HOw to Teach Reading to Secondary Students
We have all seen or heard teachers across the country speaking about how their secondary students can't read at an age appropriate level. We can point fingers down the line, but it's not helpful, especially for the teens sitting in front of us. The time allotted them to learn how to read has passed. Yet, how can they move on? How do we move forward in our classes? Where do you start, when you're not a reading teacher and there's limited time in your pacing calendar? You can start with the Sound Book for Teens.
Teaching Reading to Secondary Students
Reading is deciphering symbols (letters) into sounds we recognize as words. Basically, letters are sounds in print. Here's something to consider: talking is a natural human thing to do, reading is not. No one teaches a baby to make sounds, they just make them. Parents and family encourage specific sounds that little ones pick up. Babies imitate sounds, then make gibberish words, and eventually begin forming real words and talking. Reading, on the other hand, isn't natural at all. In fact, it's quite difficult, which is why education systems around the world devote so many years to reading and writing. I refer to symbols or letters as "scribbles" because it doesn't matter what shape a line is curved into, a letter can be any shape. The shape isn't as important as knowing the SOUND that shape represents. A letter doesn't say anything, it represents a sound or indicates "silence." This is why we study the patterns of words. By doing this, we learn the patterns of spelling and the exceptions to the patterns. Older students do have an advantage over brand new reader, as they are already familiar with print, words, and language. Helping teens fill in their gaps (Swiss cheese) in literacy is different than teaching a younger student to read for the first time.
How to use the Sound Book with Secondary Students
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The C stands for consonant and the V stands for vowel. We use these letters to mark word patterns. A "CVC" word is a word that has a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern, like the word: CAT (consonant-vowel-consonant). CVC word patterns are 3 letter words where the vowel is usually a short sound.