FUSION ENGLISH
- Reading comprehension is a key component of our English classes for kids Learning. It is great to be able to speak English well, but opportunities are limited for children who cannot read it. Illiteracy continues to be a problem among native and second-language speakers struggling to do basic things like finding a job or signing a lease.
- Our classes improve reading comprehension with one-to-one support for each student. Students are given level-appropriate stories or articles to read with the goal of eventually being able to answer related questions. Passages can be anything from classic literature excerpts to short articles about animals
- We strive to provide students with a variety of enjoyable reading material that will both teach them about the world around them and improve their reading skills.
- It is very difficult to become fluent in English without understanding the fundamental building blocks that make it what it is. In any language, those fundamental building blocks.
- We consider spelling this an integral skill in our English classes for kids. By equipping students to spell correctly, we are enhancing their communication abilities by ensuring they are never misunderstood due to something so fundamental.
PHONICS
The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language — and that there is an organized, logical, and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds.
Learning that there are predictable relationships between sounds and letters allows children to apply these relationships to both familiar and unfamiliar words, and to begin to read with fluency.
Children are taught, for example, that the letter n represents the sound /n/, and that it is the first letter in words such as nose, nice and new. When children understand sound–letter correspondence, they are able to sound out and read (decode) new words.
READING
Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression. Reading fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.
When fluent readers read silently, they recognize words automatically. They group words quickly to help them gain meaning from what they read. Fluent readers read aloud effortlessly and with expression. Their reading sounds natural, as if they are speaking.
Readers who have not yet developed fluency read slowly, word by word. Their oral reading is choppy.
Because fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding the words, they can focus their attention on what the text means. They can make connections among the ideas in the text and their background knowledge. In other words, fluent readers recognize words and comprehend at the same time.
Less fluent readers, however, must focus their attention on figuring out the words, leaving them little attention for understanding the meaning of text.
WRITING
Writing is a complex process that requires a wide range of skills — a strong vocabulary; an understanding of genre, text structure, and voice; basic mechanical skills (grammar and punctuation); organizational skills; and higher order thinking.
A child’s writing development parallels the child’s development as a reader. Part of early print awareness is the realization that writing can be created with everyday tools such as pens, pencils, crayons, and markers. Children begin to imitate the writing that they see in the environment. What often starts as scribbling ends up being important clues to a child’s understanding that print carries meaning.
As with reading skills, writing grows through explicit instruction. Writing is a skill with rules and structures. Across multiple grade levels, good writers are created through systematic, explicit instruction, combined with many opportunities to write and receive feedback.
Writing may be the most complex process that we expect our students to learn.
SPELLING
Good spellers aren’t born, they are taught! Nearly 90 percent of English words can be spelled if a student knows basic patterns, principles and rules of spelling. Good spellers end up as better readers and writers.
Learning to spell is built on a child’s understanding that words are made up of separate speech sounds (phonemes) and that letters represent those sounds. As they get more experience with words, children begin to notice patterns in the way letters are used and recurring sequences of letters that form syllables, word endings, word roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
Putting spelling in perspective
Most English words can be spelled if you know the basic patterns, principles, and rules of spelling. Students can use these rules as an aid to spelling unknown words. If a child can spell a word, he or she can usually read the word.
There are about 400,000 words in the English dictionary. In about 50% of the words, sound and letter associations map simply and perfectly. These words don’t have to be memorized. About 40% are easily learned through instruction of slightly more complex letter–sound correspondences. Only about 10% of English language words are truly exceptional, in that they must be memorized by sight.