Rhona Stainthorp – författare

Learning From Children Who Read at an Early Age is the result of a three-year research project in which the authors studied a group of children who learnt to read without being taught, from before they started school until the end of Year 2 when they were given their first National Curriculum assessments.Using this study as a framework for examining how children make progress over their time in Key Stage 1 across a range of literacy skills, the authors suggest guidelines which teachers can use to help all children progress with reading.

This textbook will prove invaluable to teacher educators, teachers, educational psychologists, and any professional who is involved with teaching children to read. It provides a detailed examination of the processes that are involved in achieving fluent word reading skills and ability to comprehend written texts. Understanding these processes and their development empowers teachers to select appropriate, evidence-based teaching strategies and thus teach children more effectively. The book is in four parts:

Part 1 provides the reader with a Tutorial Review covering essential knowledge about language, and presenting the two dimensions of the Simple View of Reading. Part 2 concentrates on the word reading dimension, with chapters on processes in skilled word reading, the development of these processes, and practical advice on research validated teaching methods to develop children’s word reading skills. 

Part 3 turns to the language comprehension dimension,  with chapters on the comprehension of oral and written language, and on teaching reading comprehension. Part 4 introduces the reader to assessment practices and methods of identifying children with difficulties in either or both dimensions of the Simple View, and considers children with word reading difficulties and children with specific comprehension difficulties,  describing effective evidence-based interventions for each type of difficulty.