Structured Literacy
Simple View of Reading - Gough and Tunmer, 1986
The Simple View of Reading states that there are two major components to the comprehension of language in print (Reading Comprehension):
Word Recognition (which is decoding, or reading, each individual word accurately), and Linguistic Comprehension - once we have identified the words, we must draw on our knowledge to understand them.
At Milford School we use a Structured Literacy approach to teach students to read and write.
We explicitly teach systematic word identification and decoding strategies.
We start with teaching the simple code in Stages 1–4. We focus on phonics and phonemic awareness to build the strongest foundations for reading and spelling success. We also focus on building vocabulary and oral language skills to develop equally strong foundations for comprehension and writing.
We will also learn to blend sounds to say words as well as learning handwriting.
Sometimes the children will bring home decodable books. These are our secret to success – our ‘no tricks’ books.
Each story practises the sounds and letters that have been taught, so children will be able to read the books themselves by sounding out and blending (and no guessing!).
