Components of reading

Reading skills are built on five separate components: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and
comprehension.

These components work together to create strong, rich, and reliable reading abilities, but they’re often taught
separately or in uneven distribution.

Phonics
Phonics is the connection of different sounds with different letters, or different groupings of letters. For
example, the letter ‘s’ gives an /s/ sound, but adding an ‘h’ gives the different sound of /sh/.

Why is phonics an important component of reading?

Phonics forms the nuts and bolts of the reading process. It allows students to connect arbitrary symbols on a
page to verbally expressed language. Even if a child has no understanding of what a word means, they will
still be able to phonetically sound it out.

Phonics also develops students’ ability to ‘read by sight’, i.e. register whole words at a glance without sounding
out each individual letter. Even within an unfamiliar word, students will be able to quickly sight-read phonic
patterns (e.g. ‘however’ as a whole might be new, but ‘how’ and ‘ever’ will be sight words).

Both of the above developments translate to reading fluency. Students are able to read much faster and more
efficiently without having to stop and process the letters each time they are confronted by a new piece of
vocabulary.

4 ways to teach phonics for reading

There are different approaches to phonics instruction, but these activities will suit any classroom.

1. Rhyming games: Any activity that requires students to rhyme words will develop their phonic
understanding. This might be writing a poem as a class or mixing and matching pairs of rhymed words.
2. Flexiwords: Have students break down a word into its individual phonemes, each of which go onto
a decorated piece of card. Students then attach the phonemes (in order) to an elastic band. Stretching
out the band will separate the phonemes and helps students to view a slow sounding out of the word.
Relaxing it will reveal the word as it appears in regular speech.
3. Phonics hopscotch: Draw hopscotch but substitute the numbers with graphemes (the letters
representing phonetic sounds). Students have to jump between the different letters as they hear them
from a teacher or partner.
4. Guess the word: Students write down a set of 5 words, then place them in the middle of the table.
The teacher or nominated student then has to pick a word and give clues (e.g. “it ends with -ig”) while
the others guess what it is.
5. Word mix up: Put individual graphemes on separate cards, and then task students with
manipulating them to create as many words as possible.

Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is an understanding of how individual phonemes (consonant or vowel sounds) can be
manipulated and arranged to create words. This may sound similar to phonics, but there is a difference.
Phonics concerns letter–sound knowledge, whereas phonemic awareness refers to sound–word
knowledge. Phonemic awareness is therefore aimed on auditory understanding, as opposed to
words on a page.

Why is phonemic awareness an important component of reading?

English is written using an alphabetical system, where every letter corresponds to an individual phoneme.
This might sound obvious, but it’s not the case in other languages where characters represent whole syllables
(e.g. Japanese) or even whole words (as with certain Chinese characters).

This means that students need an awareness of phonemes themselves before they can make sense of words
on a page. For example, to read the word ‘cat’ aloud, students have to know what the phonemes /c/, /a/, /t/
sound like when put together. And it’s not easy either — phonemes have to overlap and flow together to form
fluent speech.

For this reason, studies have identified phonemic awareness as the best early indicator of a
student’s reading potential. It sets the stage for phonics, and virtually every other component of
literacy.

5 ways to develop phonemic awareness for reading

1. Phoneme isolation: Students identify individual phonemes in words, e.g. “What is the first sound
in ‘boat’?” (/b/)
2. Phoneme identity: Students identify the common sound in different words, e.g. “Tell me the
sound that is the same in ‘bike’, ‘boy’, and ‘bell’.” (/b/)
3. Phoneme categories: students identify the word with the odd sound in a sequence, e.g. “Which
word does not belong? Bus, bun, rug.” (rug)
4. Phoneme blending: Students listen to a sequence of separately spoken sounds and combine
them to form a recognizable word, e.g. “What word is /s/ /k/ /u/ /l/?” (school)
5. Phoneme deletion: Students find the word that remains when a specified phoneme is removed,
e.g. “What word do we get when we remove /s/ from ‘smile’?” (mile)

Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the range of words a student is able to understand and use in context. More of a toolbox than a
skill, students’ vocabularies grow as they read and are introduced to new words.

Why is vocabulary an important component of reading?

You can only take meaning from words you understand. Students with broader vocabularies are more confident
when reading challenging or unfamiliar material. When they encounter unknown words, they can figure it out
based on context clues or resemblance to familiar pieces of vocabulary.

5 ways to develop a stronger vocabulary for reading

1. Word of the day: Create a daily roster for students to share a newly discovered or unusual word
with the class. They could explain the word by providing an original definition, acting it out, or compiling
a list of synonyms.
 2. Creative writing: Compile all the ‘words of the day’ gathered over the week and then task
students with writing a story that uses as many new words as possible. This ensures they learn how to
use new vocabulary in context.
3. Class glossary: When reading a text or studying a topic, compile a list of unfamiliar words, and
assign them to students. Each student must create a glossary page with a definition, pronunciation
guide, sentence example, mnemonic (memory aid), and an image representing the word.
4. Opposites attract: Assign each student a card with a new word and its definition. They then have
to find and pair up with a classmate who has a word with the opposite meaning.
5. Vocab bookmarks: Have students design and create a bookmark with a space to write down any
new words they discover while they read. Laminate them so students can reuse them with a dry-erase
marker.

Incidental and Intentional Vocabulary Learning

Incidental Vocabulary Learning

Most students acquire vocabulary incidentally through indirect exposure to words at
home and at school—by listening and talking, by listening to books read aloud to them,
and by reading widely on their own.

The amount of reading is important to long-term vocabulary development (Cunningham

and Stanovich, 1998). Extensive reading provides students with repeated or multiple
exposures to words and is also one of the means by which students see vocabulary in
rich contexts (Kamil and Hiebert, 2005).

Intentional Vocabulary Learning

Students need to be explicitly taught methods for intentional vocabulary
learning. According to Michael Graves (2000), effective intentional vocabulary
instruction includes:

 Teaching specific words (rich, robust instruction) to support understanding of

texts containing those words.
 Teaching word-learning strategies that students can use independently.
 Promoting the development of word consciousness and using word play
activities to motivate and engage students in learning new words.

Research-Supported Vocabulary-Learning Strategies

Students need a wide range of independent word-learning strategies. Vocabulary
instruction should aim to engage students in actively thinking about word meanings, the
relationships among words, and how we can use words in different situations. This type
of rich, deep instruction is most likely to influence comprehension (Graves, 2006;
McKeown and Beck, 2004).

Student-Friendly Definitions
The meaning of a new word should be explained to students rather than just providing a
dictionary definition for the word—which may be difficult for students to
understand. According to Isabel Beck, two basic principles should be followed in
developing student-friendly explanations or definitions (Beck et al., 2013):

 Characterize the word and how it is typically used.

  Explain the meaning using everyday language—language that is accessible
and meaningful to the student.

Sometimes a word’s natural context (in text or literature) is not informative or helpful
for deriving word meanings (Beck et al., 2013). It is useful to intentionally create and
develop instructional contexts that provide strong clues to a word’s meaning. These are
usually created by teachers, but they can sometimes be found in commercial reading
programs.

Defining Words Within Context

Research shows that when words and easy-to-understand explanations are introduced
in context, knowledge of those words increases (Biemiller and Boote, 2006) and word
meanings are better learned .When an unfamiliar word is likely to affect comprehension,
the most effective time to introduce the word’s meaning may be at the moment the
word is met in the text.

Using Context Clues

Research by Nagy and Scott (2000) showed that students use contextual analysis to
infer the meaning of a word by looking closely at surrounding text. Since students
encounter such an enormous number of words as they read, some researchers believe
that even a small improvement in the ability to use context clues has the potential to
produce substantial, long-term vocabulary growth.

Applying the Target Words

Applying the target words provides another context for learning word meanings. When
students are challenged to apply the target words to their own experiences, they have
another opportunity to understand the meaning of each word at a personal level. This
allows for deep processing of the meaning of each word.

Analyzing Word Parts

The ability to analyze word parts also helps when students are faced with unknown
vocabulary. If students know the meanings of root words and affixes, they are more
likely to understand a word containing these word parts. Explicit instruction in word
parts includes teaching meanings of word parts and disassembling and reassembling
words to derive meaning .

Semantic Mapping
Semantic maps help students develop connections among words and increase learning
of vocabulary words For example, by writing an example, a synonym, and an antonym,
students must deeply process the word persist.

Word Consciousness
Word consciousness is an interest in and awareness of words .Students who are word
conscious are aware of the words around them—those they read and hear and those
they write and speak . It is important to build a classroom “rich in words” Students
should have access to resources such as dictionaries, thesauruses, word walls,
crossword puzzles, Scrabble® and other word games, literature, poetry books, joke
books, and word-play activities.

Teachers can promote the development of word consciousness in many ways:

 Language categories: Students learn to make finer distinctions in their

word choices if they understand the relationships among words, such as
synonyms, antonyms, and homographs.
 Figurative language: The ability to deal with figures of speech is also a part
of word-consciousness .The most common figures of speech are similes,
metaphors, and idioms.

Fluency
Fluency is the ability to read with speed, understanding, and accuracy. Yet it’s more than information extraction
— it’s the skill that allows us to ‘follow’ a text, picture its descriptions, and hear the auditory expression of words
in our heads even when reading silently.

Why is fluency an important component of reading?

Fluency is what lets students feel the ‘flow’ of a text. Struggling readers, for example, read aloud in a jerky,
clipped fashion as if a new sentence begins with every word. Others might be oblivious to the shifting tone and
pace of a text, reading it in a steady monotone with no expression. In both cases, the process of reading
becomes painful and awkward — even if students can successfully decode individual words.

Fluency and comprehension are closely tied. A student cannot fully understand the meaning and ideas behind
a text without the ability to read it fluently.

5 ways to develop reading fluency

1. Teacher modeling: regularly reading aloud to students serves as a model for reading fluency. Be
expressive and vary your pace so that students get a sense of the flow. If possible, have students read
along with their own copy of the text, so they can link it to the words they hear aloud.
2. Phrase identification: Take a single sentence and read it aloud while students refer to the written
version. Ask them to identify distinct phrases with an underline by listening carefully to the pauses.
Can they separate the sentence into groups of words that run together? Model it first to give students a
clear idea.
3. Choral reading: Read a short text aloud to your students, and then have them read it aloud in
unison. Matching the flow and pace of the group develops fluency.
4. Paired reading: Having children read aloud to one another encourages them to develop the
expression and flow needed for fluency. Pair students of different ability levels for more powerful
learning, but make sure the disparity is not too great.
5. Use audiobooks: Audiobooks paired with text allow students to link the words on the page with
fluent and expressive reading. You can find engaging audio titles in the Reading Eggs and Reading
Eggspress Library, which contains over 2500 student eBooks.
Comprehension
Comprehension is a student’s understanding of the information being imparted by a text, such as:

 who
 what
 when
 where
 ideas
 meanings.

Why is comprehension an important component of reading?

Comprehension allows students to draw meaning and information from a text, and it also transforms reading
from a purely functional activity into one that inspires thought and feeling.

5 ways to develop comprehension skills for reading

1. Drawing: Ask your students to draw or paint a scene from a written text. This encourages them to
imagine the concrete details being represented by the words themselves.
2. Questioning: Follow up reading time with open-ended questions that prompt students to think
deeply about the text. For example, if reading a narrative, you might ask students how a character
changed over the course of a story, or how a central problem influenced the action.
3. Encourage reflection: Ask students for their opinions on the text in order to encourage deeper
reflective thinking about the ideas. For example, you might ask what emotions were evoked by a
setting, or whether a character’s actions were right or wrong.
4. Make connections: Encourage students to make connections to their own lives and other texts
that they have read. Weave this into your discussion or questioning after reading in order to link
comprehension with real-world concepts your students can relate to.
5. Make reading a habit: The more students read, the more confident and astute their
comprehension skills will become.