UNIT
5 READING
STRUCTURE
5.0 Introduction
5.1 Learning Objectives
5.2 What does reading mean?
5.3.
Why is it important to be able to
read?/ The importance of being able to read
5.4 The methods or techniques of teaching
how to read
5.4.1 The
current methods of teaching how to read and the shortcomings.
5.4.2 Enablers
for learning to read. 5.4.3. What can we do to teach reading? 5.4.4 Some activities
5.5 Inter-relationship of reading and
writing
5.6 Let Us Sum Up
5.7 Suggested Readings and References
5.8 Unit-End Exercises
5.0
INTRODUCTION
In
this unit, we will try to understand what reading means. We will try to
understand what a person who knows how to read does in the process of reading a
text and examine what all is included in reading? We will also think about the
need of learning to read and discuss the relationship between reading and
writing. Since, one major objective of primary school is to help children learn
to read, it is important that we increase the possibilities of children
learning to read.
In
this unit, we will also talk about how the process of learning to read can be
made more interesting and the role of interesting texts in this enterprise. We
will discuss questions like whether there can be a set of pre-decided stages or
steps for learning to read. Does a child learn to read in a linear way or in a
holistic manner?
5.1 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
In
this chapter you should be able to understand the wider meaning of reading.
•
Understand the reasons for children not
being able to read.
•
Analyze methods used to teach ‘how to read’.
•
Understand that language can be learnt in
its totality and not in bits and pieces.
•
Identify the possible processes for reading.
•
Use the strategies for teaching how to read
in classroom.
•
Articulate the importance of using reading
materials and context other than the textbooks for teaching how to read.
•
Clarify inter-relationship between reading
and writing.
5.2
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO READ?
The
biggest and the most complex challenge of a primary school teacher faces, is to
help her/his student learn to read. This is difficult because reading is not an
easy skill/ability to acquire. It is very different from the oral language
which a child acquires so effortlessly in natural settings before she/he comes
to school. There are many sub-skills and cognitive abilities interwoven in it.
The important question is: What do we understand by reading? Generally teachers
think that it is enough if the child is able to read aloud textbooks. They do
not really worry about whether the child has been able to understand what has
been written in the textbooks or outside them.
Reading
is a creative enterprise because the reader does not read aloud the written
text as it is but also makes meaning of the text based on her experiences. In
reading it is important to grasp the meaning of the text. When we read, our
mind and eyes do not go into the details of the letters used, punctuations or
even each word. What this means is that we do not have to look at each
component of the sentence while reading. If we had to do that, keeping in mind
all these small details about letters, punctuations, words, etc. it would
become burdensome and boring and we might not be able to make any sense out of
what we read. And people would not be able to read at the pace that they do.
This would have made reading, even small news items, leave aside complex and
long texts, very difficult. A fluent reader, does not look at the shape of any
specific letter, word or even a sentence. (S)he actually reads in chunks,
his/her eyes constantly moving back and forth and up and down. His/Her eyes
look at a part of the written text and (s)he grasps the rest of it based on
his/her previous experience and anticipation. This anticipation and prior
knowledge of what would be there is based on the experience of the reader. The
small piece that (s)he sees tells him/her what could be possibly written and as
(s)he glances at another small piece, (s)he is able to know without going into
all details. In the occasional case that it does not connect with what comes
ahead, you go back and check again. Therefore, reading includes the following:
Reading
is to absorb meaning of the written texts.
v Reading
is to be able to form or build concepts, link ideas and keep them in mind.
v Be
able to understand the text, follow its logic and its premises.
v Reading
does not mean recognition of alphabets or being able to speak aloud words and
sentences but is much more. For example, it means understanding what is written
and using that to build one’s own perspective and understanding.
v Reading
does not mean pronouncing pieces of the word but is to be able to have a
dialogue with the texts, assimilate that into experiences and conceptual
structure.
v Reading
is a holistic process. It includes shapes of letters, the sounds linked with
them, sentence structures, word and sentence meaning and the ability to
anticipate and predict.
v The
important thing in reading is to absorb meaning from the written information or
symbols.
Therefore,
it is clear that reading is a set of abilities that help us link the written or
printed linguistic material with its meaning. In the ability to read the point
that attracts the maximum emphasis is the definition of meaning. The meaning of
reading is to read with understanding.
Check
Your Progress-1
1. Tick the most important thing about reading:
(a) Absorbing
the meaning of the written text.
(b) Reading each word of the
text.
(c) Read aloud in flow. (d) Focus on punctuation.
2. What are the different aspects included in
reading?
3. Reading is a creative enterprise. How?
5.3 THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ABLE TO READ/ WHY
IS IT IMPORTANT TO BE ABLE TO READ
We
know that in principle it is possible to construct knowledge without books.
When there was no print or script, societies exchanged knowledge, culture and
traditions without reading/writing books. Even today many societies share all
this orally. However, the possibilities of exchange and development of
knowledge have increased substantially due to development of script and print.
In today’s world books occupy extremely important position and it has become
essential to be able to read and write. Being able to read with understanding,
builds our personality and gives us self-confidence. The ability to read not
only brings us close to living in reality around us but we can also reach
places that are far away from us. Literature is one such example. According to
Nehru, reading involves understanding different aspects and changing colours of
life; our personal experiences are limited and they are extended by reading
books.
To
summarise, the ability to read helps us extend our knowledge. It makes the
reader think wider, be logical and liberal in ideas. It also exposes the person
to a wider social, cultural and liberal context.
5.4 THE METHODS AND WAYS OF TEACHING HOW TO
READ
Generally teaching
children how to read is a very difficult task for teachers. This is because there is no one simple and infallible method
for it. Each method suggested has its limitations. Nobody but a teacher can
decide which method would be appropriate in her situation. In
spite of this difficulty, once acquired, reading is an extremely energising
enterprise and a large part of life of the child depends on it. If we are able
to make the child interested in books and reading, then there is no limit to
what she can read and grow to.
The
question really is: How do we make children learn to read? If we look around
and analyse what exists, we see failure. What is the reason for this? Millions
indeed billions of children make an attempt to learn to read every year but a
lot of them are not able to read comfortably. Many children keep passing their
exams but do not find reading interesting. The reasons for these failures in
some way actually reside in inappropriate teaching.
No
teacher needs to be told what the ability to read with interest can do for the
child. It is, however, possible that the teachers may not be able to spell out
in any detail what the ability of reading consists of and how it can be
developed? But most teachers have an intuitive understanding what reading is
all about. It is important to recognise that till a child becomes capable of
comprehending material that is being read and link it to her/his earlier
experience; we cannot say that (S)he has a fully developed ability to read. In
this context, reading can be defined as the process of finding the meaning
encoded in the printed or written material; it includes the ability to read
between the lines.
If
we accept the above definition for reading, the informal or formal primary
school methods are not appropriate. For example, according to what we
discussed, reading aloud letters, memorising letters of the alphabet, repeating
the story without comprehension, reading aloud the text without comprehension
are not good activities. In these we are not able to link the written material
with any meaning. In many schools, even today ‘a’ is linked to ‘apple’ and ‘c’
is linked to ‘cat’. This results in the child reading an ‘a’ as ‘apple’ and ‘c’
as ‘cat’. Similarly, if a story is read one word at a time, we cannot form any
particular meaning for it and would not be able to establish any rapport with
it i.e. we will not be able to relate to it. Even if the statement that such
activities eventually result in children learning to make meaning are partially
right that would only be possible if the child stays in school long enough to
get sufficient opportunities to read with meaning. We have to think about
children who being bored with repeating and copying letters or words and
reading them aloud repeatedly, dropout or get disinterested beyond recovery.
These tedious tasks may lead to only a few children learning to read. We must
recognise that this method of teaching how to read is actually very boring and
unproductive. Because of this many children leave the school even before they
finish their early/ primary education.
Check
Your Progress-2
1. How we can develop the interest of the
child in reading (tick one):
(a) By using textbooks. (b) By memorising letters of the alphabet.
(c) By using interesting processes of
teaching to read. (d) By rote learning to memorise stories.
2. What would you include in a sound
ability to read?
3. Why do many children leave school even
before primary education?
5.4.1
THE POPULAR METHODS OF TEACHING READING AND THEIR SHORTCOMINGS
The
methods currently used in our schools appear divorced from the basic principles
of reading. We give below some commonly used school methods that instead of
helping the child, add to his/her difficulties in reading. We put a question
mark before each such popularly followed rule of the thumb. We are not sure
whether they really help children.
• Knowing the rules of reading quickly
This
is a useless enterprise as there are really no rules for reading. At least none
that can be simplified and defined for children. All fluent readers develop the
knowledge necessary to read but they develop it from the effort to read rather
than by being told. This process is akin to the process of the child acquiring
oral language. The child is able to develop the rules for articulation and
comprehension without being taught any formal rules. There is no evidence to
suggest that teaching grammar helps in making children develop the ability to
speak. There is also no evidence indicating that practicing pronunciation or
other non-reading tasks help in developing reading ability.
Generally
what are known as rules of reading are merely instructions that indicate the
steps to begin reading. Learning to read is not about remembering rules,
children will learn to read by the enterprise of reading itself.
• For reading, the child has to remember
rules of pronunciation and follow them
One
widely accepted view is that the ability to read comes from being able to link
sound to its corresponding symbolic representation. We, however, know reading
does not end or begin at being able to pronounce the text. We have to grasp the
meaning even before we pronounce the word unless we know the word we cannot
speak it. Converting letters to sound is not only unnecessary but also a waste
of effort. If we look carefully it is obvious that a fluent reader does not get
into changing letters to sounds. Such a process does not help in making
meaning; it rather takes one away from it. In spite of this it is often argued
that children will have to develop competence in pronunciation of the word,
part by part, as per letters used otherwise they will not be able to recognise
words they have not seen earlier.
• Emphasis on teaching one letter or word
at a time
Another
widespread belief is that some children find it difficult to learn the names of
things, some of the letters and some words. It is suggested that the only way
for these is repeated practice. This is an extreme and erroneous simplification
of the learning process. Children in initial 5-6 years of their life, learn
almost one thousand words everyday. Most of these words are names and are
learnt generally in the first attempt only.
The
process through which children learn to categorise groups or sets is quite
instructive. They look at the situation where the name is being used and
identify characteristics that can help them recognise it in future as well.
They make hypothesis to understand a concept and repeatedly test and modify it.
The errors that children make are windows to help us understand the way they
progress including their hypothesis. For example, if a child calls all four
legged animals as ‘dog’, we can then conclude that in their present
conceptualisation ‘dog’ means a 4 legged animal. If they use this name for all
4 legged animals as well as for a table, we can assume that they do not have
the concept of ‘living’. If they only call their own dog, a dog, then it
implies that they are not generalising adequately.
Children
will only be able to make such hypothesis when they are able to compare the
members of the group with non-members. It is important that they get to know
non-dog four legged animals. Children can improve their hypotheses only by
examining them or by considering the views of others.
This
situation also arises in learning names of letters and words. Showing them ‘a’
separately and repeating that this is ‘a’ will not help. They will still
continue to call ‘b’ as ‘d’ or ‘d’ as ‘b’ unless they are presented together.
Instead of showing them these letters repeatedly we should allow them to find
out in what way ‘b’ and ‘d’ are different. This requires that they should be
able to first see them together and need to differentiate between them. It is
only then they will be able to see how they are different.
• Children must be discouraged from
anticipating and guessing, always reading accurately
A
fluent reader makes maximum use of very little visible information. It is
easier to read for meaning then to read each word. Reading fast is easier than
reading slowly. Whatever we have said till now implies that reading carefully
is not fluent reading and reading without a purpose is not reading at all.
Goodman has correctly defined reading as “a game of psycho-linguistic
speculation”. It is necessary to anticipate meaning for being able to read.
This is not hunting in the dark but predicting based on available data. Data
based speculation implies better use of the available information. In other
words, we must continue to anticipate while reading and ensure that the
uncertainty in our anticipation becomes less and less and we are able to use
less and less visual information to understand meaning.
When
we read an unfamiliar, or a complex text, a complicated novel, a technical
article or something in a foreign language, even though it may feel necessary,
we know that it is difficult to move ahead sentence by sentence, continually
referring to the dictionary. We may feel that we should slow down and read
slowly, but actually the best strategy in this situation is to accelerate and
keep on reading.
Whatever
we have said so far suggests the common principle that continuing to read
itself suggests the meaning. In a text, the best way to understand an unknown
word is to infer meaning from the remaining text. The best way to find the
meaning of a difficult text is to keep on reading it.
• Emphasis should be on reading word by
word
The
fact that recognition or learning of separate words is one of the most
difficult way to learn is another reason for not emphasising word recognition.
A fluent reader uses many other hints for this. When a letter comes in a word
or when a word comes in a meaningful sentence, it is easier to recognise it.
Recognising words is not the most important component of reading. To be able to
identify a word detached from other words requires many more visible hints in
comparison to a word that is placed in a sentence. Since our ability to absorb
visible symbols and keep them in memory is limited, therefore a process
requiring more visible information makes reading difficult. The most important
aspects of learning to read is to recognise that the minimum possible visible
information should be utilised for grasping what is written.
Fluent
readers do not read words, they read the content. Reading for meaning is easier
than reading words. Children certainly know this because reading each word puts
a great stress on their ability to absorb information.
• Reading correctly and with accuracy is
imperative
No
one can learn without errors. If we do not accept the possibility of error we
cannot even learn to read names of animals, plants, trees or read letters,
words etc. Actually this is the biggest barrier in learning to read as children
may not make an effort to read due to the fear of making mistakes. The errors
made by children during reading are a natural and essential part of the process
of learning to read.
In
a learning task if the child knows before (S)he tries it, that (S)he would be
right, (S)he does not gain anything in this enterprise. On the other hand, if
(S)he takes a leap and says what the name of the object or the meaning of a
word may be and is aware that it could also be wrong, (s)he learns something
from the enterprise. It is by checking his/her hypothesis that (S)he learns to
add to his/her hypothesis. If (S)he is right, (S)he will consolidate his/her
hypothesis and if wrong, (S)he will get the information needed to change it.
• Point out mistakes as soon as they occur
It
is easy for the teacher to point out the mistakes made by the child in reading
a particular word. This, however, does not help the child. She is not reading
for word recognition, she is reading for meaning. If the child is practicing
word recognition and wants to know whether she has correctly identified the
word, an immediate comment can be useful. But if the child is reading to
understand meaning, immediate comments can in fact be harmful. This shows that
in the process of reading we are checking on what we have read all the time. We
will examine our own errors in comprehension and word recognition provided we
are reading for meaning.
• Beware of encouraging children to read on
their own
Children
often acquire many aspects of reading that are not taught by anyone else. Many
of these are not even known to their parents and sometimes not even to
teachers. For example, nobody tells the child that in but ‘u’ stands for ‘a’
(sr) while in put ‘u’ stands for ‘u’ (3). The children also realise that in
many places the letter at the end or in the middle will be spoken or not spoken
depending upon sounds around it. In Hindi for example, the child recognises the
rule that in 'm' "^' represents a full sound with a vowel.. While in W it
is only half sound without a vowel. In both ‘kram’ (?JR) and in ‘trak’ (gm) the
sound ‘r’ is complete, yet it is represented differently. You can think of many
other such rules of sounds symbol association that the child internalises on
her own. If we appreciate that the child is capable of identifying such complex
rules on her own, our method of teaching her would completely change. Instead
of purity, accuracy and correcting errors, we would then concentrate on how to
provide more and more interesting and challenging material to children.
Check
Your Progress-3
1. Natural and essential stage of learning
to read is (TICK ONE):
(a) Errors
made during reading. (b) Making no mistakes.
(c) Rote
learning letters. (d) Rote learning words.
2. While a child is learning to read,
stopping and/or correcting the mistake immediately during reading is not
considered useful. Why?
3. Learning to read is not an enterprise
of rule memorisation. Why?
4. What are the ways of teaching to read?
5. What are the shortcomings of the present
methods of teaching reading? Explain with examples.
6.
What is the proof of the statement
that “many aspects of reading are learnt on their own by children”?
5.4.2
ENABLERS FOR LEARNING TO READ
Many
occasions to read
While
teaching children how to read some things have to be kept in mind. The first is
that the material used must be meaningful and of the level of the child. The
second is that the material should be in a language that the child is familiar
with. The third is that the teacher should give children maximum opportunity to
read and understand a variety of materials. The teacher should have a
meaningful dialogue with the children, listen to them carefully and with
affection allow them to have and listen to other conversations. There is no
point in breaking up written material into letters, words, intonations etc.
Breaking in small pieces does not aid learning. Reading is not learnt in pieces
or in a pre-defined order. Reading can be only learnt by reading and children
will learn to read only when the enterprise of reading is enjoyable for them.
Reading
must be purposeful and challenging
The
reading material must be useful, meaningful and challenging for the reader.
Whenever we read something, we read it for some purpose. These could be, for
example, reading for fun, reading due to curiosity, reading to understand the
sequence of events in a story, to know what happens at the end of story, to
learn about, what is happening around and find whether such materials are even
being written or not. If they are given challenges of this kind, challenges
that give them opportunity to learn more, talk about what they have learnt and
share their experiences, they will learn to read faster. If reaching the
meaning of a text to find something that they want to know is a challenge, they
will feel inspired to make an effort. When we provide an environment laden with
written texts in a class, actually we construct an exciting classes. An
environment enriched by meaningful and challenging written material inspires
the child to learn to read.
Contextual
reading material
Children
learn language and learn to read in context. Stories and poems also form
interesting contexts. While relating a story you should stop in between and let
children complete what would follow. Many important concepts are natural parts
of the stories (for example- big, small, near-far, fat-thin etc.). Children
acquire or consolidate them easily through a story. The context of the story
introduces these and when enacted their meaning gets clearer. Besides, the
child gets an opportunity to place herself in different characters and in
imaginary situations. Initially children mimic and copy only the gross visible
features of the characters. For example, their way of walking, making sounds
etc. These may include the jumping as the rabbit, kicking as the horse, wake up
call as a cock etc. It is these contexts that help children to learn to read.
Using
familiar sentence structures
While
reading children will anticipate what lies ahead on the basis of the language
they know. The closer the reading material is to the language of the child, the
easier would be learning how to read. Therefore, it is necessary that children
relate to the material that they have read or listened to and they should be
able to find ways of using it. For example, if the child has heard a story at
home or outside and if (S)he gets an opportunity to read it (S)he will find it
easier to read.
Reading
corner
It
is important that there should be a corner in the class where selected
children’s literature is placed for children to read. These books can also be
used to ‘read aloud’ stories to the children. Listening to a story that has
been read is extremely helpful in learning to read. Whenever a familiar story
is read aloud many times children gradually absorb the order of events, syntax
and other aspects of the story. All this helps them to read with anticipation
of what lies ahead. For children, to continue to be interested in the reading
corner, good quality and new books must be added periodically.
Reading
Check
Your Progress-4
1. Which of these are enablers for
learning to read? Give reasons for your choices:
(a) Expensive books. (b) Context laden reading material.
(c) Using familiar sentence structure
(syntax). (d) Plenty of opportunities to read.
2. What is the importance of contextual
reading material in learning to read?
3. What is meant by reading corner in the
class? How would you use such a corner?
5.4.3
WHAT CAN WE DO TO TEACH READING?
We
have just read about the techniques used to teach reading and their
shortcomings. It leads to the question that, if commonly used popular methods
are not appropriate, what else can be done to help children learn to read?
We
give some techniques and activities below. People used to traditional methods
may find these surprising and even impossible. However, were the commonly used
techniques interesting and effective, we would not have to think about new
activities or methods at all.
Start
with books
It
is better to begin to teach reading through books rather than flash cards,
charts, wooden letters etc. In any case the objective is to ensure that
children can read books. Charts and other materials can be occasionally used
but cannot play as important a role as books. We, however, need to know the
kind of books needed and how to use them. Books with small interesting stories
can be useful. The collection of stories can include simple and illustrated
stories printed or neatly written by hand (the illustrations can even be made
by children.). Apart from stories, poems, songs and play poems can also be
included in the collection.
Reading
aloud a book to children
When
we read aloud to children it should not be to a very large group. They should
be preferably seated around you. The rest of the children of the class can be
given some other interesting work. The children around you should be able to
see the page of the book. While reading the book you should elaborate by adding
things from your side. Some books are very well elaborated. You may want to
shorten it for children and relate it in your own words. Reading the elaborate
story with very long descriptions may not hold the attention of children. On
the other hand, if there are only one or two lines on a page something can be
added to it while working with books. It is necessary that children be shown
the illustrations in the book and they are talked about in detail.
Reciting
and signing poems
The
ability to anticipate is an important component of reading. Poems can play a
significant role in its development. If children regularly hear poems read out
to them, they have a greater chance of appreciating the structure of the
language. It is easier to remember poems as children do not have to make a lot
of effort to remember them. Listening to them a few times, enjoying them and
repeating them ensure that they are remembered. Children need a variety of good
poems. The teacher can select these poems herself keeping in mind that they
should be natural. We have to avoid poems that merely preach moral lessons.
What we can also do is to collate songs that children sing while running
around, skipping ropes or playing games. The collection can also include folk
songs. These can take the form of small booklets with each page having a neatly
written poem along with illustrations. The teacher can prepare many such
booklets and also use older children in this preparation. The poems in the book
should be read the same way as any other book. Children should be seated around
and the book in between. After reading a poem a couple of times it should be
sung without the book and children should sing along. If the poem is of a good
quality, the children will be able to remember it and whenever they read it
they will be able to anticipate the words ahead easily. For examples, we are
giving some poems here that can be used in the classroom. Please look for other
such poems and use them with children in different ways. Consider, for example,
the following poem for Class 4:
The Quarrel
I quarreled with my brother,
I don’t know what about,
One thing led to another
And somehow we fell out.
The start of it was slight,
The end of it was strong,
He said he was right,
I knew he was wrong!
We hated one another.
The afternoon turned black.
Then suddenly my brother
Thumped me on the back,
And said, ‘oh, come along!
We can’t go on all night-
I was in the wrong.’
o he was in the right.
—Eleanor Farjeon
The
amount children would learn enjoying reading and writing such poems is far
greater than what we can achieve by teaching ‘a’ for ‘apple’. Or consider the
following poem that may be used in the middle school:
I went to the pictures tomorrow,
I took a front seat at the back;
I fell from the pit to the gallery,
And broke a front bone in my back.
A lady she gave me some chocolate,
I ate it and gave it her back
I phoned for a taxi and walked it,
And that’s why I never came back.
If
children enjoy the poem, they can make similar poems in English and/ or in
their own languages. They can also try to translate this poem into the
languages represented in the classroom.
Check
your progress-5
1. It is better to start the enterprise of
teaching to read with-
(a)
Flash cards (b) Charts (c) Wooden letters and such materials. (d) Books
2. In contrast to the traditional ways of
teaching ‘how to read’ what are the other things that can be done to help
children learn to read?
3. Why is it easier to teach reading using
poems?
5.4.4
SOME ACTIVITIES
Alphabet
recognition
We
believe that children acquire the alphabet on their own in the process of
engaging with interesting material. This is in the same way as they acquire the
sounds of language while engaging with sounds in the world. Even so activities
can help in this process. For example, activities of alphabet recognition using
stories or poems can be useful. Children can be asked, after a poem has been a
sung many times, to circle where a certain letter occurs. Then they can be
asked to list all the words where these letters (say b, d, m etc) occur. Then
they can be asked to write more words containing any of these letters. The
children can be then asked to identify the words containing say letters ‘u’ and
‘v’. We can then write some new words on the backboard and ask children to
identify different letters in them. It may be important to remember that
sometimes in the Roman alphabet the sound and the letter shape do not match
particularly in the context of Indian pronunciation. Such patterns would need
to be pointed out occasionally for children to acquire the rule. This kind of
exercise can be done in the Hindi class as well, here we can ask them to circle
Devnagari alphabet like ”ज”,”च” etc. Similarly they can be
asked to circle ”ब”,”व” which children find difficult to differentiate.
Do
what you have read
For
those children who have learnt to read it is important to realise that there
can be a relationship between reading and doing. In this activity, the teacher
will stand near the board and instead of speaking would write small
instructions on the board. Each child should have a serial number and the
teacher can write the serial number of the child with the instruction. The
instructions could be; [‘get up’, go out and bring a stone – No. 10'.] This
instruction means that the child with serial number-10 has to get up, go out
and bring a stone. The next instruction can be – [‘No. 8 take the stone and
keep it on your knee’.] Slowly, the instructions can become more complex and
could include the child finding something specific in the posters on the wall
or show the way to the hospital in a map or go and count the number of trees in
the vicinity of the school etc.
Word
before – Word after
For
this activity there must be plenty of books available. Distribute the books
among children so that each child gets a book that she can read easily. Tell
children that they should open the book at any page and look at the bottom
right hand corner. Is there a full stop at the end right at the bottom right
corner of the page? If yes, open another page. Choose a page that does not have
a full stop at the end. Tell them to read this page silently and stop when at
the end of the page. When they reach there they must without turning the page
tell the class what they anticipate to be the first word on the next page. When
each of them has shared their anticipated word, ask them to turn over the page
and check. You can encourage children by asking the class to clap if the guess
was correct. After the sharing and checking of the anticipated word is over
each child can now look at the start of another page and without turning back
predict the last word of the previous page.
Check
Your Progress-6
1. Suggest two new activities for learning
to read.
2. How do activities help in learning to read?
5.5 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN READING AND WRITING
Reading
and writing are generally considered to be different abilities. It is believed
that reading involves imbibing the ability to absorb the meaning of a written
text. Similarly, writing is a productive ability, to write whatever you want to
express.
In
elementary school programs these abilities are often considered to be
sequential. We first teach children to read and then to write. The new emerging
understanding is however, that reading and writing are not two separate
processes but are so inter-linked that understanding of and ability to read
also affects the ability to write. There are many elements that make these two
processes complementary. Just like the need to keep using words, to create
meanings. Similarly while reading the reader makes meaning as (S)he reads. The
reader keeps changing and adjusting his/her initial formulation of the meaning.
Similarly, while writing we repeatedly modify what we write. We construct the
meaning both in reading and writing. For example, when a child sees his/her
mother write under a specific date on the calendar “change gas cylinder”, the
child is not merely watching a writing activity. Obviously, in this process a
lot including reading is also involved.
In
this example of just one activity many concepts and ideas of reading and
writing are included. It is to be noted that this is an activity that happens
in almost all houses (even in those where newspapers or periodicals are not
received). Once the child understands what was done by her mother (S)he would
use the calendar in some other manner. For example, to mark the visit of grand
parents, (S)he can put a mark on 22nd October and make two faces. For this
(S)he may need help of his/her elder siblings or his/her parents. Even before
admission to the school, children see many processes that expose them to
written language and to reading-writing.
Check
Your Progress-7
1. Why are reading and writing generally
considered to be two separate abilities?
2. What do you see as the common process
between reading and writing?
5.6
LET US SUM UP
Reading
is a creative enterprise. It does not mean merely voicing what is written but
needs grasping the meaning of the written text. While reading we do not look at
each component of the written material but take a holistic picture of what we
see. Most of it is anticipated and guessed. Speculation/ guessing forms an
important part of the ability to read. The present methods of teaching reading
that include reading letter by letter, memorising rules, reading word by word,
emphasising accuracy and correctness, repeatedly pointing out mistakes and
errors, do not promote the ability to read but rather present barriers to it.
It is necessary that children are provided reading opportunities that are
interesting and linked to their context so that reading becomes a joyful
process.
5.7
SUGGESTED READINGS AND REFERENCES
Pandey,
Lata (2008), padhne ki dehlij par, New Delhi, NCERT.
NCERT,
(2008) padhne ki samajh. New Delhi, NCERT.
Joshi,
Susheel (1989), bachhe padh kyon nahin paate, Strote, Eklavya.
5.8
UNIT-END EXERCISES
1.
What are the main points about reading that
you can extract from this unit?
2.
What does reading mean? When can we say that
a child has learnt to read?
3.
Do you think we should use stories for
helping children learn to read? If so, explain with an example.
4.
What efforts can be made to make reading
joyful?
5.
What materials apart from the textbook would
you like to use to aid learning to read?
6.
Analyse the current methods used to teach
reading.
7.
Is it easier to learn language holistically
or piece by piece? Justify your answer with examples.
Assignment
1.
Make a reading corner in your classrooms and
encourage children to use it.
2.
Make a collection of songs and poems
generally sung by children. How will you use these to help children learn to
read?
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