Page 123 - Reading Nest - The Supportive Literacy Environment Handbook

To collect data on emergent literacy, all everyday situations and activities to do with
writing and reading are suited where they are naturally linked to the study process:

observation, conversation, analysis of work. There is no need for additional testing and
checking.
Specialised assessment activities, e.g. dictations and reading checks, may cause stress and

uncertainty. Schools traditionally use reading checks to assess whether a book was read
and understood, however, it is not the best method in terms of reading motivation. This
type of check values memorising details, like the task is to name the main character’s

brothers or dogs. Formal assessment methods might tempt (older children particularly) to
resort to dishonesty, as some children read short summaries instead of the book, or find a
reading check task used by the teacher on the Internet and mechanically learn the answers

by heart or prepare a cheat sheet.

Teachers who understand literacy and children’s development have been using much more

engaging ways instead of reading checks. Various games, drama sketches, quizzes,
creative tasks (e.g. writing a new end to the book, creating illustrations, comics or animated
cartoon) are both attractive and enable active participation. When skilfully used, these
provide important information on how the entire group understood the book and also on

the strengths and weaknesses of individual pupils.

Children learn differently and it is quite a challenge for teachers to locate a suitable method
or means for each child to uphold their motivation and literacy.

Marti was a six-year-old boy whose parents sought advice from a specialist as a

preparatory group teacher mentioned the boy does not cope in the group as he does not
read yet. When the specialist met the boy and evaluated his reading skills (spelling,

knowing letters, speech etc.), it was revealed that he knew five letters of his name. Some
letter were mum’s or dad’s letters, the rest were unknown. He was able to hear the sounds
and also spell a word sound by sound well. Thus the first goal for him to start reading was
to learn letters. For doing so the teacher tried finding interesting memory links – which

objects a letter resembles. He had a good imagination and by creating stories about letters,
they were memorised in no time. The next stage was reading short words and syllables,

but only through playing. The boy was interested in cobras and UFOs. An alien spaceship
was then made from two disposable plates, into which he could insert labels with words.
The spaceship was being filled while reading words and discussing whether aliens would
like to take these objects with them or not.