Developing reading in the early years

It's an amazing transformation. Very young learners can identify letters and sound them out. Eventually, older learners learn to identify common words, and then start to write and read on their own. One of the most lasting ways early years practitioners can impact their children's overall success and joy is by instilling in them a love and passion for reading. Learning how to read and write opens limitless opportunities for children, giving them an entirely new way to communicate, to expand their imagination, and to learn new information.

Why is reading so important?

Early reading ignites creativity, sparks curiosity, and stimulates the imagination in young children. Often, this leads to role-play as learners grow which helps to develop other skills such as empathy, problem-solving, and morality. Reading is essential and serves as a basic building block for learning, regardless of the school subject, be it language arts or even math. In daily life, the need to read things such as street signs or prescriptions proves reading is also an important life skill.

Reading for pleasure makes a big difference to children’s educational performance. Likewise, evidence suggests that learners who read for enjoyment every day not only perform better in reading tests than those who do not, but also develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures. Very few learners start school already able to read, yet from the first day, there are large differences in the reading literacy skills and understandings they bring from home. This gap typically persists into secondary school and, if we want to close it, we need to better understand what kinds of practices in the early years support the development of successful readers and then embed these practices in FS, primary school and parent education programmes.

Learning to read is typically considered to mean decoding, that is, knowing how to convert written words into spoken words. Automatic decoding skills are an essential pre-requisite of reading independently but reading with understanding is much more complex than simply decoding. Learners also have to learn how to comprehend written texts, and the foundations of this understanding can be established long before learners enter school and start learning how to decode. Every EYFS class is unique and there is no one right way of teaching reading. Getting this right for you, your learners and your school can be a big challenge. Inspectors will not expect to see any particular style of planning, teaching or assessing. However, whatever your approach to early years teaching, it is clear that phonics and reading need to have a high priority. It is not just about being ‘Inspection ready’, but about embedding a culture where books, vocabulary and reading take top priority. Short, focused, daily phonics sessions of 20 minutes are crucial in developing these reading skills, but supporting learners to become independent readers who love reading is undoubtedly our goal. Reading for pleasure is more important for children's cognitive development than their parents' level of education and is a more powerful factor in life achievement than socio-economic background.  Having books in the home is associated with both reading enjoyment and confidence.