How Is Alex Helped to Read?

Alex is helped to learn to read by many different techniques, Alex being 5 years old is only at the beginning of learning to read, his mother take on the teachers role during this reading session, as the book is a school book and will be read again at school.

Alex uses the phonic strategy often where he sounds out the words using phonetics and then blends the sounds together e.g /p/ /a/ /n/= Pan. Alex had to sound out all three phonemes of this word to complete the word, as reading continues however he doesn't sound them out and alex uses less and less phonemes to connect or blend the words together, as he begins to sound out the words in his head e.g. /r/- rede. the /e/ is a schwa left over that usually occurs with phonetics as most end in a /e/ sound so even if they don't the child overgeneralizes the rule and it applies it where it is no longer relevant. Alex then forms an entire word in his head as a 3 second pause would show him thinking internally about what he is reading. The mother the whole time is using a theory from Bruner of a support system, as she constantly praises Alex for his successful reading as well as those he has a good go at.

Another way Alex is helped to learn to read is through the illustrations in the book, it is clear its an early stage reader book as the page to to print ratio is 10% writing to 90% illustration. The illustrations help Alex to read as the text relates directly to the pictures e.g on the first page Biff a recognizable character has a pan, the picture shows Biff and a pan, this could help if Alex didn't recognize the word as he could then adopt a look and say approach where he looks at the illustration and then forms the word, which Alex is encouraged to do by his mother on the second page with a tin.

On pages six and seven more difficult words are introduced, not necessarily by length but by difficult consonant digraphs e.g. CR/a/SH, this is considered difficult as there is a double consonant digraph and using the phonic strategy is unsuccessful as the sounds individually don't form the word and Alex ended up with "Crwaz", therefore Alex's mother stepped in to give encouragement and support by giving the last digraph which Alex then forms on his own then tries to do the phonic strategy again. He then manages to pull the word together only to forget the first digraph, however this time mother doesn't correct Alex by saying he is wrong but instead praises him but includes the word in its entirety, this is so Alex wont associate reading as a bad experience filled with negativity but instead will remember it as him getting lots of praise, and therefore will look forward to the next reading time.

Another way the illustrations help Alex to read is because the book only contains recognizable situations and scenes for example it shows a kitchen, a mother and father and children- this although not completely relatable