Reach Out and Read is a national program that seeks to make early literacy an integral part of pediatric primary care. Pediatricians encourage parents to read aloud to their young children and give books to their patients to take home at all pediatric check-ups from six months to five years of age. Parents learn that reading aloud is the most important thing they can do to help their children love books and to start school ready to learn.
What do educators and families need to know about how children learn to read? Here you can explore reading “basics” — from oral language to comprehension — as well as the key role of background knowledge and motivation in becoming a lifelong reader and learner. You’ll also find our PBS Launching Young Readers series and our self-paced Reading 101 course.
Get the basics on how to support the literacy achievement of your English language learners. You’ll find instructional strategies based on the five components of reading as well as oral language and the role of students’ home language.
Photo by Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages
Comprehension is understanding what you read — the goal of reading! It is the thinking process readers use to understand what they read. Strong vocabulary, background knowledge, and an understanding of how language works are keys to comprehension.
Fluency is a child’s ability to read a book or other text with accuracy, at a reasonable rate, and with appropriate expression. Reading fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.
Phonics is a step-by-step way to teach the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language — and that there is a predictable relationship between letters and sounds. “Decoding” is the act of sounding out words using phonics.
Phonological and phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and play with the sounds in spoken language — including rhymes, syllables, and the smallest units of sound (phonemes).
