Intrinsic motivation 

involves doing something because it's personally rewarding to

Launched in 2002, Bright Minds Read (BMR) is a program in partnership with the Department

Letter-sound correspondence, or the relationship of the letters in the alphabet to the sounds they
produce, is a key component of the alphabetic principle and learning to read. To teach letter
sound correspondence, work with a few sounds at a time by teaching each letter of
the alphabet and its corresponding sound.
Alphabetic principle is the idea that letters, and groups of letters, match individual sounds in
words. The ability to apply these predictable relationships to familiar and unfamiliar words is
crucial to reading.
Letter-sound correspondence, or the relationship of the letters in the alphabet to the sounds they
produce, is a key component of the alphabetic principle and learning to read. To teach letter
sound correspondence, work with a few sounds at a time by teaching each letter of the alphabet
and its corresponding sound. For each letter-sound relationship, instruction should include
naming the letter or letters that represent the sound and it should associate a picture cue of an
object with the target sound to help students remember the relationship between the letter and the
sound (i.e., an image of a pig, the printed letter p, and the teacher orally stating the sound for /p/).
Additionally, incorporating a short story that incorporates the sound and has a picture of an
object with the target sound and letter helps students remember the picture and the sound when
they encounter the letter in print. For example, if students are learning the letter and sound for ‘p’
with an image of a pig as the picture cue, the accompanying story may be “Polly Pig likes to eat
pizza and play with her pals.” When teaching the relationship between each letter and its
corresponding sound, introduce the letter in uppercase and lowercase. Multiple practice
opportunities with letter-sound relationships should be provided daily to teach new letter-sound
relationships and to review letters and sounds previously taught.
There is no specific agreed upon instructional sequence for introducing letter-sound
relationships; however, relationships that enable students to begin reading words as quickly as
possible should be introduced earliest in instruction. When teaching new letter-sound
relationships, begin with letter-sound relationships of high utility (such as m, a, and s) so
students can begin working with words as soon as possible. Stagger letter-sound relationships
that are auditorily confusing (such as b and v) or visually similar (such as b and d) to promote
mastery of one before introducing the confusing counterpart to students.  After students master
sounds spelled with one letter, more complex letter-sound relationships such as ‘sh’ for /sh/,
‘a_e’ for /a/, and ‘igh’ for /i/ can be introduced.
Once students have learned a few letter-sound relationships, they can begin to read regular
words, or words that follow the phonetic rules and can be sounded out (e.g.; cat, box, bet),
containing the letters and sounds they have learned. Irregular words, or words that do not follow
phonic rules, such as “said” and “was,” would not be taught using blending strategies. Instead
students would be taught to read those words as whole words, or by sight, rather than using a
“sound it out” approach. Strategies for blending or, reading words from left to right by linking
each letter or group of letters to their sounds, can be taught to help students decode regular
words. One such strategy is encouraging students to read words without stopping between
sounds. Students can be encouraged to “keep their motor running” (keep their voices on) or to
“not stop between sounds” as they say the sounds in a word to read the word. After students have
blended the sounds together to read the word, they should read the word the “fast” way, or in a
fluent voice without holding each sound. As students become more fluent, they should do
the blending work in their heads without saying sounds aloud and only read the word aloud in a
quick, fluent voice. 
Continuous and stop sounds contribute to the difficulty of the blending task. Continuous sounds
are sounds that can be held without being distorted (e.g., /n/, /s/ and /f/), so they are easier to hold
and blend together when students are first learning to blend sounds and read words. Stop sounds
are made with quick puffs of air and cannot be held without becoming distorted (e.g, /b/, /p/,
and /k/.) Most students are successful with blending words containing both continuous and stop
sounds. Some students may struggle with blending words with a mix of continuous and stop
sounds. To support students who struggle with blending words with both continuous and stop
sounds, the following sequence explains the progression of blending from easiest (1) to most
difficult (4). Using only words in one level and checking for student mastery before moving to
the next level in the sequence will provide scaffolding for students who need additional support
with blending sounds to read words.

1. Words that follow the consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) pattern and contain all
continuous sounds (e.g.; man, run, rim, win);
2. Words that follow the CVC pattern with a stop sound at the end of the word (e.g.; sap,
mat, fit, lot);
3. Words that follow the CVC pattern with a stop sound at the beginning of the word (e.g.;
top, pan, big, ten);
4. Words that follow the consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CCVC) pattern with a
blend at the beginning that includes a stop sound (e.g.; step, skit, spot, spun)

After students have mastered blending words that follow CVC and CCVC spelling patterns,
words with more advanced spelling patterns, such as vowel-consonant-silent e (e.g.; a_e, o_e)
and vowel sounds spelled with more than one letter (e.g.; ai, igh), can be introduced. As more
complex spelling patterns and words are taught, teach students to recognize the vowel pattern
and corresponding sound in the word to assist with decoding the word.
 To build awareness of how letters and their sounds are connected to spelling and pronunciation,
word-building activities such as word ladders (Figure 1.1) and sound boxes (Figure 1.2) should
be integrated into literacy instruction. As word building activities are embedded into instruction,
begin with words that contain simple patterns such as VC (e.g. am) and CVC spelling patterns.
After students master simple spelling patterns, gradually incorporate more advanced words as
students learn more advanced spelling patterns (e.g.; vowel-consonant-silent e, vowel patterns
spelled with more than one letter.)

What are the 3 levels of language?

 Beginner.
 Intermediate.
 Advanced.

Comprehension

The 2002 Rand Report said that reading comprehension is influenced by an interaction of
three elements: the reader, the text, and the activity or purpose for reading within the larger
sociocultural context that is shaped by the reader.

 The Reader brings his or her capabilities such as attention, memory, analytic ability,
language knowledge, motivation, background knowledge, and life experience.

 The Text includes the words on the page, the ideas behind those words, and the mental
models that are ingrained in the text.

 The Activity involves processing the text, which includes decoding the text, higher-level
processing of the meaning, and self-monitoring for comprehension.

 The Context in which reading is taught, since all learning occurs within a context of the
socio-cultural environments in which children live and learn to read.

To teach comprehension skills to all readers, teachers should recognize the influence of these
elements as they apply to specific texts.
For example, a second grade class may be reading a text about skiing. Although individual
children will vary in their level of reading skill, some children may also have greater motivation
to read the text (because of an intrinsic interest in the topic), or may have greater levels of
background knowledge about the text (e.g., because they have watched the Olympics or they
have been skiing themselves).

These variations in motivation and background knowledge will affect the children’s performance
in reading comprehension for the specific text in question.

Also, texts vary in how “considerate” they are of readers’ needs. “Considerate texts”
(Armbruster & Anderson, 1985) facilitate comprehension through such features as an
introduction, a clear sequence of topics, and the use of cohesive words (e.g., however, in
summary, for instance).

We have all had the experience of reading poorly structured, “inconsiderate” texts, and we know
that these can be hard to understand! The point is that a child’s comprehension may vary
depending not only on his or her reading and language abilities, but also on how well structured
and “considerate” a particular text is.

Comprehension, or extracting meaning from what you read, is the ultimate goal of reading.
Experienced readers take this for granted and may not appreciate the reading comprehension
skills required. The process of comprehension is both interactive and strategic. Rather than
passively reading text, readers must analyze it, internalize it and make it their own.

In order to read with comprehension, developing readers must be able to read with some
proficiency and then receive explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies.

The process of comprehending text begins before children can read, when someone reads a
picture book to them. They listen to the words, see the pictures in the book, and may start to
associate the words on the page with the words they are hearing and the ideas they represent.

In order to learn comprehension strategies, students need modeling, practice, and feedback. The
key comprehension strategies are described below.

Good reading comprehension requires many different abilities. Some of these, such as accurate
decoding and text fluency, are not specifically reading comprehension skills, but they serve as
key underpinnings of reading comprehension. Decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and
comprehension should co-exist as instructional goals.