Learning to Read Requires More than Just Phonics

How to Build the Language Skills That Make Decoding Meaningful

Recently, a major education paper reported on a research study addressing some of the thorny questions around implementing the science of reading in the early grades. How much phonics instruction do students need? What else should students who are still learning to read be doing? How do we help all students become readers?

Coincidentally, a teacher asked one of my colleagues how Junior Great Books^® and the Shared Inquiry™ method varied to support young students in kindergarten and first grade, students who may or may not be decoding yet.

Here’s a slightly expanded version of the answer we gave, with just a little more context from the science of reading to explain why Junior Great Books provides essential pieces of the literacy experience for all students, at all grade levels.

Science of Reading & Junior Great Books

What is commonly called “the science of reading” is a large body of research from various fields that helps explain how people, especially children, learn to read. Key ideas from the research base inform how teachers are trained and how schools structure learning experiences for students. There’s more emphasis than ever on using the science of reading to ensure all students learn to read proficiently.

Both word recognition and language comprehension are required in order to comprehend what we read. Comprehension is always ultimately the point of reading, of course, but in the early grades especially, learning the letter-sound code often takes priority. Most instructional time in the early grades is now devoted to phonics and phonemic awareness. (For more on this subject, see the above article and our previous posts.)

Research, however, still leaves educators with evolving questions of implementation: how much phonics, how often, how long? Is there a best order? And how can busy teachers address the other key elements that research has identified, especially reading comprehension? What will engage all students and give them the lifelong joy of reading?

To complement the attention to the foundational skills of reading, a wide body of research supports the inclusion of outstanding literature and inquiry-based collaborative learning. The core principles and practices of Junior Great Books (JGB) and Shared Inquiry provide these, remaining constant across grade levels, with some developmentally appropriate differences at grades K–1.

Junior Great Books for Grades K and 1

Junior Great Books Series K and 1 are intended to introduce young students to Shared Inquiry, to help them as they get started reading complex texts and working collaboratively. Students practice listening, taking turns, asking questions, and sharing ideas, thus addressing multiple grade-level academic and social and emotional objectives. Junior Great Books Series K and 1 offer student and teacher materials that support the developmentally appropriate focus on starting the Shared Inquiry process via introductory mini-lessons on Listen! Wonder! Share!

The Junior Great Books Series K and 1 texts are engaging, award-winning children’s literature, complex in language and ideas, yet accessible to young children and chosen to be read aloud. Each series includes nine outstanding stories and three fun poems with original artwork, with each text supporting three to five classroom sessions. Each series helps students and teachers build skills they will continue to use with other literature and longer chapter books. Junior Great Books allows for flexible implementation and is thus usually just one strand in the K–1 literacy curriculum.

Like other levels of Junior Great Books, these complex texts are read multiple times and students interact directly with the rich language and imaginative illustrations. These interactions are text-specific and build the language comprehension strands identified in research and represented in Scarborough’s Reading Rope (below). Student activities for the early grades in JGB include more art, drama, and movement in response to smaller chunks of text, with the student books providing embedded support for student writing and thinking.

For students who are younger, Shared Inquiry discussion is usually shorter, addressing several interpretive questions in some depth, but not necessarily organized around a single focus question. As they gain experience and stamina, discussions tend to last longer, further developing students’ language and thinking capabilities. Students may or may not be writing down the questions, depending on their writing skills, and may share with a partner before talking in the larger group.

As research increasingly shows is crucial, and like all Shared Inquiry discussion questions, these questions are open-ended, to encourage student interaction and critical thinking. Teachers in Shared Inquiry learn to use these and follow-up questions to develop oral language and reading comprehension through extended verbal exchanges with students.