School to Community Connection
November 3, 2004

     It begins with listening and speaking.  And parroting back what your child says, “You want water?”  “Wawa.”  A child hears words and learns the words mean something.  He uses them to get what he wants.  It works and the beginning of knowing that sounds represent meanings grows into a vocabulary of spoken words. 

     A parent reads the same book over and over and soon her child learns that the squiggles on a page represent the same words. This is especially true if her parent points to the words as they are read.  It is through the acts of speaking, listening, and being read to that children begin to understand print. 

     A four-year-old “reads” the pictures of Prince Bertram the Bad, telling the story over and over that she has heard read.  This is a necessary step in her learning to read.  She does this with every book that she’s heard and loved.

     When the child reaches school, the teacher reconstructs and extends the speaking, listening and reading using lots of different activities.   She will read aloud books throughout the day, pointing to the words as she reads them, talking about the pictures, asking questions about what the picture shows and what the words say. Many books have patterns and the children join in as the pattern is repeated on the pages. 

     During morning circle, teachers ask what the children did over the holiday, weekend or the night before and write what each child says.  Together they read the messages over and over.  The text on the chart is left up all day for the children to read to themselves and to their friends.  It is kept in a big book for the children to return to as the year progresses.

     The teacher introduces information and vocabulary using both nonfiction and fiction stories.  She reads stories about spiders and the children dictate what they have learned.

     “Some spiders fight.
     Wolf spiders run fast.
     Some spiders don’t spin webs.
     Some spiders eat insects.
     A spider is not an insect.
     A spider has 8 legs and an insect has 6 legs.”

     The text is left up on the chart and used by the children for their own writing and for a class book.  The children read the book, Itsy Bitsy Spider and then sing it with the hand motions.  It is a familiar song to many of the children, and that enables them to read the book easily.    

     During reading groups, the child writes stories in his journal, using pictures to tell the story. The pictures are a rehearsal of his ideas.  He reads the pictures he drew just as he reads the pictures in a book.  He add details to help explain what he means.  He adds letters and words to reflect the drawings. The drawings are a critical part of learning to read and write.

     In another group, children practice what they know about reading and how books work.  Two girls share the books in the tub.  They can read some of the words on the pages and tell each other what they find out in the pictures.  They are practicing their knowledge of the story: a beginning, middle and end.  And they are rehearsing the story for the days when they can read more and more of the words.

     Often the children are working with word cards, sorting pictures and words into categories by letter, sound, or meaning.  In the group with the teacher, the children broaden their spoken vocabulary, learning the sounds the letters make, “chunking “ words into syllables and changing letters to make new words from old ones.  “Change the n in not and make the word pot.  Now change one letter and make the word pat.  Add an s and make the word pats.”

     New vocabulary the child will encounter in the story is found in the text and discussed.  Some are tricky words and are made with magnetic letters, then written on white boards and erased and written again, big and small and mashed together and spread apart.  The children read the text together and alone as the teacher listens and discusses what is happening in the story and on each page.  She talks with the children about words that stump them and asks how to decode them -to look for clues in the word itself or in the context of the picture or the sentence.  These books are sent home for practice. 

     A favorite of the students is a book called Mrs. Wishy-washy.  The text repeats and the pictures provide support for the vocabulary.

     “Oh lovely mud,” said the cow, and she jumped in it.
     “Oh lovely mud,” said the pig, and he rolled in it.
     “Oh lovely mud,” said the duck, and he paddled in it.

     This structured reading time is organized movement providing the students with a reliable sequence of events.  They know just what to do and how and when to do it.  Each activity is designed to help the child understand how words and text works.

     When children begin to decode and read on their own, it’s pure magic, and it takes place every day in our first grades at Healdsburg Elementary School.