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Developing early literacy: Assessment and teaching
Compound words Compound words are made by combining two words to make a different word, for example schoolhouse, barnyard, football, birdhouse, firefighter: some + thing some + one some + time
= = =
something someone sometime
Developmental pointers for attending to print reading Several features signify growth as children move towards accurate word reading (Ehri 1995). These features show how children begin to attend more and more to print.
Pre-alphabetic stage In the pre-alphabetic stage, children decode words by using a visual cue such as two eyes in the word look. They are not using the letters and sounds but the overall appearance of the word.
Phonetic cue reading As children develop phonological awareness they begin to use partial sound information in words such as the initial or final sound. At this stage a child may substitute the word goat for girl when reading.
Cipher or full alphabetic stage At this stage, phonetic cue reading sometimes becomes less efficient as children analyse the words more deeply. Some readers become very laboured, sounding out each letter in the word, but this laboured reading passes as the child is provided with more and more practice. With this, plus the use of a range of cues such as sentence structure and meaning, and a body of automatically known high-frequency words, their reading becomes more efficient.
Assessing letters and sounds
Upper- and lower-case letters In the beginning, teachers can observe children’s reading and writing of letters during the activities of the classroom. The assessment in Figure 10.19 can be used to find out which upper-case and lower-case letters are easily identified by children.
