Learning To Read - Skills Required For Proficient Reading

Skills Required For Proficient Reading

According to the report by the US National Reading Panel (NRP) in 2000, the skills required for proficient reading are phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. More generally, proficient reading does not necessarily require phonemic awareness, as in Latin Alphabets, but an awareness of the individual parts of speech, which may also include the whole word (as in Chinese characters) or syllables (as in Japanese) as well as others depending on the writing system being employed. Other important skills are: rapid automatized naming (RAN), a general understanding of the Orthography of the language, and practice.

• Speech Awareness: The awareness of individual parts of speech as they apply to individual written characters is crucial for understanding reading (as defined by translating written characters into spoken language). Phonological awareness, which includes the manipulation of rhymes, syllables, and onsets and rimes, is most prevalent in Alphabetic systems. The important part of speech depends on the Writing system employed.

• Fluency: The ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and vocal expression. The ability to read fluently is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension. If a reader is not fluent, it may be difficult to remember what has been read and to relate the ideas expressed in the text to his or her background knowledge. This accuracy and automaticity of reading serves as a bridge between decoding and comprehension.

• Vocabulary: A critical aspect of reading comprehension is vocabulary development. When a reader encounters an unfamiliar word in print and decodes it to derive its spoken pronunciation, the reader understands the word if it is in the reader's spoken vocabulary. Otherwise, the reader must derive the meaning of the word using another strategy, such as context. If the development of the child's vocabulary is impeded by things such as ear infections, that inhibit the child from hearing new words consistently, then the development of reading will also be impaired.

• Reading comprehension: The NRP describes comprehension as a complex cognitive process in which a reader intentionally and interactively engages with the text. Reading comprehension is heavily dependent on skilled word recognition and decoding, oral reading fluency, a well-developed vocabulary and active engagement with the text.

• Rapid automatized naming: The ability to say quickly the names of letters, objects and colors predicts an individual's ability to read. This might be linked to the importance of quick retrieval of phonological representations from long-term memory in reading and the importance of object-naming circuits in the left cerebral hemisphere that are recruited to underpin a child's word-recognition abilities.

• Orthography describes or defines the set of symbols used in a language, and the rules about how to write these symbols. Orthographic Development proceeds in increasing complexity as a child learns to read. Some of the first things to be learnt are the orthographic conventions such as the direction of reading and that there are differing typefaces and capitalization for each symbol. In general, this means that to read proficiently, the reader has to understand elements of the written language including hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.

• Practice: repeated exposure to print improves many aspects of learning to read and most importantly the knowledge of individual words. It increases the speed at which high frequency words are recognized which allows for increased Fluency in reading. It also supports orthographic development, Reading comprehension and Vocabulary development.