Literacy Coach
LITERACY MATTERS
ALL THINGS LITERACY, BECAUSE LITERACY MATTERS IN ALL THINGS
In our last newsletter we looked at the power of reading to help strengthen the brain and analytical thinking skills, improve vocabulary and knowledge, enhance memory and focus, boost imagination and empathy, help mental health and develop our writing skills.
The key to effective reading and comprehension is reading fluency - it is the bridge between word recognition and comprehension.
Reading fluency involves reading with accuracy, automaticity and prosody.
ACCURACY is the correct decoding of words using knowledge of letter-sound relationships. Accuracy level impacts speed and level of difficulty.
AUTOMATICITY is reading words on sight, automatically at an appropriate pace. When students can read without needing to decode, more cognitive space is available to comprehend meaning in text.
PROSODY is the patterns of stress and intonation when reading aloud (or silently in the reader’s head) to reflect emotion, emphasis or tone and make text interesting and engaging.
Reading aloud, listening to modeled fluency, repeated reading, choral or paired reading (reading together with someone), echo reading and mumble reading, text marking for phrasing and poetry recital can all help with the growth of reading fluency.
The reason we wish to continue to develop our fluency is because it aids comprehension. For this reason, effective questioning during reading is also essential.
With all this said, the key to improvement is learner agency.
Skilled readers are active, strategic, engaged and intentional. It’s our mind, not our brain, that takes on this agency to accomplish things and reach self-determined goals. AND when we recognise gains in reading performance we witness an increase in confidence and motivation to read, and this becomes a drive for further improvement.
We hold the power to improve our reading skills.
WORD OF THE WEEK
Segacious (adj) Smart and wise
A segacious teacher knows that struggling students need individualised help to succeed in school.
Equanimous (adj) Calm and in control of emotions.
She remained equanimous during the crisis.
If you're equanimous, you are serene and calm. Some people meditate or do yoga in an attempt to be more equanimous. People who are equanimous seem enviably composed and balanced.
Literacy Coach