An Introduction to Psycholinguistics PDF

3 Reading principles and teaching Chapter 3 Reading principles and teaching This chapter focuses on the nature and teaching of reading. A number of principles for the optimal learning of reading are presented, as is a reading...

3 Reading principles and teaching Chapter 3 Reading principles and teaching This chapter focuses on the nature and teaching of reading. A number of principles for the optimal learning of reading are presented, as is a reading programme based on those principles. The issue of Whole-Word vs. Phonic Teaching is included in the discussion of those principles. The issues of reading readiness and early reading are also considered. In order to properly understand reading, an understanding of certain essentials regarding writing systems and their relationship to speech is necessary. 3.1 Writing systems and speech Writing systems are designed to represent the spoken words of a language. It is through individual words that other higher units of language, such as the phrase and sentence, represented. Writing systems of the world are mainly based on one of two principles, sound or meaning. The inventory of visual symbols of writing systems is constructed on the basis of these principles. 3.1.1 Writing systems based on speech sounds: phonemes or syllables In the sound-based system, each symbol represents a speech sound, either a phoneme or a syllable. There are many different sound-based writing scripts in use throughout the world today – for example, Devanagari in India, Arabic in Egypt, the Hangul syllabary in South Korea, the two Kana syllabaries in Japan, the Cyrillic alphabet in Russia and Bulgaria, and the Roman alphabet in English-speaking countries and Western Europe. Some of these sound-based orthographies correspond highly to their spoken forms. Among these are Finnish and Spanish, which use the Roman alphabet to represent the phonemes of their spoken languages, and Korean and Japanese, which use their own native scripts, Hangul and Kana, respec- tively, to represent the syllables of their spoken languages. (Complexities 65 AIT_C03.pm5 65 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning occur with Japanese, however, because it also mixes Chinese-type characters into its writing system even though those characters (kanji) can be written in the syllabic forms.) The sound-based orthographies of these languages are easier to read than are sound-based orthographies where the correspondence of written symbol to sound is not high, as is the case for English. 3.1.2 The unpredicability of English orthography Many works have been written on the inconsistencies of English spelling and the pain it has inflicted on learners. Let us present one such poem here. Why Wonders Lead to Blunders I take it you already know of tough and bough and cough and dough. Others may stumble but not you on hiccough, thorough, laugh, and through. Well done. That sure was fun. But, my friend, it’s not the end. Beware of heard, a dreadful word that looks like beard and sounds like bird, And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead For goodness’ sake, don’t call it ‘deed’! Watch out for meat and great and threat which rhyme with suite and straight and debt. A moth is not the moth in mother nor is broth the broth in brother And here is not a match for there nor dear and fear for bear and pear And then there’s dose and rose and lose Just look them up – and goose and choose and cork and work and card and ward and font and front and word and sword and do and go and wart and cart Yet, I’ve hardly touched the heart! What kind of a spelling system is that, ask you? Well, like me, you can master it by eighty-two! T.S.W. (Only initials of author are known; modifications by D.D.S.) What can one say? English spelling is consistently inconsistent! Why English orthography poorly represents English phonemes Being essentially a sound-based writing system, English letters are intended to represent the individual phonemes of the language. Because the Roman 66 AIT_C03.pm5 66 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching alphabet was based on the Latin language, which used fewer phonemes than English, English orthography (and those of other European lands) had to make adaptations in order to suit its language. For English, the following adaptations were made: (1) A letter could be assigned more than one sound, especially vowels. Thus, the letter a represents two phonemes, /a/ (want) and /æ/ (cat). (2) A combination of letters serves to represent other English sounds, e.g. th (think, that), a + C + e (/ei/ as in ‘ate’ as opposed to ‘at’) and i + C + e (/ai/ as in ‘bite’ as opposed to bit), where C is any consonant. While English convention also uses some morpheme symbols, e.g. 1 for the word ‘one’, 2 for the word ‘two’, + for ‘plus’, and & for ‘and’, the writing system is predominantly a sound-based one where letters represent the phonemes of the language. Another principal reason why English letters frequently do not signal the correct sound is the failure of English spelling to reflect the changes that the spoken language has undergone. English spelling has changed relatively little over the past 600 years or so, compared to the great changes that have occurred in the spoken language. Thus, no longer, for example, do we pronounce words like ‘light’, ‘night’ and ‘right’ with the sort of sound that Germans utter in words such as macht (make) and Ich (I). Such sounds have mainly disappeared from English but are still maintained in some locales (loch for lake as in the lovely Scottish song ‘Loch Lomond’). The English language had such sounds because they originated with the Germanic languages that people brought with them from the Continent and from which the English language was substantially derived thousands of years ago. A very substantial French language influence on English arrived when the Norman French conquered England in 1066 AD. The result is that English pronunciation is related to its orthography in a complex and indirect way. The origins of the English alphabet The origins of the Roman alphabet lie with the Semitic peoples in the Middle East thousands of years ago. The Phoenicians adapted it to their needs and then carried that alphabet to Greece, from where it travelled to Rome. Both the Greeks and then the Romans made adaptations to suit their languages. The names of the letters changed as well. The letter A went from the Semitic name aleph, to the Greek alpha, to the Roman ah and the English a. It was with the growth of the Roman Empire and later the Roman Catholic Church that the letters of the Roman writing systems spread north to various parts of Europe. Later, the Europeans, in their colonization of various coun- tries around the world, brought with them their alphabet as well. Thus, we can find Romanized writing being used in Vietnam and Indonesia, where it was again adapted to suit the indigenous languages spoken there. (For a detailed survey of writing systems around the world, see Coulmas (1989). For a focus on Chinese, Korean, and Japanese writing systems see Taylor 67 AIT_C03.pm5 67 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning and Taylor (1995), and for a focus on the Japanese writing system and reading acquisition see Yamada (1997).) 3.1.3 Writing systems based on meaning: the morpheme Chinese is essentially a system where symbols (characters) represent the morphemes of the language although symbols may be added to assist pro- nunciation. Japanese uses this system too (in addition to its syllabaries), having borrowed it from China more than 1300 years ago. In the Chinese system every character represents one or more morphemes as well as a single syllable. Thus, for example, the Chinese word kowtow (now incorporated into the English language) consists of two morphemes, kow meaning ‘knock’ and tow meaning ‘head’. Kowtow thus literally means to kneel and touch the ground with one’s forehead, thereby showing sub- mission or respect to a superior. In the Cantonese pronunciation (which was borrowed into English), both vowel sounds have a pronunciation that rhymes with English ‘cow’. While it is true that the Chinese symbols had their origin in pictures (as have all original writing systems), probably fewer than 50 of the many thousands of characters used today retain any direct pictorial indication. The relationship between symbol and morpheme, therefore, is essentially con- ventional rather than pictorial, just as is the case for the English alphabet, whose letters (the capitals) are themselves rooted in ancient Semitic picture writing. We can still see the stylized outline of the head of an ox in the letter A, especially when that letter is inverted. 3.2 The Whole-Word vs. Phonics/Decoding controversy A long-standing controversy that pervades reading theory and teaching methods concerns what the focus of learning should be. The Whole-Word proponents advocate that the focus be on meaning, with the whole word as its basic unit. The Phonics and Decoding proponents, on the other hand, advocate that the focus be on speech, particularly phonemes. Both schools share the ultimate goal of having children read fluently – it is the means that divide them. 3.2.1 The Phonics/Decoding Approach 3.2.1.1 The nature of reading according to Phonics/Decoding The goal of directly determining meaning from written forms is not one shared by Phonics/Decoding advocates. For them, reading is conceived of 68 AIT_C03.pm5 68 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching as a process that converts written forms of language to speech forms and then to meaning (Ehri, 1991; Gough and Juel, 1991; Perfetti, 1991; Adams, 1994; Foorman et al., 1998; National Reading Panel Report, 2000). They regard the essence of reading to be the ability to decode reading materials into speech. Once speech is obtained, they believe, meaning will follow. Thus, they pro- pose early and systematic phonics instruction starting with the mastery of a set of letters and sounds that comprise words. They want children first to learn the sound value of letters and letter combinations. They believe that children will then be able to read whole words by decoding them from their component phonemes. This view is concisely expressed in the Perfetti and Rieben (1991) argument: ‘learning to read requires mastering the system by which print encodes the language (i.e., the orthography). This mastery, in turn, requires the child to attain understanding of how the spoken language works’ (p. vii). Most of the investigators in the Perfetti and Rieben (1991) volume assume that the learn- ing of the phonological structure of a language (speech) should precede the learning of reading. There is also an argument elsewhere that phonological awareness precedes reading (Goswami and Bryant, 1990; Adams, 1994; Grossen, 1997; Goswami, 2002; Scarborough, 2002). Phonological awareness is considered to be the most important predictor of future reading success (National Reading Panel, 2000). Reading is primarily conceived of as the identification of words through the sound values of letters. The goal is for children to be able to decode written forms into their phonemic forms which can then be expressed by spoken words. This goal, the proponents of the method argue, cannot be achieved if the learners are taught by the whole-language method. This is untrue on two counts: (1) phonic-decoding training could be given following the acquisition of a stock of whole words, and (2) phoneme values for letters can be learned through the natural self-discovery process of induction. (More on this second point later.) 3.2.1.2 Supporting research evidence for Phonics/Decoding is sparse There are studies which appear to support phonics as a more effective method than the whole-language method. For example, McGuinness et al. (1995) compared first-graders given a structured phonological reading (phonics) method with those given a whole-language-plus-phonics method. They found, in the phonological processing tasks given at the beginning and the end of the school year, that children given the phonics method showed significant gains in reading real and nonsense words compared to children given the whole-language-plus-phonics method. What was not tested, however, was the children’s understanding of the meaning of items. Eldredge and Baird (1996) compared the two instruction methods for teaching first-graders (6-year-olds) how to write. Specifically, children given the phonics method took phonemic awareness and phonics training so that 69 AIT_C03.pm5 69 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning they could spell words by sounds before involving them in holistic writing experiences. The analysis showed better performance for the children given the phonics than for those given the whole-language method. But, again, we must ask what the purpose of reading is. Surely it is not to facilitate writing and spelling. Of course, these skills should be taught but they should be kept separate from the teaching of reading. (See a later section on the inadvisability of linking writing to reading.) One recent study (Wilson and Norman, 1998) reported no difference between the two teaching methods. These investigators compared Grade 2 children (7-year-olds) given either a whole-word method or a phonics-based method; subsequent reading tests showed similar results for both groups. National Reading Panel (2000) research found that successful oral reading and reading comprehension did not depend much on teaching phonics in kindergarten, and that phonics instruction affected mostly decoding and the reading of nonsense words! Other studies too have reported no difference between the two teaching methods. Traweek and Berninger (1997) even found that both methods produced comparable gains in word recognition. However, they observed differences in processes underlying achievement outcomes. Specifically, the first-graders (6-year-olds) given the whole-language method tended to acquire orthographic-phonological connections at the whole-word and subword levels, while those given the phonics method tended to acquire only subword connections. Recent research reveals that phonological awareness is more a script- related skill than an early-reading prerequisite; about two in five children have some level of difficulty with phonemic awareness, and for about one in five children phonemic awareness does not develop or improve over time (data from research on reading from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, see Grossen, 1997). Phonological aware- ness only develops in a later stage of reading acquisition for German, and it proved to have little importance in reading acquisition of languages such as Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Indian, and Japanese (Karanth, 2003). Such results clearly support the whole-word method! 3.2.1.3 Problems with the Phonics/Decoding approach Wrongly focuses on sound rather than meaning The principal problem with phonics and decoding approaches to reading, which focuses on the sound values of letters, is that such instruction draws the child’s attention to meaningless sounds rather than to meaningful con- cepts. Such methods, whether they teach letter–sound correspondences in isolation or in the context of whole words (so-called ‘decoding’), draw attention to the identification of sound elements which comprise words. Learning to read in this sense is not natural, as in learning to understand and produce speech. It is boring and too confusing a task, particularly when 70 AIT_C03.pm5 70 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching the language under consideration is one such as English. Given the perver- sity of English orthography, it is not justified to focus a reading programme on the teaching of the sound values of letters and of decoding. Decoding is a very difficult process Then, too, the linguistic fact is that individually uttered sounds usually do not naturally blend to form words, as Bloomfield (1942/1961) observed more than 50 years ago. His son was having trouble learning to read at school and he decided to teach him to read at home. His solution was to write whole words that featured a sound–letter correspondence, e.g. ‘bat’, ‘sat’, ‘cat’, and sentences like ‘The cat is on the mat’. From our point of view, Bloomfield could have done better: all of his items were presented out of context and many of them were meaningless. Unlike Dr Seuss, who rhymed words and non-words in a humorous way, Bloomfield did not present these words in any meaningful or interesting context. Many individual letter sounds that are uttered present an added bar- rier to learning because their intended sound is obscured in pronunciation. For example, the individually pronounced segments in a simple word like ‘picked’ do not, in combination, provide the intended whole word. For ‘picked’, the letter p typically evokes /p^/ (the ^ represents the u in puppy), i evokes /i/ (lit) or /î/ (teeth), ck evokes /k^/, e evokes /e/, and d evokes /d^/. Altogether this provides /p^ik^ed^/ and not /pikt/. One problem here is that the consonant sounds cannot be uttered in isolation but have to be uttered in syllabic form. Another is that the child must realize that ‘ed’ represents the PAST morpheme and not the individual sounds /e/ and / d/. Clearly, a child could not recover words by this method if the spoken sounds of letters are directly combined. In order to be successful, the child must devise and apply complex phono- logical transformations to the combination of sounds so as to derive the intended word. In the ‘picked’ example above, the child must mentally delete the /^/ from the syllables /p^/, /k^/, /d^/ in order to recover the con- sonants /p/, /k/, and /d/ so that they can then be assembled or combined with the vowel /i/. Then the child must deal with ‘ed’. The vowel deletion process at the end of a CV syllable must be done mentally because many individual consonants cannot be uttered aloud without the inclusion of a succeeding vowel, e.g. p, t, k, b, d, g, h, w. Even the simplest of words present great problems. For example, how the letters ‘a’ and ‘e’ are to be dealt with in a simple word like ‘dance’ is not easy to explain to a child, or an adult! Sounding out a new word relies on meaning How can a child be expected to ‘sound out’ a new word that he or she has not heard before? How can an adult? There are three aspects to a success- ful interpretation: one is a meaningful context, another is knowing the 71 AIT_C03.pm5 71 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning probability of certain sounds for particular letters, and a third is being able to guess the word given the information provided in the two previous aspects. For example, here is a story with an unfinished word: The boy kept on teasing the cat. Finally the cat got so angry that it scratched the boy. He screamed, ‘Ou...’ and then ran. Now, in all likelihood, you would interpret the vowel sound ‘ou’ so as to rhyme with ‘foul’ but not with ‘colour’ or ‘pour’ because you would guess the word to be Ouch. Actually we can often guess what an unknown word might be simply through its consonant structure. In English, more information is given by consonant letters than by vowel letters. For example, compare sentence form A, all vowels, with sentence form B, all consonants. Each dash indicates a missing letter. A. --e -i--- -a- -u--e- o-- a- -e- o--o--. B. Th- l-ght w-s t-rn-d -ff -t t-n -cl-ck. You might be able to get B, but it is highly unlikely that you would be able to get A. The sentence for both is: ‘The light was turned off at ten o’clock.’ Such a strategy, though, can only be used by a knowledgeable reader. The more words that one knows and can deal with in a meaningful context, the more likely one is able to guess correctly at new words. 3.2.2 The Whole-Word Approach 3.2.2.1 Teaching reading should focus on meaning and communication and not on speech In the view of the Whole-Word proponents, the essential task for a reader is the recovery of meaning (Huey, 1908; Gates, 1928; Goodman, 1973; F. Smith, 1982, among many others). Whether a reader can say or write the words that are written is incidental to the reading process. Reading is a form of communication the goal of which is the reception of information through written forms. A teaching programme, consequently, should direct itself to the realization of that goal. Best suited to this aim is the whole-word approach. There is, of course, some irony in the proposal for teaching reading through whole words, in that it advocates that English writing, which mainly has an alphabetic character, be treated for teaching purposes as though it were a morpheme writing system like Chinese. Memory ability of children Children have the memory capacity for learning to identify many hundreds of whole words (see a later section regarding the data gathered in the course 72 AIT_C03.pm5 72 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching of applying our teaching method). Young children can acquire thousands of speech vocabulary items in a relatively short time. The memorization of thousands of written forms poses no special problem for children either, so long as a proper teaching method is used. 3.2.2.2 Fluent readers use a whole-word strategy Actually, all fluent English readers eventually learn to identify whole words as if they were Chinese characters; even the proponents of the Phonics/ Decoding Approach admit the fact (see, for example, Byrne, 1992, or Adams, 1994). The time taken to read a page of text aloud is much longer than when the same page is read silently. Experimental evidence as far back as the last century (Cattell, 1885) shows that fluent readers use a whole-word strategy in identifying words. The work of Goodman (1973), Kolers (1970), and others reinforces this view. They find that the prediction of meaning is the major strategy (not the decoding of letter–sound correspondences) used in the identification of words. Readers of this book can try to conduct a quick experiment on whole- word recognition for themselves. The following paragraph has been circulat- ing on the Internet since 2003. Though the spelling is imperfect, the meaning can still be recovered: Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Since it is the case that learning to recognize whole words is basic to being a fluent reader, the learning of whole words right from the start will be easier and more effective for readers in the long run. Instilling early in children the habit of decoding every word they come upon will slow the speed of reading. 3.2.2.3 Children learn to segment their native language, morphemically, syntactically, and phonologically, by induction All children in learning their native language have the ability to learn the vocabulary and syntactic structures of their language, not by being taught but through the process of self-analysis, i.e. induction. No one tells the child learning a first language what the individual sounds of the PLURAL, PAST, and the AUXILIARY ‘be’ morphemes are. (See Chapter 1 for a list of common morphemes learned by young children.) Neither do parents teach their children the component phonemes of a word. What they do is simply utter the whole word. They say whole words like ‘pushed’, ‘Grandma’s’, ‘cats’, and ‘is playing’, and leave it to the child to do the segmenting. They don’t say ‘pu’ + ‘sh^’ + ‘d^’, or some such thing 73 AIT_C03.pm5 73 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning for ‘pushed’. The fact that children produce words that they have never heard such as ‘breaked’, ‘comed’, ‘mouses’, and ‘brung’ through sound substitutions (see Chapter 1) demonstrates that they do learn sound segmentation on their own and do manipulate phonemes. Clearly, in dealing with the speech they receive, children apply great analytical skill. They take whole data (words, phrases, sentences) as input, search for regularities, and then formulate rules that underlie those data. This may sound formidable but it really pales before the remarkable analytical capacity that all children display in learning the syntax and phonology of a language. None of this grammar is taught! Learning is through induction. Thus, learning the systematic letter–sound correspondences that are inherent in whole written-word data is a much less formidable task than the learning of the native language. It is this same natural order which we wish to apply to reading: whole words first and then the sound values of letters, if necessary, later. Learning phonological segments in first-language learning by induction Rather than attempting to teach children to read words by requiring them to pronounce sounds aloud for letters and then blending those uttered sounds, it would be better if children learned the sound values of letters mentally by induction, i.e. self-analysis. The child would then blend those sounds men- tally to form words. As was noted earlier, the sound value of letters may be introduced, but this should be done only after the child (1) has learned the basic principle that written forms represent meanings, and (2) has learned to read at least 50 words. If it is to be applied at all, the teaching of sound values and decoding should only be a minor aspect of the reading pro- gramme. Determining the meaning of written items is primary, while the speech value of letters, while important, is secondary. It is from this standpoint that we formulate our approach to the teaching of reading. 3.2.2.4 Research evidence in support of learning letter–sound values by induction Research generally shows that children can learn letter–sound correspond- ences on their own by induction. Gates (1928) determined, on the basis of relatively long-term studies with a large number of English-speaking elementary-school children, that the sound values of letters could be learned without instruction simply through the learning of whole words. Other long-term case studies with pre-school children also support the findings of Gates. For example, Söderbergh (1971) found that her Swedish-speaking female subject learned all of the letter–sound correspondences necessary for reading without direct instruction and without any special order of materials. Similar results were found by Steinberg and Steinberg (1975) with their 74 AIT_C03.pm5 74 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching English-speaking 2-year-old. Other studies by Steinberg (1980, 1981) show that the sound forms of letters are learned by induction; separate teaching of those individual components was not given. Recently Fletcher-Flinn and Thompson (2000) have also provided substantial results for the whole-word approach with a 3-year-old girl. Because particular letters do not always correspond to particular sounds, due to the nature of English orthography, correspondence rules between phonological and orthographic components were necessarily extracted by children through induction (self-analysis). English research: words are learned faster than letters Research evidence shows that meaningful words are easier to learn than meaningless items such as letters. For example, a study with English- speaking pre-school children who could not read showed that written words were learned twice as fast as letters (Steinberg et al., 1979). Thus, words such as ‘finish’ and ‘dollar’ were learned twice as fast as the single letters ‘a’ and ‘n’. The words were named as they usually are and the letters were called by their phonic names. Interestingly, in Steinberg and Koono (1981) a separate experimental group of English-speaking pre-school children was presented with the same written words and letters, i.e. ‘finish’, ‘dollar’, ‘a’, ‘n’, but this time the written words were called by phonic letter names, e.g. ‘finish’ was called ‘a’, and ‘dollar’ was called ‘n’, while, conversely, the written letters were identified by speech words, i.e. ‘a’ was called ‘finish’ and ‘n’ was called ‘dollar’. The results decisively showed that written items (individual letters) called by speech words were learned much faster than the written items (words) called by letter names. The results were the reverse for the children (in the previous paragraph) who had written items called by their usual names. These findings show that the visual complexity of what is written plays only a minor role in learning and that what is most important is what is said together with a written form. This indicates that meaningful spoken words lead to much greater learning than do meaningless letter names. Japanese research: words are learned faster than letters In research with Japanese children in Japan, similar results were found. Pre-school children learned meaningful complex Chinese characters (kanji) faster than meaningless simple syllable symbols (kana) (Steinberg et al., 1977; Steinberg and Yamada, 1978–9). Thus, even though a word written in kanji was more complex in form than an individual kana, the children learned the kanji word faster. A word written in kanji like ‘kusuri’ (medicine) was learned faster than a kana syllable sound like ‘ku’ (which had no meaning for young children). To demonstrate that it was not the shape or complexity of the written form that was determining the learning, a separate matched experimental group 75 AIT_C03.pm5 75 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning Figure 3.1 Speed of learning kanji and kana is governed by meaningfulness of spoken word Notes Learning outcomes are shown as fast or slow. There are two lines of outcomes. Thus: Line 1, left side: A kanji written form and an uttered word yields fast learning. Line 1, right side: A kanji written form and an uttered syllable yields slow learning. Line 2, left side: A kana written form and an uttered word yields fast learning. Line 2, right side: A kana written form and an uttered syllable yields slow learning. Conclusions: Learning is fast when a meaningful word is uttered, regardless of whether a kanji or kana written form is shown. Learning is slow when a meaningless syllable is uttered, regardless of whether a kanji or kana written form is shown. of children were given the same items to learn (Steinberg et al., 1977), but with a difference: the written kanji were identified by the experimenters with the syllable names of the kana, and the written kana were identified with the word names of the kanji. The result was that this time the kana were learned faster. The written kana ‘ku’ was called ‘kusuri’ (medicine) and was learned faster than the written kanji word ‘kusuri’ that was called ‘ku’. Thus, consider Figure 3.1. Learning is ‘fast’ whenever the spoken form is a word, regardless of whether the written form is a kanji or a kana. It is ‘slow’ whenever the spoken form is a syllable. The speed of learning the written form varies according to whether it is a word or a syllable that is spoken. Thus we see that the kanji written form is learned fast when it is called by the meaningful word ‘kusuri’ (medicine) but it is learned slowly when it is called by the meaningless ‘ku’. This demonstrates that what was most important in the learning was the meaningfulness of what was spoken and not the visual complexity of the written form. A spoken word such as ‘kusuri’ was learned faster than a spoken syllable like ‘ku’. Since the difference between ‘kusuri’ and ‘ku’ is their meaningfulness (only ‘kusuri’ is meaningful), the controlling variable is that of meaningfulness. Counter to the expectations of some that a simple 76 AIT_C03.pm5 76 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching written form (the kana) would be learned faster than a complex written form (the kanji), the opposite was the case. The visual complexity of the written form had no observable effect on learning. This is not to say that the visual complexity of a written form has no effect on learning. It may, but its effect could not be detected in this experiment. At best, its effect is minuscule compared to the meaningfulness of the spoken words. Other short-term experimental support for induction More support for the induction of letter-sound correspondences has been obtained in some short-term experiments. Bishop (1964), Skailand (1971), and Steinberg (1981) found evidence of letter–sound inductions. In the Steinberg experimental study Japanese pre-school children were given whole words written in syllabic kana and were told what each word was. After a number of presentations, the children learned on their own the syllable sound values of the component kana symbols that made up each word; the ultimate test was the children’s being able to read novel and meaningless words constructed of the induced kana sound values. Jeffrey and Samuels (1967) and Silberman (1964), however, found little or no spontaneous induction occurring in their research. In examining these latter studies and others like them, though, it is evident that a number of important variables were often not dealt with adequately. For example, some studies did not give learners a sufficient amount of time for training and for arriving at a solution. Thus, the one short session given in the Jeffrey and Samuels experiment may well have been insufficient, as indic- ated by Gibson and Levin (1975, p. 291). 3.2.2.5 Learning to discriminate individual letter shapes: best in a word In order to read different words children must become aware of the differ- ent shapes of letters. They must learn to distinguish the perceptual shape of o from c from d, etc. One way this could be done is to try to teach children the names of the letters, ‘ey’, ‘bee’, ‘see’, etc. However, after learning some of the initial letters, a, b, and c, there is not much to interest a child in p, q, r, etc. Then, too, because focusing on the names of letters detracts from their symbolic function, which is to represent words of the language, such teaching should only be done after a number of whole words have been learned. There are good reasons that, if letter names are to be taught, such teaching should be in the context of a whole word. Consider that for almost every other object in our world the orientation in space of that object does not change its value. For example, whichever way a shoe is placed – with the sole facing the floor, facing the ceiling, facing to the left, etc. – it is still a shoe. A hat is a hat and a rose is a rose no matter which way they are held (‘object constancy’, in Piaget’s terms). 77 AIT_C03.pm5 77 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning However, consider the letters b, d, p, q. Actually, each is composed of the same shaped object but what distinguishes them from one another is that object’s orientation in space. In one position it is a ‘bee’, another a ‘dee’, and so on. Different orientations give different values. The same is true to a lesser degree for the letters u, n, and v, for m and w, and for s and z. This gives us a total of 11 letters (out of 26) that share the same shape with one or more other letters. It is not surprising that when first given a word on a card the child will hold it in a variety of positions. What the child has to learn is the proper orientation of letters. This is best done through learning whole words. It is the whole word that provides the necessary context for the proper identifica- tion of these letters. (The first author has found that drawing a line under the letters of the word will help the child as to orientation, and placing a dot under the first letter will give the child a clue as to the directionality of the writing – the teacher or parent takes the child’s index finger, places it on the dot, and then draws the finger along the line from left to right.) Some children have more trouble than others in identifying letters out of context; often these are left-handers and ambidextrous (either hand) persons. Sometimes such children perceive mirror or reversed images of letters. Thus, when looking at letters in isolation, they will fall into many per- ceptual traps. Whole words will help avoid this by providing a context of other letters. It is better to teach whole words and let children discover for themselves how to discriminate the shapes of the individual letters. Children could, for example, be given a number of whole words, three for instance, with each word written on a card, e.g. ‘doggie’, ‘barked’, ‘auntie’. A duplicate of each of these words would also be made. All six cards would then be mixed up. Then the child can be asked if any two words are the same or different. Having children inspect different words, some of which are different and some of which are the same, is a good way to get them thinking about the different shapes of the letters. This is the same process of induction that children apply in segmenting whole speech words into phonemes and syllables in the learning of their native language. 3.2.2.6 Reading should involve only meaningful words, phrases, and sentences Only the written forms of a word, phrase, or sentence for which the child knows the meaning in speech should be selected for teaching. This will make the learning of such words easier for the child. It is easy to avoid non- meaningful items because even the average 3-year-old child can understand over a thousand words in speech. This is a large enough stock to work with. Those who advocate beginning the teaching of reading with whole words are divided on the question of whether whole-word teaching is sufficient. Gray (1948) believed that instruction on letter–sound correspondences should 78 AIT_C03.pm5 78 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching be given, after a large number of whole words were learned. Gates (1928), on the other hand, believed that whole-word teaching was sufficient, i.e. no other instruction was necessary. Try to select personal items In selecting written words, phrases, or sentences that are to be taught, it is not enough that such items be familiar to the child. It is also important that they relate to some sort of personal context, i.e. to objects, experiences, actions, situations, or events in the child’s immediate environment, e.g. car, television, hot, drinking juice, going to the store. Items from stories which the child likes and is familiar with could also be included. It is not advisable to teach isolated items or prescribed vocabularies, even though the child may know the meaning of such items. For, without a personal context, such items have relatively little interest for the child and consequently are more difficult to learn and remember. At times in the past, whole-word teaching was not as successful as it might have been because so often the items taught were not meaningful or did not relate to the child’s personal and immediate life experiences. 3.2.2.7 Reading should not depend on teaching new language or new concepts A reading programme should not include the teaching of language. If lan- guage is to be taught, it should be done in a curriculum component other than that of reading. There is more than enough material that a child can be taught to read without giving the child the additional burden of learning a new language, whether it be vocabulary or syntactic structure. A 3-year-old child, for example, has already acquired thousands of vocabulary items and understands a great number of sentences composed of those items. Rather than spending time teaching new vocabulary and other aspects of language, it would be better to teach the reading of those words and structures which the child already knows. Although some understanding of language is necessary for the teaching of reading, a complete mastery is not. Partial language knowledge is suffi- cient. Instead, children are presented with written items for which speech equivalents are already known by them. There is more than enough to deal with without giving children additional and unnecessary burdens. Since children have already acquired a wide variety of concepts before being taught to read, there is no need to explicitly teach new concepts. Reading should always try to reflect that which has already been learned in speech. It should be noted here that the recommendation to avoid teaching new language and concepts only concerns reading. The recommendation does not apply where, in the natural course of events, teachers explain new ideas and stimulate children to think. Such endeavours are natural and proper. 79 AIT_C03.pm5 79 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning Learning alphabet letter names and the order of letters So long as the child is interested in the names of letters, one can go ahead with their teaching. Knowing the names of letters and their order, it should be recognized, has little to do with the reading process. Of course, such knowledge is useful in searching through a dictionary or in going through a set of files. But these are not activities that young children are likely to engage in. There is some empirical evidence that children can learn to read whole words without having any prior knowledge of the shapes or names of indi- vidual letters. In a reading programme in which only whole words were taught to pre-school children (2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds) over a period of about 4 months, the first author found that 17 children learned a mean of 16 words and two phrases or sentences although they were not able to identify any letters at all by name (Steinberg, 1980). One of these was a 3-year-old who learned 31 words and two phrases and sentences. Then, too, during this same period of time, one 4-year-old learned to identify as many as 86 words and 20 phrases and sentences, although he was only able to name three lower-case letters and five upper-case (capital) ones. He had picked up the names from a children’s picture dictionary that was used in class; the teacher had only mentioned the letter names in passing. 3.2.2.8 Reading should be based on speech understanding and not on speech production It is not necessary for children learning to read to be able to speak or enunciate clearly. Reading can be learned without speaking. For example, it is often observed that persons with speech disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, learn language and learn to read. These persons acquire language by listening to others speak, and they learn to read by associating that know- ledge of speech language with written forms. Thus, whether or not a child can say ‘dog’ or ‘hippopotamus’ is not essential for the child learning to read (understand the meaning of) such items. The case of a hearing-mute Japanese girl to whom reading was taught dramatically illustrates this principle (Steinberg and Chen, 1980). The girl (Rie) was mute since birth and was able to utter only a few sounds and a couple of recognizable words, ‘papa’ (father), and ‘mamma’ (a Japanese baby word for food). Because she could hear, Rie learned to understand language. Rie was 3 years and 9 months of age when the teaching programme began. Over a period of 11 months, this girl learned to read at least 78 words, 47 being composed of complex kanji (Chinese characters) and 31 of kana (syllable symbols). These were words that she already knew the meanings of in comprehending speech. All the items that she learned were written on cards. To verify whether she knew any item, one just needed to say, for example, ‘jitensha’ (bicycle) or ‘enpitsu’ (pencil) and she would pick out the 80 AIT_C03.pm5 80 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching appropriate card. Or, if the card with the word written on it was shown to her, she would point to the object to which it referred. Only about 10 min- utes per day had been devoted to her instruction. While children do not have to produce speech in order to learn to read, it is important that they be able to understand the speech that is spoken to them. For, if the child knows what is meant when someone says ‘TV’, ‘car’, ‘the red truck’, and ‘open the door’, the child will have little difficulty in learning to read the written representations of such items. The first author’s first son, who was slow to speak, learned to read many words, phrases, and sentences even before he was 2 years old and could not say them (Steinberg and Steinberg, 1975). A child who is not able to understand a speech word will have greater difficulty in learning the written representation of that word than the child who already understands the word in speech. In effect, this is teaching language through the medium of the writing system, which is something we proposed for deaf children in Chapter 2. Written items selected for teaching, therefore, should only be those that the child understands in speech. 3.2.2.9 Reading should not depend on the teaching of writing While reading is essentially a skill in which only the eyes are used, writing requires, additionally, the use of the muscles of the hand. The muscles of the fingers must be precisely trained before they have the control necessary for producing written symbols. Because appropriate physical maturation and muscular development are prerequisites for writing and because such prerequisites do not develop early, young children have difficulty in con- trolling a writing implement, and they fatigue easily. (According to Steinberg and Yamada, 1980, children younger than 4 years have great difficulty writing.) Such difficulties, however, are not present for reading. The visual ability of the child develops before the first year, when the child learns to identify objects, faces, etc. Children learning to write are usually trained by copying or tracing written figures that are present as models. However, the ultimate goal of writing is to be able to write meaningful messages when no written model is present, i.e. to write from memory. This being so, it must be realized that one cannot write from memory unless one has first acquired certain know- ledge through perception, i.e. one must have stored in memory the visual shapes of particular words or letters, or have learned the orthographic rules for generating written symbols from speech. It can be fun, though, for a child to try to write words which he or she knows. However, because writing involves a motor skill that requires fine hand coordination, which young children do not have, it is advisable that writing instruction be reserved for a later time when children have be- come fluent readers. Even then, however, reading should never be made 81 AIT_C03.pm5 81 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning contingent on writing progress, because reading can be learned much faster than writing. At this point, it may be useful to bring together the essential relations of thought, language, reading, writing, and motor control that have been dis- cussed or implied: 1. Reading derives from speech understanding and vision, not from speech production. 2. Speech understanding derives from thinking and audition. 3.2.2.10 Learning to read should be enjoyable Reading should be made an enjoyable activity for children. This can be done by providing instruction in the form of interesting games and activities. As a consequence, not only will children learn to read, they will want to read. Children who are interested, intellectually stimulated, and who enjoy what they are doing will learn willingly and will not mind applying some effort. No teaching activity should be included that children find boring or tedious. 3.3 A universal four-phase reading programme 3.3.1 Four phases of the teaching programme Children may be taught to read according to the four-phase programme developed by Steinberg (1980 and 1982). The programme embodies the underlying principles that were discussed in the previous sections. These phases are: (1) Word Familiarization; (2) Word Identification; (3) Phrase and Sentence Identification; and (4) Paragraphs, Stories and Book Reading. Each phase involves meaningful language and is ordered so that a preceding phase serves as a prerequisite for the succeeding one. Prior phases may be continued concurrently with succeeding phases, however. For example, Word Identification may continue even though the child is at the stage of the Phrase and Sentence Identification. The essential ideas of each phase, along with a few illustrative games and activities, are offered below. (For more details concerning these phases along with a teachers’ manual that includes a variety of reading activities, see Steinberg, 1980.) Phase 1: Word Familiarization The purpose of this phase is to acquaint children with the shapes of written words and to have them become aware that different spoken words of the language have different written manifestations. Children are not taught, however, which particular spoken word is associated with which particular written word. This is reserved for the next phase, Word Identification. 82 AIT_C03.pm5 82 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching For instructional purposes, one should attach word cards to objects around the room, e.g. chair, television, wall, flower, and table. The words should be ones that the child understands when spoken by the parent or teacher. Such cards are placed at the child’s eye-level wherever possible. Simply the exposure of such cards in the course of the day will, even without instruc- tion, serve to promote learning. A number of activities may be done with the word cards around the room. Three such activities, in sequential order of difficulty, are: Room Object Pointing, Word Card Sticking, and Room Object Matching. In Room Object Pointing, the child points to the written word and the object to which it is attached. Pointing to written words brings the words to the child’s attention and gives them importance. The children will come to realize that different words are associated with different objects. The child is not required to learn which particular word goes with which particular object. In Word Card Sticking, the child is given a word card and asked to place it on an object that is named. Again, the child sees that different words go with different objects. This activity sets the stage for the next activity, the important one of Room Object Matching. In Room Object Matching, the child is given a word card and is asked to find another like it. This obliges the child to inspect written words so as to determine whether they are the same or different. By doing this, the child becomes familiar with the shapes of letters and learns to look for their differentiating features. Since the task requires only that the child compare two forms at a time, both of which are present, and make a judgement of same or different, only short-term memory is involved. Other interesting variations of the matching activity may be devised. For example, two dice with the same words on each die, e.g. ‘dog’, ‘girl’, ‘apple’, ‘cookie’, ‘run’, and ‘catch’, could be rolled with the aim of getting a match. Phase 2: Word Identification In this phase, the child learns which particular written words are associated with which particular spoken words or objects. The difference between this phase and the preceding one is that this one requires the use of long-term memory. Here the child must store a particular visual configuration and remember what particular spoken word it represents. For example, when seeing the written word ‘apple’ in isolation the child is expected to be able to point to the object ‘apple’ (or its picture) or to say ‘apple’. Various games and activities can be devised to teach (and test) the child to identify particular written words. For example, word cards can be re- moved from objects in the room and the child could be asked to place them on the correct objects. A game could be made with a pair of dice, one die with pictures and the other one with words. The dice are rolled with the aim of getting a match in terms of picture and word. 83 AIT_C03.pm5 83 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning Once the child begins to learn some written words, most of which will be nouns, then other types of words, particularly verbs and adjectives, should be introduced, e.g. actions (‘run’, ‘touch’), colours (‘red’, ‘yellow’), and states (‘happy’, ‘angry’). Function words such as prepositions and articles should never be included. Such words should only be introduced in context through phrases and sentences. More abstract (but familiar and meaningful) words may be introduced (‘good’, ‘friend’), and words can be written on demand from the child. Phase 3: Phrase and Sentence Identification This phase is similar to that of the preceding Word Identification one, except that larger linguistic units are dealt with. Its goal is for the child to read the largest basic linguistic unit, the sentence. In teaching phrases and sentences it is not necessary that phrase teaching precede sentence teaching. Rather, whichever unit is of interest for a particular situation is what should be taught, e.g. ‘a big dog’, ‘Diane fell’. The written phrase and sentence should include all words without any simplification, e.g. if ‘That dog is barking at the boy’ is the appropriate sentence, it should not be changed to ‘Dog bark boy’. The presence of the other sorts of words such as ‘that’, ‘is’, and ‘at’, and the suffix ‘-ing’, pro- vides a learning opportunity for the child. In time, such morphemes will be learned without specific training. It is not necessary that the children always know how to read every key word (noun, verb, and adjective) in a phrase or sentence, before that unit is taught. However, to avoid learn- ing problems, the number of unknown key words should be kept to a minimum. It is best not to create phrases and sentences for their own sake but to make them fit the events and situations that occur in the immediate envir- onment. For example, ‘Diane fell’, would be of great interest if indeed it was the case that Diane (the name of the child) did fall. Phase 4: Paragraphs, Stories and Book Reading The paragraph involves the largest meaningful written linguistic unit. It consists of a sequence of two or more sentences that are related to one another. A sequence of paragraphs can make a story. Learning to read paragraphs and books is probably the most interesting of all reading activ- ities for children since there is an excitement that a story can generate that the reading of isolated words, phrases, and sentences cannot. As the child progresses in reading paragraphs and books, the books may have fewer pictures and more text. Thus, over time, there will be less dependence on pictures and more dependence on the text. It is the purpose of this phase to provide children with the knowledge and skills that will enable them to read text fluently. 84 AIT_C03.pm5 84 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching l Teaching short-paragraph stories. Activities that involve short-paragraph stories may be introduced. For example, stories with as few as two or three sentences may be composed: Story A: (1) Sara dropped the egg. (2) It landed on her brother’s head. Story B: (1) The dog was hungry. (2) Harry didn’t know what to feed it. (3) He gave it some bubble gum. Each sentence of a story is written on a card. The task for the child is to arrive at an order of sentences so that they form a story. (The child may or may not be told the story beforehand.) Such an activity will foster in the child an awareness of order and the semantic relatedness of sentences. l Teaching book reading. In teaching the reading of a book, the following is one good procedure: (1) Read the book to the child, with the child look- ing at the pages. Point to the words in a sentence while saying them. (The child must be exposed to the written and spoken word simultaneously.) Answer any questions; discuss the plot and characters. (2) After the book has been completed in this manner, return to the beginning of the book. This time, each sentence is read aloud and pointed to, one at a time, with the child asked to imitate this by doing his or her own saying and point- ing. (3) After the book has been completed in this manner, return to the beginning. This time have the child do all of the saying and pointing. Give assistance when needed. l Book reading should always be done. It should be emphasized that although the child is explicitly taught to read books at this stage in the teaching sequence, this is not to imply that the introduction of books should wait until this time. On the contrary, books should be read and stories told just as soon as a child can understand what is being said. The child should be able to see the written text and to watch the pointing out of words and sentences. Such activities will make the child familiar with the nature of books and build the child’s interest so that the child will be prepared when text reading is introduced. 3.3.2 Results of the reading programme in the United States, Japan, and China: in the pre-school and in the home To date, the four-phase programme has been administered in the United States to American children learning English, in Japan to Japanese children learning Japanese, and in the People’s Republic of China to Chinese children learning Chinese. In all three of these countries, research was done with both pre-school groups and with children in the home. For the pre-school groups, the regular teachers did the teaching, following the directions of the first author. For the children at home, parents did the teaching, again under the guidance of the first author. The pre-school children ranged in age from 1 to 4 years. The home-taught children were between the ages of 1 and 21/2 years. 85 AIT_C03.pm5 85 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning 3.3.2.1 Research with English reading In the home (Steinberg and Steinberg, 1975) This research involves a single subject, the first author’s first son. He and his wife began introducing words to him before he was 12 months of age. Prior to this the child had been given some alphabet familiarization pointing. He was also given the task of naming letters. He was so uninterested that he refused to stay with the task. He never did learn all of the letter names until a few years later by which time he was a good reader. In all later research studies conducted by the first author, such letter activities were dropped. Children learned faster as a result. At 12 months of age he was able to correctly identify four written words, ‘car’, ‘baby’, ‘boy’, and ‘girl’ (without being able to say any of them), while at 24 months he was able to identify 48 words, phrases, and sentences, e.g. ‘blow’, ‘cake’, ‘hooray’, ‘come on’, ‘I see’, and ‘Peter’s room’, although he could say only 15 of them. By 2 1/2 years of age he could read 181 different items, and at 31/2 years he could read short sentences in a text fluently and with natural intonation. On average about 10 to 15 minutes daily were spent in instruction. At 4 years 11 months of age, standardized tests placed his reading at generally beyond the third-grade (8 years) level. (These tests and all of those noted below were independently administered by the Reading Center of the University of Hawaii.) Since he had only been taught reading at home, such findings may be attributed to the effects of the reading programme. The later findings show that he was able to maintain a lead of three or more grades in reading over his grade mates. At about 8 years old, and a third-grader, his reading achievement equalled or bettered sixth-graders on vocabulary and comprehension, and eleventh-graders on speed and accuracy. And when about 12 years old and a seventh-grader, he scored higher than most tenth- graders and equalled twelfth-graders (those in their year of graduating from high school) in terms of vocabulary, comprehension, speed, and accuracy. In a pre-school (Steinberg, 1980) The Steinberg reading programme was introduced to 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children in one of the most disadvantaged areas on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. It was a short-term study. The teachers did the teaching under the guidance of the first author and his Chinese research assistant. During an average of 17.2 weeks of instruction with a mere average of 10 to 12 minutes of instruction daily, the children learned to read an average of 28.7 words and 6.3 phrases and sentences. Overall, the older children learned more than the younger children. It is worth noting that one 3-year-old child who rarely spoke learned 29 words and 12 phrases and sentences during 20.4 weeks of exposure and 86 AIT_C03.pm5 86 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching that the highest achiever was a boy who learned 94 words and 41 phrases and sentences during 23.6 weeks of exposure. That the children achieved what they did, coming as they did from welfare families and living in neighbourhoods where the reading level in school is low, indicates the viability of the reading programme with all children. 3.3.2.2 Research with Japanese reading In the home (Steinberg et al., 1985; Steinberg and Tanaka, 1989) The Steinberg four-phase reading programme was administered to three Japanese children in the city of Hiroshima. The parents spent about 15 minutes per day on average in teaching the children. The children were from two upper-middle-income families, two girls (sisters) and one boy. When the programme was initiated, the sisters were 18 months and 29 months of age while the boy was 20 months of age. The girls were more linguistically advanced, being able to utter sentences. The boy could only utter a few words although he could understand many words and some phrases and sentences. During the first five months of the programme, the boy learned a remark- able total of 311 written words (Chinese character kanji and syllabic kana) and 62 phrases and sentences, while the girls learned 189 words and 86 phrases and sentences. (The progress of the girls is identical because the mother kept the older girl to the slower pace of the younger girl.) The boy was in the Word Familiarization phase for the first seven weeks of the programme, and it was only at the eighth week that he began to identify particular items. In that week, he learned a surprising number of 46 words, 31 of which were kanji. In terms of his ability to say these items, his mother noted that in the early weeks of the Word Identification phase he could pronounce only a small number of the items. It was further noted that, after just the first few weeks of identifying words, he began to remember written items after just one or two presentations. Similar findings were noted for the girls. After just one week of Word Familiarization, the girls began to identify their first words. They began with ten words the first week, five of which were kanji. Their progress was much more gradual and less explosive than the boy’s. Evidently, there are great individual differences in children’s rate of learning. Perhaps the reason for the boy’s eight-week delay in identifying words as compared to the girls was that the boy did not realize as quickly as the girls did that written words represent objects in the environment. As soon as he did make this connection, his learning exploded, with 46 words being learned in one week, whereas for all the previous seven weeks, not a single word was learned. After about two years, all three children were given a standardized reading test. Each child scored between grades 2 and 3 (7 and 8 years) in overall 87 AIT_C03.pm5 87 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning achievement on sentence comprehension and vocabulary. Their ages at the time of the testing were 4 years 2 months for the boy, and 3 years 11 months and 4 years 11 months for the girls. It should be noted that this test prob- ably underestimates the true reading ability of the children since it was designed for more socially and cognitively mature children. With Japanese in a pre-school (Steinberg and Sakoda, 1982) A project involving the reading programme was introduced to a class of 2-year-olds and a class of 3-year-olds in a middle-income neighbourhood in Hiroshima. Over the eight-month period during which the programme was applied, the following results were obtained. Both the 2-year-old and 3-year-old groups proceeded from the Word Familiarization to the Word Identification phase within the first month of the reading programme. During the eight- month course of the research, on average the 2-year-olds learned 97.3 words (71.0 of which were kanji) and 3.0 phrases and sentences, while the 3-year- olds learned a total of 99.3 words (81.3 being kanji) and 1.93 phrases and sentences. While the high degree of similarity might indicate that the learn- ing capacity of the two age groups was much the same, it is the researcher’s opinion that the 3-year-olds would have done much better had the quality of instruction for the older class been as good as that for the younger class. The teachers for the 2-year-olds were more lively and enthusiastic in their teaching. 3.3.2.3 Research with Chinese reading In the home (Steinberg and Xi, 1989) Three children from a variety of parental educational backgrounds were taught to read by their parents in their homes in Tianjin, China. There were one girl and two boys ranging in age from 2 years 2 months to 2 years 4 months. The children learned 140 or more character words in their first 15 weeks. The programme lasted nearly two years, during which time Ke-Ke (the girl) learned 401 characters, Bei-Bei (one of the boys) learned 293 characters, and Xia-Xia (the other boy) learned 270 characters. All were able to read simple books. In a pre-school (Steinberg and Xi, unpublished) Thirty 2-year-olds in one class were taught reading in a pre-school in Tianjin. The programme lasted nearly 11 months. The children varied greatly in their achievement. Some progressed to reading paragraphs and simple books while others were still at a sentence level. Unfortunately, detailed data are unavailable. Nonetheless, video footage taken by the first author on a number of visits to the pre-school substantiates conclusions made here. 88 AIT_C03.pm5 88 17/10/2005, 16:56  3 Reading principles and teaching 3.3.2.4 Implications of results The results of the English, Japanese, and Chinese studies provide evidence in support of the effectiveness of the four-phase teaching programme. The findings strongly indicate that the guiding principles and the teaching pro- gramme itself are optimal and universally applicable. 3.3.3 When a child is ready to read A child is ready to read when the child can understand spoken words. This is all that is necessary. While it would make things easier for certain activ- ities if the child could say the words, such a requirement is not essential; research with children who do not have speech or have problems in speech production shows this to be the case. A child can be taught to read the words, phrases, and sentences that the child can understand in speech. For most children, this means that they are ready to read by the age of 2. By this age, children will have developed enough understanding of speech and will have gained sufficient knowledge of life so as to be able to participate in play activities and games for the reading programme. While reading can be taught earlier than 24 months of age, we believe that, given the wide range of differences in children, a later age is a safer choice. This would avoid any potential for frustration on the part of the teacher/parent or the child. For younger children, prior to the inception of the teaching of reading, simply placing word cards beside objects and pictures will give the child some familiarization with the visual forms of words and letters. This can be beneficial. 3.4 The adantages of early reading for pre-school age children The research cited above on teaching reading to pre-school age children, along with the studies of Fletcher-Flinn and Thompson (2000), Söderbergh (1971), Doman (1964), Fowler (1962), and Terman (1918), demonstrates that children can learn to read at a very early age. Of course, the degree of success depends on the method that is applied. The Steinberg teaching pro- gramme outlined above is applicable to all children over the age of 2. The focus on whole meaningful words in a personal context, with such items being taught through the medium of games and other interesting activities, will inevitably bring success. It is worth noting that none of the reported successful studies on early reading used Phonics/Decoding-type methods. All used a Whole-Word approach. That such should be the case is not coincidental, for what these 89 AIT_C03.pm5 89 17/10/2005, 16:56  First-language learning studies do is exploit the natural abilities that children have for the learning of reading. As explained above, most 2-year-olds are ready to be taught to read. Why early reading is beneficial There are a number of important advantages of teaching reading to children in their pre-school years: 1. Reading is a source of pleasure for the child. It satisfies and stimulates a child’s natural curiosity and, as a source of knowledge, enriches the child. The earlier a child discovers this, the more enriched and more deeply attracted to reading the child will become. 2. Love of reading is established. The warm supportive informal atmo- sphere of the home or the pre-school provides an excellent situation for learning. In such a situation, a positive attitude towards reading can be established without the difficulties that are often encountered in ele- mentary school. 3. Young children learn quickly and easily. They have a remarkable rote- memory learning ability and can easily acquire a multitude of written words. The older the children get and the poorer their memory (see Chapter 6 regarding memory), the more they require additional exposure and practice. 4. The children grow up to be better learners. They will be able to read faster and with better comprehension than they would if they were to start reading later. In addition to these advantages, there is another important general one. Children who learned to read early would not have to use time in ele- mentary school learning to read. More time therefore could be devoted to the acquiring of other kinds of knowledge. This could have the effect of improving the educational level of children in all areas of knowledge. That being the case, early reading can significantly benefit the whole of society. 90 AIT_C03.pm5 90 17/10/2005, 16:56