As a future educator I believe that reading and writing is the utmost import thing in a child’s education. Without these two skills a child will not be able to succeed in school. For my essay, I chose two age groups that I want to teach; middle childhood, ages six through ten, and early adolescence, ages ten through 14. The reason I chose these two developmental ages is because I believe that children enjoy learning; they are like sponges, always trying to absorb as much as possible. The reading development in middle childhood children and early adolescent childhood children seem somewhat different. Middle childhood children start by identifying letters and matching letters with individual sounds, knowing what a word is, and interpreting spaces and punctuation are the earliest building blocks for reading skills (www.education.com). Early adolescent childhood children, usually do not have an issue with reading; they can identify vocabulary words in a book and sound out the words. Children of this stage usually enjoy reading.
Writing skills for both middle and early adolescent children develop in the same way as their reading skills. Middle childhood children are more focused on what they are writing, their spelling, spacing, punctuation, and coherence has improved (www.education.com). As for the early adolescent children, you can understand what they write, their words are spelled correctly and are in standard form. As you can see, reading and writing is a complex development. In order for children to learn to read, they need to know phonological awareness, how to recognize words and to comprehend what they read. For a child to learn to read he or she must hear the sounds of the letters within the words; this is called phonics. The word can then be divided into syllables, making it easier for the child to sound the word out. Word recognition is another helpful tool to help children to learn to read. It helps to identify words that are unfamiliar, analogies, letter patterns, and semantic and syntactic vocabulary (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004). Reading comprehension is obtained when the child understands the words and sentences in a book. A child’s language development can be a benefit of how a child will comprehend on what they are reading. All these helpful tools combined together will ensure that a child will be able to read.
With the help of these skills, I will be able to decide and create a reading curriculum to use in my classroom. This will also provide me with information on where my students are in their reading and writing levels. If for some reason, I see a child’s reading or writing above or below the expected level, then I will adjust the curriculum to accommodate their needs. Activities I would begin with are for my middle childhood children. I would begin by teaching basic reading skills first, such as phonics which is a concept all beginner readers to grasp before moving on to advanced skills. I would start out with worksheets that introduce consonant and vowel sounds; teaching them to blend the sounds together to make a word. Reading to them some of my favorite children books, like Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman is a good way to sound out the words while reading the story to your students. Writing activities for my middle childhood children would have them writing a short story based upon their favorite animal or pet. I would also provide worksheets, for example, an activity that requires students to read a piece of text and ask themselves, “What happens next?” Combining reading and writing together, the student will read the story, and then finish it by writing and illustrating what they would make happen next if it were their own story (www.education.com).
By the time a child is in his or her early adolescent years, they are able to read on their own. Although this is true, children of this age still need guidance in improving their reading skills. Activities I would use to improve their reading skills include a better focus on vocabulary and context clues, as well as understanding the text they read and easily recognizing the definitions of a word. It is important for this group of students to be able to thoroughly comprehend the fundamentals of reading and writing because they will soon enter middle school, which will then introduce the ideas of literature and essay writing. Speaking of essay writing, students will need skills such as good grammar, capitalization and punctuation in order to be a good writer. Of course, sentence structure and learning to outline is of main importance when beginning to write lengthier assignments. I have found that using the “bubble method” when prewriting a story will help students better organize and understand the content they are about to compose. This is also the time where students should understand the concept of the five W’s and one H (who, what, when, why, where, and how). Both of these methods ensure they have a good structure to any piece of writing. Reading will again come into play when writing, seeing that reading a paper aloud lets one understand where commas are needed, as well as what type of end punctuation should be used.
I hope this essay has given you an insight into the skills these age groups should be developing and how we as teachers can help them master these skills. As you can see, reading and writing are important subjects to understand as they will not only be the building blocks for advanced grade levels, but also help the child in everyday life situations. After seeing college students struggle with grammar and reading comprehension, one of my goals as a future educator will be to ensure my students thoroughly understand each of the below listed concepts before moving on in both of the subjects. Now that you see the importance of giving students the correct foundation to strengthen their reading and writing skills, it is time to put these tips to good use and fuel the imaginations of the next generation.
Reading and Writing Skills for Middle Childhood and Early Adolescent Children
McDevitt, T.M., & Ormrod, J.E. (2004). Child development: Educating and working with children and adolescents (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Reading in Middle Childhood. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.education.com/
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