How to Teach Reading to Children, Youth, and Adults
Teaching children and adults how to read is one of the most rewarding life experiences. Reading is the gateway to knowledge and success. By teaching someone how to read, you are literally changing someone’s life. But, do you use the same strategies to teach readers or pre-readers at every age level? Yes and no.
How to Teach Reading to Children, Youth, and Adults: What’s the Same?
1. You’re going to need effective diagnostic assessments that are quick, efficient, reliable, and easy-to-use to determine what is already known. My free multiple choice diagnostic assessments
and recording matrices will serve this purpose (See Free ELA Reading Assessments).
2. You’re going to need to teach these curricular components: spelling, syllabication, phonics, fluency, sight words, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension.
3. You’re going to need a balanced instructional approach, but one targeted to the diagnostic needs of individual students. Each reader or pre-reader is a unique snowflake. Each has existing strengths and weaknesses in phonemic awareness, auditory and visual processing, cognitive ability, life experience, language experience, self-concept, and learning attitude/motivation.
4. You’re going to need lots of books, appropriate to the interest and reading levels of the reader.
5. You’re going to need to be patient.
How to Teach Reading to Children, Youth, and Adults: What’s Different?
1. Reader and pre-reader age levels will determine how you teach reading: See articles under Study Skills for age level learning characteristics.
2. Youth and adults will usually have significantly better oral language skills, so vocabulary instruction may be less of a focus for these readers.
3. Children lack print awareness; whereas youth and adults generally do not. Children need to be taught how to hold a book and the left to right spelling and word patterns.
4. Adults probably have phonemic awareness and alphabetic awareness’ skills; whereas most children do not.
5. Children need reading from scratch instruction; while most youth and adults will progress nicely with targeted, gap-filling reading instruction.
Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use. Get multiple choice reading assessments on two CDs, formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages on eight CDs, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Perfect for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. Simple directions and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance. 364 pages
