

20
Activities to enhance auditory perception skills

• Hands up 1 Children put up their hands when
  they hear a particular sound/words (sounds given
  one at a time)
• Hands up 2 Children put up their hands when
  they hear a particular sound against a background
  of other sounds (figure/ground auditory
  discrimination)
• Who is it? Blindfold a child - ask another
  pupil to say a short sentence Blindfolded child
  identifies the child by name. Proceed to
  sentences later
• Sound bingo discriminating between initial
  sounds
• Rhyme time with word cards
• Telephone talk
• Story telling

21
Visual perception

• Visual perception refers to information that is
  perceived through the eyes
• Developing in preschool children and continues to
  develop right through primary school.
• Important skill especially for school success
• Helps to discriminate well
• Copy text accurately
• Develop visual memory of things observed
• Develop good eye-hand co-ordination and
• Integrate visual information while using other
  senses

22
Components of Visual perception skills
color perception and colour constancy
shape perception and shape constancy
spatial relations
visual analysis and synthesis
visual closure
visual conceptualizing
visual discrimination
visual sequence
visual pattern-following
visual figure-ground distinction
visual memory
23
Children who have visual perception difficulties
may

• Be unable to identify shades of colour and
  texture in pictures
• Confuse shapes and symbols in maths
• Confuse letters, words and objects that look
  similar
• Reverse numbers and letters when writing
• Have problems with learning sight vocabulary
• Find simple scanning activities difficult (eg.
  Word searches, dictionary work, using an index)

24
Children who have visual perception difficulties
may

• Have problems with comparative language (Eg.
  taller than, shorter than, longer than)
• Have difficulty completing jigsaw puzzles
• Have problems with copying from the board
• Prefer to use multisensory strategies when
  learning
• Work with small amounts of visual material at a
  time
• Predominantly use phonic strategies when reading

25
Activities to develop visual discrimination
skills

• Sorting colour, shape, size and texture, move
  to letters and words
• Post-a-shape matching shapes to the correct
  opening
• Matching silhouettes pictorial/ shapes
• Pairs 1 matching objects, shapes and pictures
• Pairs 2 matching letters, using a choice of
  only four to six at first. Try to avoid the
  letters that are easily confused like b, d and p.
  Introduce those letters gradually
• Pairs 3 matching words, using a choice of only
  four or five at first
• Odd one out colour/ shape/ size/ pictorial
  (apple, orange, banana), then move on to words
• Spot the difference visual similarities and
  differences between two pictures. Then letters
  words(bat, but, bat)

26
Activities to develop visual discrimination skills

• Mix and match making three-part flip-books
  where heads, bodies and tails of animals can be
  interchanged
• Match the detail matching a picture of a detail
  (such as a window) to the picture from which the
  detail comes such as the house that has that
  window)
• Picture-word matching
• Shape words matching high frequency words to a
  shape outline
• Snap matching a range of pictorial cards
• Lotto matching word to word
• Dominoes matching picture to picture or word to
  word
• .

27
Activities to develop visual discrimination

• Words to sentence matching
• Letter change (eg. cat, cot, cut)
• Onset change (eg. sent, tent, went)
• Odd word out both oral and written (eg. hand,
  land, lend, stand)
• Pelmanism 1 rhyming picture pairs
• Pelmanism 2 rhyming word pairs
• Word searches using high frequency words or
  rhyming words or finding topic based words
• Simple crosswords
• Puzzles
• What will happen next? Through pictures
• Post office corner- Shoe box filled with notes,
  letters, cards, birthday invitations

28
Audio-visual discrimination

• To establish association between sounds and
  pictures/objects/words
• Activities to enhance audio-visual discrimination
• Listening games
• Matching games with pictures and then move on to
  words
• Odd one out with beginning sounds 4cards having
  the same beginning word and one different-
  pigeon, potato, apple, parrot
• Command cards for action words
• Activity sheets which focus on Beginning sounds,
  ending sounds
• Picture housie
• Word housie
• Substitution tables

29
Directionality (Left-right/top-down orientation)

• The skill of working from left to right and top
  to down direction.
• Is an important skill required for both reading
  and writing readiness
• Activities that aid directionality
• Book handling- encourage children to quickly go
  through pages in the right direction
• Activities with pattern making, sequencing,
  ordering to be encouraged
• Children must be encouraged to work from left to
  right direction
• Worksheets which focus on working form left to
  right

30
Writing readiness

• The skills and understandings necessary for
  minimum success in completing a writing task.
• Learning to write is a difficult task.
• Readiness in writing begins when the child gets a
  good start in reading and thoroughly enjoys
  reading.

31
Prerequisites

• Able to firmly grasp a pencil ( small motor or
  fine motor skill)
• Have eye-hand coordination
• Can follow handwriting "rules"
• Recognize letters of the alphabet
• Basic stroke formation in the form of vertical
  and horizontal lines and circles
• Can follow verbal instructions
• Knows spatial and temporal words- above, below,
  on top of, and between
• Dominant hand use
• Good attention span
• Memory skills to remember the formation
• Perception skills to visualize what the letter
  should look like
• Children should also know the letters in their
  name and attempt to write them
• The willingness to try writing and drawing
  activities

32
Enhanced writing readiness enables the child to

• Colour or paint within a given shape
• Trace and copy letters
• Write letters
• Copy complex designs from the blackboard
• Copy letters with the help of cues given
• Discriminate differences between similar-looking
  letters and then similar sounding letters
• Writing another word below the first
• Interchanging the order of the letters and point
  out to differences between them

33
Steps and techniques involved in preparing
children to write

• Developing interest and seeing relevance of skill
  of writing in daily life situation
• Creating a need to express through writing
• Developing skills

34
Developing interest and seeing relevance of skill
of writing in daily life situation

• Develop interest in writing
• This facilitates the childs effort to become
  literate and with this the learners desire for
  writing grows
• How to develop?
• Posters and pictures of other children and adults
  writing
• Illustrated stories/ charts/pictures/words/labels
  and other visual aids displayed on the walls
• Bulletin boards - a good medium for fostering
  interest in the written word and its meaning
• Informative books
• Story books with more written content
• Display childrens written work

35
Writing tools

• Children need many experiences with tools such as
  paper, brushes, crayons, pencils to develop
  abilities not only in handling but also in making
  refined strokes
• Papers to write/coloured pencils/markers
• Pictures and magazines
• Note pad to scribble on
• Setting up a small writing corner

36
Seeing writing in meaningful context

• Recognition of words in day-to-day experiences.
  It is important because the child sees that
  writing is useful in her/his day to day
  experiences
• Activities
• Field visits- supermarket/ station/malls where
  they see the importance of labels and that they
  tell something
• Reading their names and names of other children
• Reading traffic signs/street signs
• Drawings with dictated stories

37
Creating a need to express through writing 

• Providing a print rich environment
• Bulletin boards
• Books
• Value based stories
• Chalk and talk stories
• Stories made by children
• Post office box
• List of children and their phone numbers
• Calendars
• Greeting cards
• Invitations or advertisements for a book week

38
Creating a need to express through writing 

• Letter perception
• Noticing similarities and differences and
  recognizing the form of letters
• Provide children with
• Books and magazines
• Domino cards
• Flashcards
• Various games and activities- Making small words
  from one big word
• Collage composed of pictures that begin with the
  same letters and then move on to words
• Textured /Feely letters to make words

39
Creating a need to express through writing 

• Basic Strokes
• Pattern writing in the preprimary is an important
  prerequisite for writing readiness.

40
Developing skills

• Small muscle development
• As the children enter primary school their small
  muscles are fairly well developed
• Activities that would further foster small muscle
  development
• Jig-saw puzzles
• All type of creative art work/drawing
  painting/Clay work
• Lacing
• Paper folding
• Playing a musical instrument

41
Developing skills

• Visual-motor integration (VMI) is the ability of
  the eyes hands to work together in smooth,
  efficient patterns is required for
  writing/copying/drawing/pencil-paper tasks
• It involves
• visual perception and
• eye-hand co-ordination
• High correlation between Visual motor integration
  and
• writing readiness/handwriting skills/
• coping abilities/reading/mathematical abilities
  and academic performance

42
Developing skills

• 90 of learning disabled children have visual
  motor defects. (Tranopol)
• Such children have difficulty in doing the fine
  activities like
• drawing geometric forms, cutting with scissors,
  tracing, copying design
• pasting coloring.
• Can provide children with
• Lacing cards
• Joining dots
• Chalkboard board writing
• Writing in dramatic play (Providing print related
  props- shopping lists/tickets etc)
• Completing mazes
• More time to complete written work, or the task
  demand is reduced for quality, not quantity.
• Teaching computer skills is also a good
  compensatory bypass strategy
•  

43
The teacher

• Cannot make the child learn until the child
  herself/himself is not ready to learn
• Has to make the child receptive to learning
• Has to cater to differential levels of readiness
  in teaching a uniform syllabus
• Has to understand the basic concept of readiness
• Dont condemn children as being dull and
  unintelligent
• Adopting methods of teaching and
  individualization.
• This problem can be overcome somewhat, but it is
  indeed a difficult task for the teacher

44
Summary

• Reading and writing follow a developmental
  progression in which graphic forms used convey a
  meaning.
• Each progressive stage of learning impacts the
  next more advanced stage.
• The ability to read and write depends on the
  methods we use to teach.
• If they are consistent with the developmental
  age, learning is bound to happen.
• Reading and writing readiness thus, is an
  important aspect in the teaching-learning
  process.

45
We are for children!!!!

• Children are like wet cement, whatever falls on
  them makes an impression
• Dr.Haim Ginott