Page 115 - Reading Nest - The Supportive Literacy Environment Handbook

Jane is mostly interested in different functional texts: her games include fascinating menus,

rules for visiting the cinema (samples of her work are often accompanied with explanations

as parts of the text cannot be understood without the context). She knows essential features

of a few genres (a sample of her advertisement for a play, which has title, author, stage

director, actors, starting time, ticket price and discount price for children/pensioners.

Everything in her age-appropriate writing but all of it is recognisable). She takes interest

in letters and sounds, enjoys playing games on sounds, e.g. filling the ship. She

understands the principle of phonemic analysis and writing the words, she knows that

sounds and letters are linked and carefully spells out letters. She is able to read shorter

and simpler words of up to 4 letters and is happy about it. When she listens to slow

pronunciation of words, she can ‘put them together’, when the speed is right for her, she

can recognise longer words as well.

John reads fast and understands the text well, has a good imagination and rich vocabulary.

He is also very empathetic and is able to identify with characters from different eras and

places and understand the motivation behind their behaviour. He already has some ability
for acting. His written texts stand out for their imaginative approach, he knows lots of

interesting facts on topics which attract him (distant lands and peoples, space, machines,

national cuisines and cooking).

Tom is fascinated by comics, photo and picture books and hypertext on screens in

particular. Reading is a technical activity for him. He can read aloud well but to

understand he requires support from pictures, friends, teacher or parents. He also takes

great interest in music, computer games and exotic animals. He can read diagrams well

and non-linear texts, e.g. mind maps. He is also able to create diagrams and is successful

in group work where ideas need to be put into a system. He is able to create cohesive and

logical texts when using a mind map, picture series etc. as a guidance.