Learning to read is one of the most important stages in a child’s development, which opens the door to knowledge and independence. This process is complex and difficult. It requires the development of various linguistic, cognitive and motor skills. Teaching children to read is one of the most important tasks of early school education, but it is worth knowing the basic principles and the most popular methods that make this process easier to understand and support.
The process of a child learning to read depends on many factors. The child’s personal experiences, environment, abilities and limitations are important. This process develops at a different pace for everyone and it is worth keeping this in mind.
One of the most popular and oldest techniques for learning to read is the Synthetic Method. It involves learning from the element to the whole. An element may be a letter, a sound, a syllable, and the whole may be a word or sentence. Let’s take learning by breaking words into syllables as an example. Children learn to recognize syllables, which makes it easier for them to put words together. They start with very simple syllables like “da” to create the words, “da-da”, up to an increasingly larger range of “de”, “di”, “do”, etc.
An equally popular and classic method of learning to read is the Analytical Method. It is the opposite of the previous one. Learning to read takes place from general to detail, by introducing children to words, fragments of sentences or whole sentences.
“In this method, the basis of reading is a word, usually combined with an illustration. The child analyzes the picture and then learns the graphic notation of its name. When he was able to recognize words in the text, they were analyzed auditorily and visually”.
Jovita Vaśkević-Buś
The Analytical-Synthetic Method is also very popular. It starts with recognizing whole words or sentences and then analyzes their components (letters, syllables) and puts them back together. The child first learns to recognize the word “cat”, and then learns the letters “c”, “a”, “t”.
A relatively new method of reading is the so-called Global (comprehensive) method. The starting point are words and sentences known as a holistic “picture”. This method does not involve dividing the elements of the studied wholes or assembling them. The child learns to recognize and remember the entire word “dog” based on its shape and context.
An interesting variation of this method is the By Name Method of Learning to Read, developed by the Irena Majchrzak, which focuses on a personal approach to learning to read, using the child’s name as the first step in the educational process. The child’s name, which is the most famous and personal word. It has a strong emotional bond with its own name, which increases motivation and commitment to learning. The child learns the letters of his name, e.g. “Tom”, and learns to recognize and spell them.
Learning to read is a process that requires the involvement of both children and adults. Support, patience and systematic work are key to developing this skill. It is also worth introducing an element of fun into learning to read to make the process more enjoyable and easier by using blocks, pictures, plasticine, etc. Each child learns at his or her own pace, but the right approach and methods can make this process much easier.
Text: Marcelina Paszyńska
Source: J. Vaśkević-Buś, O POCZĄTKOWEJ NAUCE CZYTANIA, Repozytorium Uniwersytety Pedagogicznego
Photo: Ula Małek ig@ulamalek, Aoi ig@ a.k.c.y.77
