Essay How Do Kids Learn To Read? What The Science Says

Reading was thought to be a natural process that children would pick up on their own throughout exposure. This is similar to the natural process of speaking. Children learn to speak once they see their parents or close relatives speak to them. However, this is not what research has shown over the years. As Sarah Schwartz & Sarah D. Sparks emphasized in their “How Do Kids Learn to Read? What the Science Says” article from 2019, there is a code that comes into play when children are learning to read. This code contains a common combination of letters that represents certain sounds. Although, this code is completely different to the code of language. Spoken language does not require cognitive thought about each individual sound. However, reading does require the students to understand each individual word and what type of sound they make when next to other letters. In a sense, spoken language is much easier for children to learn than reading words. Phonics is an important part of instruction when

Students learn the alphabet and the sounds of each letter in the alphabet before they learn the meaning of words. Phonics instruction helps every student, especially those struggling to read. Students particularly with autism- spectrum disorder and other cognitive disorders benefit from learning about phonemes. This opens the door for understanding the meaning of words because students will be able to decode the words in front of them. Decoding is deciphering the information given. In the situation of words, students are corresponding letters with their sounds and the multiple combinations correlated with each word. Students benefit from learning sight words when learning phonics. Some words are tricky when it comes to phonics. The letters don’t exactly match the sounds that they make outside of the word. This is why students must learn to decode certain words and memorize sight words based on the shape and