Today we reviewed our Task Analysis of the Reading Process. There is a lot involved. It starts with student engagement (a reason to read). Then the student must find a comfortable, safe place to read. The student also must be free of distractions both externally and internally. He or she must have proprioception (the awareness of her or his body space, such as posture and how to hold the book). The student must know to look at the top left corner to start decoding the text. He or she must use short term memory to recognize letters and understand the relationship between the letter and its corresponding sound, which engages another part of the brain, because this incorporates auditory sensory processing. It is also important to know the word is broken up into components of the sounds we hear. She or he must know that the space at the end of the word tells where a word ends, and must use this knowledge, along with any prior knowledge and phonics to make meaning of the very first word. If the word is not instantly clear, the student will then use strategies to decode the unknown word, including using picture cues, and context cues, syntactic cues and predictions (which requires knowing to skip ahead and then try to use the additional information to uncover the meaning of the unknown word). All of which must be done quickly enough to keep the attention and interest of the child. This is the very beginning of the reading process, so it requires a lot of patience and perseverance to remain ready to read.
Many students struggle, so we have Assistive Technology to help us to remediate or compensate for the area of difficulty. We just took a quick peek at a bunch of apps. and they are exciting. I found Bitsboard, 60 Story Starters, Raz kids, Jigsaw Puzzle, Bugs and Buttons, and the Crack the Books Series very exciting. I can't wait to explore them further!
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