Abstract
All students need multiple opportunities to read, write, listen, and speak with their classroom peers throughout the day. Literacy in any language is to be valued, and building on the child’s strengths, including their home language, will make learning to read more enjoyable and motivating. Learning to read is a social experience. The element of choice of reading materials motivates children as they learn. Learning to read must also always focus on comprehension. The child must understand that the purpose of reading is to make sense of the text. This comprehension is supported by the teacher’s careful text selection, book introduction, and prompting during the first reading of a new text. Other factors that must be considered are language structure and vocabulary that is new to the child. Children need to take words apart efficiently and effectively, reconstructing them with minimal interruption to the meaning of the text while simultaneously developing an understanding of how words work.
Beginning with Core Beliefs Regarding Teaching all Students
Gonzalez and Author (2020) begin their discussion on teaching emergent bilingual students by listing their core beliefs for teaching all students. We adhere to their philosophy and feel those beliefs need to be discussed at the forefront of an article on teaching the early reader. These tenets are not listed in any particular order but are prerequisite for successful teaching of all students.
First, we believe all students need multiple opportunities to read, write, listen, and speak with their classroom peers throughout the day. Learning is a social experience. Vygotsky (1986) states that learning requires a more knowledgeable other. However, he clarifies that the more knowledgeable other may present itself in the form of a classroom peer. Children learn from each other just as they learn from the teacher.
Next, literacy in any language is to be valued in the classroom. The child’s native language can be leveraged as a support while the child develops biliteracy by learning English. Because of this, the student’s native language must be valued in the classroom. All children should see themselves and their native culture in the literature they read and on the walls of the classroom. Providing culturally inclusive text is mandatory.
Finally, student choice in what they read and what they write is essential. Children will read and write what they are passionate about. It is that passion that will help them develop their voice. Along with choice, students need plenty of time for practice in reading and writing their own stories daily.
Sources of Information (Cueing Systems)
Our belief of teaching literacy rests upon the work of Marie Clay’s (2016) explanation of the three cueing systems, which she refers to as sources of information. These cueing systems include the semantic system, the syntactic system, and the graphophonic system. Clay explains that children move between these three systems as they orchestrate learning to read.
Gonzalez and Author (2020) state that semantic cues “...deal with the reader’s knowledge of the world and how they make sense of text” (p. 70). As young children read, they must continually think about what is happening in the story to ensure the words are making sense. This focus on meaning promotes comprehension of the text from the very beginning. This helps the child understand that the purpose of reading is comprehension, and that it is their job to be certain the text always makes sense.