Multisensory Reading Clinic

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How the Language System Works:

 Five Essential Components of Reading

 

Learning to read is like constructing a house. We need a strong foundation at the very start of the construction and must connect the pillars of the building correctly; otherwise, it will collapse, and we cannot add more floors.

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The sounds of the English language are the foundation for learning to read, and connecting the sounds is the pillar of learning to read. That is phonemic awareness. Our next level is phonics, where we need to know how to write the words. This is followed by fluency: We need to be able to read words quickly and know the meaning of the words so that we can comprehend what we read.

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1. Phonemic/phoneme awareness - The lowest level of the language system, an awareness that words are made up of segments of sounds that are represented with letters in an alphabetic orthography. This is the part of the language where a student must learn the sounds, then blend the sounds to get the information in printed materials.

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2. Phonics - The study of the relationships between the sounds and the letters they represent. This is the second level of the language system, which involves writing. After learning to decode the sounds, the students will learn to print the sounds and connect them to make words. This is also the term used to represent a reading program that deals with sounds.

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3. Fluency - The processing speed and accuracy to read words and know the meaning of the words. If a child has a problem with fluency, it means that they have problems sounding out and connecting the sounds of the words and small groups of words (we call these syllables in longer words). Because of these problems, the child does not have the time to understand the words because his mind is preoccupied with deciphering the words—the reason why your child has a reading comprehension problem.

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4. Vocabulary - The meaning of the words.

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5. Comprehension - The generic term that includes both listening comprehension and reading comprehension. If a child can comprehend the story that you read to him but cannot comprehend what he reads, he does not have a comprehension problem. He either has reading problem or he has hyperlexia. He lacks fluency, part of the reading problem or he does not recognize the words he reads due to hyperlexia. Therefore, if the individual has a problem with reading comprehension, he needs to have a reading assessment to find out the root cause of the problem, such as the concepts where he started to have a reading comprehension problem.

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to be continued... 

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