How to Teach Children How to Read and Write

There are several ways to teach children how to read and write, however, when it comes to the best approaches, learning styles may vary. If you are teaching a young child or an English Language Learner how to read and write, here are a few methods that may prove to be helpful.

Counting words: This is a great approach to helping students learn the concept of sentences. Many times it is hard for a child to grasp the concept that it takes several letters to make up a word and several words to make a sentence. You can simply give each student a number of counters (beans, chips, raisins). Say a simple sentence at a normal rate; then repeat the same sentence while pausing after each word. You can now instruct the students to put down the counters while you say the words. Have them put down a counter for each word and then discuss how many words they all counted.

Guided reading: Reading is a fundamental piece to learning. That is why it is very important that children learn how to read while they are young in order to better secure their learning future. During guided reading the teacher allows the students to read on their own instructional level while gradually increasing with difficulty. The students should use certain techniques to help them figure out words they do not know. For example, a student may read well but when they come to a certain word they do not know they read the rest of the sentence and try to fit in a word that makes sense. The teacher is there to guide them through the process by giving them different strategies to figure out the word.

-Strategies that can be used during guided reading according to Hubbard's Cupboard.

1. Tracking print left to right, word by word.

2. Matching one to one.

3. Using picture cues.

4. Applying letter and sound knowledge in context.

5. Activating prior knowledge.

6. Recognizing and reading sight words.

7. Predicting and interfering.

8. Attending to concepts of print (spacing, capitalization, punctuation)

9. Retelling a story with sequence and story elements. (Character, setting, beginning, middle, end)

10. Self-correcting.

Guided Writing: The best time for guided writing is while students are independently writing. The teacher can help guide the students through their writing process by supporting their efforts to use the knowledge that they have of print concepts. The teacher may give the students a mini writing assignment, (i.e. Write about your weekend). Then the teacher may set up a conference with the students individually to give them feedback in order to keep them move forward. The teacher could also allow the students to share what they wrote with the rest of the class.

Independent Writing: Students can demonstrate their knowledge of print concepts during independent writing. They can take the information that has been taught to them and then apply it to their own writing styles.

Shared Reading: Shared reading is a great way to teach children how to read. You can find a good book, point to the words as you read, talk about direction, return sweep, punctuation marks, alphabet letters, and spaces between words.

Shared/Interactive Writing: During shared or interactive writing, you can discuss where the student should start writing on the paper. You can model how writing starts from left to right and top to bottom. You can also have an opportunity to discuss punctuation marks, beginning sounds, words and letters.

Punctuation: You can use big books to write sentences with your students and then use macaroni to glue on the commas or apostrophes in the sentences. You can use clothespins as quotation marks. Punched out dots from hole punchers work great for periods or the dots under question and exclamation marks; and spaghetti as exclamation marks.

Spaces between words. You can teach your students about the spaces between each word during shared writing and reading. While you are doing shared writing with the students, write each word of a sentence on an individual sheet of paper and then glue or tape onto a big piece of poster board. You can explain to the students how individual words go together to make a single sentence; and how each space between the words separates each word in the sentence.

Left to Right. Have students cut sentences apart and then put them back together in the proper format.

One to One Word Matching. You can give the students pointers (tongue depressors, sticks, pencils ect.) and have them point to words on a chart or a board during shared reading.

I hope that God willing this article was of some help.