Early+Years+Readers

Early Years Readers ==Literacy Programs need to challenge and inspire children and be adapted to contextual experiences. Each child has different learning capabilities and it is important for a teacher to assess these as so to identify suitable texts. Fluency is highly important in early years learners as it is a key factor in determining whether a child understands what they are reading. Comprehension is important for reflecting, engaging and evaluating texts and involves making connections with existing knowledge which demonstrates understanding. ==

==Teachers identify suitable texts for their students by assessing what they can read by themselves and what they can read with help. Mandama Primary School used PM readers which use different colour indicators for each level of reading. The children knew which level they were at and would use these as take home books. The teacher would then assess the child in the classroom on how well they were doing within that level of reading. It was then decided whether the child could go to a higher level. It was obvious on my rounds that some children can jump levels as their reading gets better and better. It is also evident that the range of levels there can be within a class room can be broad, with the lowest on 1 and the highest on level 17. Teachers can allow students to practice fluency by making their take home books, ones they can read without difficulty so they can focus on not reading word for word, that is, more fluent. [|PM Readers] ==

==Comprehension can be tested by using a number of mediums. On rounds, my teacher uses comprehension sheets relating to the book just read. It can be as simple as filling in the missing words, writing a recount of what happened or asking literal, interpretative and inferential questions to test their understanding. In a prep class a lot of referring back to past information is done to ensure a child has actually learnt what you have taught. It is always being reiterated. Molly and Hannah on the other hand observed a similar method, using the literal, interpretive and inferential questions. This gave a clear indication of whether or not the child had understood the text. Comprehension sheets and these types of questions are essentially very similar depending of the type of activity on the comprehension sheet. Hannah also observed her teacher asking certain children to do a recount and predict what would happen next in the story to test their comprehension. ==

==Molly went to Queenscliff Primary School the students were assessed on their level of reading then allowed to choose from a variety of texts from a 'book box' which were within their reading level. I too experienced this. This allows the child to a) choose something they are interested in and b) to be able to read the book without too much difficulty. == ==On Wendy's placement, she experienced a 'five finger test' way of identifying whether a text was suitable for a child or not. A 'five finger test' involves the child reading one page from the story and counts how many words ==

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==they cannot read (if any), if the number of words they cannot read is more than five, then the book is too difficult and they need to choose another alternative. I observed something similar to this but it was called the "Just Right" test. The same method of reading a page from a book is carried out but in this case 1 word (finger meant it was too easy, 2 or 3 fingers meant it was just right, 4 fingers is a bit too hard and 5 is too hard. == 

==This differs from Madi's experience where she observed independent reading as a whole school activity within their buddy groups. The level of difficulty wasn't such a factor for reading experience at Anakie as the early readers had their older buddy to help them. It is because Anakie only had a whole school population of 33 students that literacy experiences were carried out in this fashion. ==

==Molly understood that when assessing the fluency of Early Years Learners, you need to give the child a book they will be able to read with relative ease. In my own experience of assessing fluency, the teacher would as sess during her guided reading experiences then give certain students a 'reading goal'. For the higher end students, a lot of them received goals to 'read with fluency' or 'read like I am talking'. So depending on where students were at, fluency wasn't overly important. More so, each child's individual reading goals which are varying in difficulty. ==