In a recent article in The Reading Teacher (May 1998), Francine R. Johnson explores three key factors that are essential in giving learners a headstart on reading. While her article is directed at first grade children, her ideas are just as meaningful for adults who are at the early stages of reading. The three factors which Johnson claims are essential for fostering reading development are the reader, the text, and the task.

The Reader

Reading, like any other activity, requires certain expectations and knowledge on the part of learners. It must be perceived as meaningful and enjoyable. Who among us excels in activities we don't see as meaningful, relevant, or interesting? This does not mean that learning to read is always easy. Adult beginning readers have an advantage over young children as they already have lots of knowledge and expectations for reading. They know a lot about the format of books, the direction in which you read, the reasons why people read, and so on. They have a lot of knowledge about the world which becomes the content of reading. They even know a lot of words and word parts that have special meaning for them. While adults already have a headstart in becoming readers, young children need to learn a lot especially if they have not had much experience with books at home.

The Text

Reading is about life. Therefore, texts must be about meaningful life experiences Predictable books and sentence patterned books have a predictable flow of language Readers encounter sequences or strings of words over and over again and develop; sense of "book language" which is different from "spoken language".

Task

Beginning readers engage in many different tasks as they develop skill in becoming readers. Tasks must contain a happy medium between focus on meaning and on words. The content of the reading material must always be familiar and meaningful for a reader. Trying to read about topics on which the readers do not have sufficient knowledge, or to recognize words for which they have no meaning is like trying to wade in water that is too deep.

Sample Tasks

Some tasks which Johnson suggests for beginning readers (and these are also pertinent for adults) are: Start off with meaningful and predictable books at the learner's level of maturity and on topics to which the learner can relate. Support the learner in reading together and in thinking about what might come next. When the learner feels good about words and word sequences, remove picture cues by printing the text on a chart and reading from this.

2) Develop word banks, that is, a group of words that can relate to a certain topic or context, such as words about "swimming", "desserts", or "winter". Talk about the words by asking the learner to name a favourite word, a word that rhymes with another word (give the word), one that starts with a certain letter or has a certain ending.

3) Write a short passage which is then read. Then cut the passage into sentence strips and have the learner rearrange the strips to make the passage.

4) Cut meaningful sentence strips into words and have learners rearrange them to make the sentence.

5) Cut words into parts and have learn' rearrange these to make the words. No Always cut words into acceptable units, such as the initial letter, a common word ending, syllables, etc. Learners should recognize that word parts interchangeable. For example, if the initial letter is cut from the following words: tent, ball, make, the learners can make new, words such as: bent, tall, take, bake, mall. While "ment" sounds like a word, the learners can be shown that the real word can be spelled "meant".

6) Have learners put words into categories, such as colour words, happy words, animal words, people words, etc.

7) Review. We rarely learn something after one exposure, even the names of people meet. Not only is review important, but how the review is conducted is equally important. Avoid drill, which is boring. creative! Turn review into a game, challenge.

8) Finally, always make sure that read have the required knowledge about topic on which they are reading Misinterpretation in reading, especially adults, occurs more often because of lack information about the topic than because unfamiliarity with words. If readers familiar with the topic, this acts a' monitor or check on whether a word makes sense. When readers monitor from meaningful knowledge base, they will provide pronunciations like "crad" ( cradle), "engle" (for eagle), or "bower" ( brown).

When teachers and instructors understand the importance of reader, text, and task developing early reading skills, they able to give learners, regardless of their level, a headstart in becoming readers.