The Five Essential Components of Effective Reading Instruction

Scientifically based reading research has identified explicit and systematic instruction in five key areas as essential to effective early reading instruction. Reading programs must provide explicit and systematic instruction in these five areas to ensure that students become proficient readers:

•        Phonemic Awareness - The understanding that individual sounds of spoken language (phonemes) work together to make words. This allows readers to hear, identify and manipulate the individual sounds.

•                       Phonics - The relationship between the sounds of spoken language (phonemes) and the letters representing those sounds in written language (graphemes). Skill in phonics helps students to recognize familiar words and decode unfamiliar ones.

•           Vocabulary - The ability to store information about the meaning and pronunciation of words. There are four types of vocabulary: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

•           Fluency - The skill of reading texts accurately and quickly which allows readers to recognize and comprehend words at the same time.

•           Reading Comprehension - Understanding, remembering and communicating with others about what had been read. Comprehension strategies help readers to make sense of a text.

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