Reading Plan for Primary Education
Approach
A quality education must develop essential skills, including reading comprehension. Reading is crucial for learning, accessing knowledge, and participating in a literate society.
Evolving Literacy
The concept of literacy is evolving with the vast amount of information and changing technologies. This requires skills in information search, evaluation, selection, and processing.
Knowledge Generation and Lifelong Learning
Lifelong learning is vital, requiring skills to learn independently and transform information into knowledge for sharing.
Reading Comprehension
Reading involves cognitive and metacognitive processes, including reasoning, memory, and prior knowledge. The reader interacts with the text, constructing meaning based on context and individual experiences.
PIRLS Assessment
The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) assesses reading skills in 9-10 year olds, defining reading literacy as the ability to understand and use language forms required by society and valued by the individual.
Sainsbury’s Reading Model
Marian Sainsbury’s model outlines three levels of reading:
- Decoding: Phonemic awareness, visual memory, and analogy use.
- Understanding: Attributing meaning to the text, including vocabulary and grammar knowledge.
- Reader Response: Building personal meaning and engaging with the text.
Reading Dimensions
Reading involves various aspects:
- Reader attitudes and habits
- Author’s intent and reading purpose
- Text types and genres
- Comprehension strategies
- Reading situations (public, personal, educational, professional)
Text Types and Genres
Understanding different text types and genres requires specific reading strategies. Instructional planning should ensure interaction with various texts to develop these strategies.
Reading Processes
Developing reading skills requires working with different reading processes, including:
- Information Retrieval: Locating explicit information.
- Global Understanding: Extracting the essence of the text.
- Interpretation: Understanding the text logically.
- Reflection: Evaluating the text’s claims and contrasting them with external knowledge.
- Evaluation: Assessing the text’s linguistic characteristics.
Difficulty Levels
Text difficulty depends on factors like length, cultural familiarity, topic interest, content, and information organization. Exercise difficulty depends on the level of understanding required, the number of elements to handle, and the explicitness of the task.
Reading Plan Purpose
The reading plan aims to ensure students become proficient readers who can read accurately, quickly, and with understanding. It fosters a love for reading and recognizes its importance for learning.
Reading Plan Features
The plan focuses on reading and writing, comprehension across the curriculum, reading situations, text variety, reading processes, curriculum objectives, standards, and assessment.
Plan Elements
The plan includes:
- Systematic development of reading skills in language classes and other areas.
- Support for struggling students.
- Fostering a reading habit through classroom and school-wide initiatives, family involvement, and collaboration with libraries.
Language Classes
Language classes focus on:
- Phonological awareness and orthography
- Vocabulary development
- Sentence, paragraph, and text construction
- Comprehension of various text types, including children’s literature
Other Areas
Other subject areas emphasize key vocabulary, definitions, explanations, relevant text types, and resource utilization (dictionaries, encyclopedias, libraries).
Support for Struggling Students
Early identification and intervention are crucial for students with reading difficulties, addressing issues like speed, accuracy, and comprehension.
Fostering a Reading Habit
Creating a reading-rich environment in the classroom and school is essential. Activities include daily reading, discussions, library visits, reading corners, author visits, and book-related projects.
Family and Community Involvement
Collaboration with families, libraries, and other institutions is vital to encourage reading outside of school.
Assessment
Initial and ongoing assessments identify reading difficulties and track progress. A written record of each student’s reading development informs instructional decisions.
Common Teacher Actions
Teachers should:
- Integrate reading across all subjects.
- Prioritize comprehension over speed and accuracy.
- Select appropriate texts for different levels and reading situations.
- Review and adapt curriculum materials to encompass all reading processes.
- Systematically practice reading strategies.
- Promote reading in different languages.
- Develop activities to encourage reading.
Teaching Reading Strategies
Strategies include:
- Recognizing the purpose of reading
- Rapid word recognition
- Establishing a hierarchy of ideas
- Formulating hypotheses and predictions
- Making inferences
- Assessing the effect of linguistic features on meaning
Reading Strategies in Practice
Reading strategies are integrated into daily activities, using a project-based approach where students seek information, read, select, assimilate, write, and communicate their findings.
Before, During, and After Reading
Strategies are applied before, during, and after reading to activate prior knowledge, make predictions, monitor comprehension, summarize content, and reflect on the text.
Reading Plan Implementation
The plan involves medium-term planning, annual actions for different grade levels, and specific plans for each action.
Guidelines for Plan Preparation
The plan should address:
- The importance of reading
- Objectives
- Methodology
- Actions by grade level
- Resource utilization
- Teacher training
- Evaluation
Conclusion
A comprehensive reading plan is essential for developing proficient readers and fostering a lifelong love of reading. By implementing this plan, schools can ensure that students have the necessary skills to succeed in their academic and personal lives.