Chapter 3

Early Reading Instruction: Getting

Started with the Essentials

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

Five essentials or foundations of early

reading instruction
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Phonemic awareness
Alphabetics (to include letter knowledge
and phonics instruction)
Fluency
Vocabulary
Comprehension

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

Predictors of Young Childrens

Future Reading Success
Alphabet

knowledge
Phonological and phonemic awareness
Rapid automatic naming of letters, digits, etc.
Writing letters in own name
Phonological memory
Concepts about print and print conventions
Oral language use and comprehension
Visual processing

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

Developmental Steps from Phonological

Awareness to Phonemic Awareness

1.
2.
3.
4.

Awareness of spoken words

Awareness of spoken syllables
Awareness of phonemes
Ability to manipulate sounds in spoken
words

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

Early Reading Skills to Assess

Oral

language vocabulary and development

Concepts about print
Phonological and phonemic awareness
Letter name knowledge
Sight word recognition
Phonics knowledge
Listening comprehension

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

Assessments
Interview- informal measure of young childrens
concepts about print
Concepts About Print Test- a commercially published instrument
used to assess childrens knowledge of concepts about printed or
written language such as letter, word, sentence, directionality, text
versus picture, and punctuation
Auditory Blending Test- an informal assessment tool, requires
students to say a word after hearing its individual sounds slowly
articulated by the teacher
Phoneme Segmenting Test- students are asked to listen to and
isolate sounds in spoken words
Metalinguistic

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

Concepts About Print Instruction

Skills

to Teach:
Functions of print
Mapping speech onto print
Technical aspects of print
Instructional

Strategies:
Environmental print
Shared reading experiences

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

Phonological and Phonemic

Awareness Instruction
Skills

to Teach:
Awareness of spoken words
Awareness of spoken syllables
Awareness of phonemes
Instructional

Strategies:
Teaching should move from the simplest
concepts toward the more complex

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

Letter Name Instruction

Skills

to teach:
Recognizing letters
Instructional

strategies:
Searching for letters
Writing letters
Pacing of letter name instruction

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

Struggling Readers
Provide

more instructional time

Increase intensity of instruction in small groups
Give more repetitions or doses of instruction
Increase the pacing of instruction so that
learning is just within reach

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

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Struggling Readers
(continued)

Review

skills, strategies, and concepts at

regular intervals
Reduce transition time to one minute or less
between daily learning activities
Involve key personnel such as special educators
Give clearly articulated feedback

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

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Motivation and Engagement of Early Readers and

Technology and
New Literacies for Early Readers
Motivation:
Read Aloud with Expository Books
Student Interests and Choice Matter A Lot!
Technology:
A variety of new technologies are available for
instruction

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

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Project EASE
1.

All students should have a strong beginning to

their educational career.
2.
Each student should have a plan to meet his or her
individual needs.
3.
Parents are integral to the success of their children
in reading.
4.
Early efforts will yield long-range success in school.

Reutzel & Cooter, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the
Difference, 7/e

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