English Developmental Continuum P-10 – Reading
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Word Level Knowledge: Scaffolding learning from 0.5
Indicators of Progress
- Students select their own written name, read aloud the written names of some children in the class by using the first letter of the name or other distinctive visual features of the word, and may confuse words that have the same letters.
- Students start to use terminology such as letter, word and sentence.
- Students begin to match written words with some familiar objects and people, for example, they match written names with items in the classroom and show they are aware that a written word can name an object, for example, table, door, window, book.
- Students begin to learn a sight reading vocabulary by using distinctive visual features in some words and say, for example, them, you, me, come, the, to, look.
Teaching Strategies
Before Reading: Getting Your Knowledge Ready for Reading
The text used to model these teaching and learning strategies is The Best Pizza in the World by Jenny Feely, published by Horwitz Martin Education of Australia.
Matching words – using visual features
The teacher writes the title on the white board or assembles it using cards. The students read each word as the teacher points to it. If the words are written on cards, students can select matching words and arrange the word cards in different orders and read each string of words, for example:
| The | pizza | in | best | the | world |
| World | in | the | pizza | the | best |
| The | world | pizza | in | best | the |
| Pizza | best | the | world | in | the |
Using the cards, students can also:
- arrange sets of cards to say the title.
- be shown the first letter of words on cards and suggest what the word is.
- play card games such as Snap and Bingo in which they recognise the same word.
During Reading: Tuning in to the Text
The text used to model these teaching and learning strategies is The Best Pizza in the World by Jenny Feely, published by Horwitz Martin Education of Australia.
Readers read the text after it has been modelled for them
Students hear each sentence read and then one or more students read it. They point to each word as they say it.
Understanding the vocabulary
Students work on the meanings of unfamiliar words:
- How might you feel if you were going to make the best pizza in the world ?
- What does shopping mean? What do you do when you go shopping?