the+five+areas+of+reading!

**The five areas of reading!** **Reading: The process of reading has 5 areas. A student needs to be proficient in all five areas to be a competent reader. These areas include vocabulary, fluency, decoding,phonemic awareness, and comprehension.** V**ocabular**y : The more a child knows about a word,the easier it is to read the word in a fast and efficient manner. This means understanding what the word means, proper use in a sentence, words that sound the same, and associations with the word-for example- dog may conjure up images such as big,brown,friendly,wagging tail,etc. **Decoding**: Decoding is what is commonly referred to as phonics. Does the student understand the correspondence between sounds and letters? Can the student blend sounds into words? Can the student recall the letter sounds quickly and efficiently when sounding out a word? **Phonemic Awareness:** Phonemic awareness is a skill that begins to develop in preschool and continues through kindergarten. In order for phonics instruction to be meaningful and effective, the students must understand the structure of oral language. Can he/she hear the individual sounds in words? Can he/ she delete and add sounds to make new words? Can he/ she count and label the individual sounds (phonemes in words)? Does the student understand that /sh? is one sound and /sl/ are two different sounds (consonant blend)? **Fluency** Fluency is a more difficult skill because here is where the children have to integrate their phonic skills. Fluency is reading the words automatically by sight,no longer having to sound out the words. it starts by first reading the words in chunks and moving to whole word recognition. Fluency has two components: automaticity and expression. Words should be read by sight automatically. Passages need to be read with expression, with attention being paid to punctuation, etc. //Fluency is essential for comprehension,because the more time is spent sounding out a word, the less attention the reader has for the meaning of what is read!// **Comprehension:** This is where the "rubber hits the road." We read to extract meaning from text. Without the meaning,why read? Some children will be good comprehenders once they reach a fluent reading level. But other students, even though they may read fluently have to be directly taught comprehending strategies. Children who have language or vocabulary challenges may need specific lessons in comprehension!

A WORD ABOUT VISUALIZING: Recent research has demonstrated that certain students may have difficulty visualizing images. This may consist in having trouble creating pictures in their mind when reading a story. The inability to do this can negatively impact comprehension skills. Fortunatley this skill can be taught. Some children have difficulty visualizing letters and letter patterns. These students might do fine in spelling words that they can sound out, or rely on their auditory ability. But they may have challenges spelling non phonetic words, or "rule breakers." These words for spelling and reading require a visual image to be stored and many students with learning difficulties have not developed their visual imaging skills on this level. Visualizing both larger images and concepts for reading comprehension, and smaller details such as letters for spelling does improve with practice, but for many students needs to be directly taught.