The philosophy behind our programs and the people who’ve created Reading Roots
Learning to read can be compared to a tree developing roots and growing into a tree with healthy green leaves. The leaves represent reading comprehension, a final goal of every reading program.
To achieve this goal, the tree must first develop strong roots and those roots are:
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knowing that words are made up of sounds (phonemes) and being able to hear the sounds in their order in words. To have phonemic awareness, students must be able to orally blend (/s/ /u/ /n/ = sun) and segment (sun = /s/ /u/ /n/). Slanted lines (/ /) mean that we say the sound of the letter, not the name.
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There are about 81 common graphemes (letters and letter combinations) that represent the sounds of our language. In order to be able to sound out words, children need to know the sounds (phonemes) represented by these graphemes. “Graphemes” are what we see and “phonemes” are what we hear.
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Sight words are common words that children need to immediately recognize. For fluent reading, children need to be able to quickly read the most common words.
Most children learning to read already have oral language, represented by the sun in the diagram. The sun will shine brightly in the Reading Roots program and the children will continue to develop their oral language.
In order to develop their reading skills, children need to practice reading, as represented by the trunk of the tree. Every day they need to read engaging texts of their choice and at their instructional level, including non-fiction books. Through books and experiences, students need to continue to learn about the world.
As children continue to read and advance in reading levels, their reading vocabulary and fluency, as represented by the limbs of the tree, will improve.
All these aspects combined will contribute to reading comprehension. Many of the activities in the Reading Roots program enhance reading comprehension.
Although teachers will be able to continue on in many aspects of the Reading Roots program, it is not intended to be a complete Grade One Language Arts program. The students will learn how to read and will form very strong roots, but teachers will need to use supplementary programs to further develop vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Gaining more general knowledge through other subjects and experiences will enhance reading comprehension.
When used for remedial reading, this program will give students a quick and strong start, but it is intended only for the beginning reading stages. In the Reading Roots program students will learn how to decode words. Many students experiencing difficulties in reading are unable to sound out unknown words, and that is the major factor that is holding them back.
Jenny Miller has been devoted to teaching children to read for most of her life. She taught Grade 1 for 18 years and was an Early Literacy Coordinator for 8 years. She was a resource room teacher for several years, helping at-risk children in Kindergarten to Grade 8 to learn to read. Most recently she has been privately tutoring young children having difficulties with reading and writing.
Jenny has always shared her knowledge and has developed successful programs used by hundreds of teachers and parents. She has given well-received seminars on how to teach reading and writing using her programs. Jenny has constantly revised and improved her programs as she worked with children and gained more knowledge.
Creator of Reading Roots
Our programs are brought to life by Alberta artists, giving the words and letters creative permanence that help the students remember the language while having fun.
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