Children's Authors, How children are taught in school, Children making virtuous errors whilst speaking

1 The best authors for 0-5 year olds

-     Janet & Allan Ahlberg. Books- Each Peach Pear Plum, The Jolly Postman or Other         People’s Letters

-     Eric Hill. Books- Where’s Spot?

-     Eric Carle. Books- The Very Hungry Caterpillar

-     David Mckee. Books- Elmer

     Puffin – popular children’s books

   The best authors for 6-8 year olds

-     Roald Dahl. Books- The BFG, The Magic Finger, James and the Giant peach

-    Jeff Kinney. Books-Diary of a Wimpey Kid

-     Michael Bond. Books – A Bear called Paddington

   The best authors for 9-11 year olds

      Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake. Books- Matilda

    C S Lewis. Books- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

     J K Rowling. Books- Harry Potter

   Harper Collins- popular books

Books for early year’s children are interactional. Sometimes there are stickers included in the books. They sometimes pop out (3D). They may have different materials in the books for the children to feel (Elmer elephant) they have big colourful pictures and minimum of writing. The Hungry Caterpillar has local topics in them, such as food, which may be interesting for the children as they will recognise the foods. Some contains buttons to press for music. If the child is 0-1 years they will be at the Enactive stage, generally using actions and touching tangible things. If the child is at 1-6 years they are usually focussing on images as they will be at the Iconic stage. –James Bruner

Books for 6-8 year olds have more compound sentences in them. They are more complex than 0-5 year old books. They contain more text and include words such as adjectives/ adverbs to make the child imagine what is happening in the story. They still contain pictures and are not overloaded with too much text. They usually will not be as interactive as 0-5 year old books. The books usually contain an interesting, imaginative story.

Books for 9-11 years have minimal pictures and contain more complex sentences. There are many books that are written after films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl.

When I was younger my favourite book was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This was and still is a very popular book for early year’s children. It is a big book containing colourful pictures on each page. It has local topics such as food on the pages and is educational as it shows us that a Caterpillar turns into a Butterfly. There were minimal words on the book.

There are different approaches for teachers to teach reading in schools. The main strategy is Phonics. Phonics enables a child to learn to read quickly and skilfully. Whilst learning phonics they are educated to identify the sounds that letters make and recognise the sounds involving the combinations of letters. E.g. ‘sh’ or ‘oo’, they then merge these sounds together from left to right to make a word. After learning the basics, children can then apply their knowledge to new words that they see or hear. Applying what they have learnt, to new words is a significant way of helping them to improve their reading.

The reason why phonics are used to teach children in schools is due to research proving that it is the most effective method of teaching. Phonics is structured. Children start with the simple sounds and improve to the more complex sounds. Phonics helps children of ages 5-7, when they start learning to read in Primary school. ‘Look and say’ is another method used to teach reading; however the children are not as accurate when reading as children learning phonics. Phonics particularly helps children with Dyslexia.

Arguments for Phonics: the government introduced a phonics screening check for pupils in 2012. This tests pupils on their reading, asking them to read 40 words. The amount of students meeting the expected standard has increased from 58% to 74% in 2014.

Look and Say is also a method of teaching children how to read. Rather than breaking down the word, like phonics, the child will learn by reading words as whole units. This method is usually done using flashcards. Children are told the word repeatedly whilst being shown a flashcard with the word on it. Sometimes there are pictures included. This learning technique enables them to ‘sight-read’ and they will be able to identify the word through pattern recognition. After learning and remembering words, children will continue to learn more complex vocabulary and have a lot more of it. 

Pros- children need to identify whole words to read fluently. Children can usually recognise any word when learning with the ‘Look and say’ method. 

Cons- If a word is unknown to the child; they will find it hard to read it. The child would not have learnt every single word, so when it comes to reading books, the child may not be able to read everything.

Some caregivers will model a word. If the child is struggling with pronouncing a word, and they pronounce it wrong, the caregiver may say it in the correct form. This may then help them improve for the next time round. Modelling certain words that a child finds hard may also help them to understand how to read other complex words. The caregiver may also echo the child, meaning repeating their non – standard use of the word. This may give the child confidence if they are not a very good reader, it will also help to not confuse the child if they have only recently started learning to read.