Science of Reading Prep to Year 2

This year you have been and will continue to be hearing a lot about the Science of Reading in Prep to Year 2. The Science of Reading refers to research that has been conducted over the past 20 years by reading experts and cognitive scientists. This research has shown us some of the best methods for teaching students to read.

Below are some terms you may encounter in your child’s reading instruction this year:

Phoneme- the smallest unit of sound represented by a letter or letters. There are 44 phonemes in the English language.

Grapheme- the letter or letters that represent a phoneme.

Phonemic awareness- the ability to identify, hear and manipulate the smallest sounds heard in spoken language, phonemes.

Phonological awareness - the skill to identify, hear and manipulate any sound in spoken language. These pieces of sound can be rhymes, syllables or phonemes.  

Word Mapping- the process of breaking a word down into its phonemes and writing the graphemes that represent the phonemes.  

Heart Words- high-frequency words that have a “tricky part” that cannot be decoded.

What Can You Do at Home?

The Simple View of Reading is a basic way to think about how to get our children reading. This multiplicative equation states:

Decoding X Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension.

Decoding is a child’s ability to look at the letters and words on a page and turn it into speech.

Language Comprehension is a child’s ability to understand the meaning of words and speech.

How can you help your child with decoding?

Discuss letters from speech to print:

Instead of saying, the letters a says /a/, ask your child what letter represents the /a/ sounds?

Segment words to build phonemic awareness:

• Choose a word and say it aloud (e.g. Cat)
• Talk about the meaning of the word (Grandma has a cat with soft fur)
• Tap the phonemes of the word together (/c/-/a/-/t/)
• Ask how many sounds does the word have? (3)
• Say the word again (cat)

You can improve language comprehension by reading books together and discussing vocabulary words and their meaning.

Mrs Sue Zweck, Head of Learning K-5