Approaches to reading
The three key approaches to teaching reading differ in terms of the challenges, what the teacher does, and what the student does.
| The approach
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The text
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The teacher
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The student
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Often whole class
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- is drawn from a wide range of texts too difficult for students to read by themselves
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- promotes and fosters a love of books and reading
- supports students to develop vocabulary and knowledge of book language and text forms
- engages students in conversations about texts
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- actively listens to create meaning by making connections between what they know already and what they hear
- engages in conversation and thinks critically about the text
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May be in small groups or whole class
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- is initially too difficult for students to read by themselves
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- models how an expert reader negotiates and makes sense of the text
- creates opportunities to draw students into the reading, pausing from time to time to involve students in conversations about the text
- during subsequent readings, focuses on the specific learning needs of the students
- rereads the text, often for different purposes
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- behaves like a reader – actively listening and reading along once they are familiar with the text
- engages in conversation and thinks critically about the text
- reads the big book or small book version independently and with increasing fluency after repeated readings by the teacher
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In small groups
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- is at a level of difficulty where students, after a careful introduction, are likely to make no more than one error in every 10 words on the first reading
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- uses knowledge of their students (from assessment data and ongoing monitoring) and knowledge of literacy learning to group students
- scaffolds students to read the text themselves
- helps students to develop a reading processing system that they can also apply when they read independently
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- draws on their literacy and world knowledge, along with sources of information in the text, to read the text for themselves
- engages in conversation and thinks critically about what they have read
- rereads the text several times with increasing independence and fluency
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Updated on: 20 Nov 2014
