Page 120 - Reading Nest - The Supportive Literacy Environment Handbook

Reading is a technical activity for Tom. He can read aloud well but to understand he

requires support from pictures (books with lots of pictures, comics), or from his parents. I
suggest you read to him in the evening (it is recommended till the age of 12). Thus he can

acquire words which are rare in oral speech and also gets used to more complex structures
of written text. Tom takes a great interest in technology and exotic animals, at home he

should also be offered texts on these topics (books, magazines, Internet articles). Tom is

good at reading, and can create diagrams well and non-linear texts, e.g. mind maps. He
could use them for creating his own texts, so he can easily check whether everything

important has been noted down. Tom is also attracted to comics, this should be encouraged
and he could create his own since he is good at drawing.

Even if children in the first year who still read like Mary and Jane in the previous example
(and it happens), the teacher should point out to parents what can be seen in their emergent

literacy, e.g. interest in texts, letters in a book and desire to draw letters on their own. The
teacher might encourage parents that literacy may develop in leaps and bounds and it is

important to retain and uphold interest and motivation and work with suitable texts.

Intermediate conclusions and school reports

What to write in the reports of children described previously? If the school uses numeric

assessment and Mary, Jane, John and Tom were in the first year, the girls would probably

receive “2” (negative grade) in their first ever report. This might impact their self-
confidence and interest in reading for many years to come. The boys would receive “5”

(top grade) in the first year, or in the second or third year they’d get “5” or “4” depending
on the teacher's assessment criteria. None of these figures give their parents any

information on how to support literacy nor would the child understand what to do or

change.