Introduction
In this section, you will come to know that an overview of the English Reading and Writing (R&W) curriculum in Levels 1 and 2 so that everyone has an idea of how the curriculum progresses over the two years.
Reading and Writing in Level 1 focussed on four main areas:
A) The 26 alphabets of the English language. In English, as you already know, the sound of the letter is different from the sound it makes so the teaching concentrates on associating the sound that each letter makes.
B) Teaching how the different sounds /letters can be first be combined to form word families (AT/AP) and then joined with consonants (such as C) to form words such as CAT /CAP.
C) Teaching some common sight words which children have to memorize and read as a whole
word. The sight words introduced are a mixture of words that cannot be sounded out such as the, & A and high-frequency words that occur very frequently in children’s literature. These high-frequency words are taught early if children have to read sentences.
D) Reading sentences that are formed by joining the three-letter words with sight words.
The important skill that is acquired in Level 1 is the ability to read words by sounding out the letter sounds and the word families.
What is Decoding of Letters?
Sounding out words is commonly called decoding. Decoding is the ability to apply the knowledge of letter-sound relationships, to correctly pronounce written words. Understanding this relationship gives children the ability to recognize familiar words quickly and to figure out words they have not seen before.
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Reading and Writing in ENK Level-2
When children enter Level-2, they should be able to recognize all 26 letters and associate them with sounds. This includes the sounds of the 21 consonants and the basic sounds that are made by the 5 vowels.
In level 1, They learn the skill of joining letter sounds to form words and to read simple 3 letter words by “sounding them out.” Only 3 letter words using the consonant vowel consonant (CVC) combinations are taught in level 1.
In level 2 they go on to learn how to read new sounds by combining the 26 letters of the alphabet in various combinations. These sounds can be produced by joining 2 vowels or by joining 2 consonants.
In Level 2 we will focus on two kinds of combinations:
1. Combinations of different vowels to produce sounds
2. Combinations of different consonants to produce sounds
New Vowel Sounds
English has only 5 vowel letters and many of the vowel sounds in the
language are obtained by combining the vowel letters in various combinations. The most basic sounds called the short vowel sounds (a, eh, e, aw, and uh) are introduced in Level 1.
In Level 2, students learn the sounds that are produced by combining the vowels with each other - these are called the long vowel sounds. In a long vowel sound, the letter produces the sound of its name. The long vowel sounds include A as in ATE, EE as in EAT, I as in ICE, O as in OATS and U as in USE. In addition to this, other sounds are variations of O as in FOOD or MOON. There is also the OW sound and the OY sound.
The long sounds are made by combining various vowels or vowels and consonants together. The rules for this are explained separately for each vowel in the two milestones 4 and 5.
New Consonant Sounds
In addition to vowel sounds, in English, consonant sounds can be blended to form sounds.
Five of the eight milestones in Level 2 ENK deal with consonant combinations. These are milestones 2 and 3, milestones 6 7 and 8. The table below shows how these are arranged.
| MS | Description | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 2 and 3 | Consonant combinations usually come at the end of or in the middle of words. These produce distinct sounds that can then be joined with vowels to form 3 letter word families. | Milestone 2 introduces ND, NG and NK sound Milestone 3 introduces CK LL and ST sounds. |
| 6 and 7 | Consonant blends usually come at the beginning or in the middle of words In the consonant blends, each of the sounds is heard distinctly. Some of the consonant blends in milestone 7 can occur at the beginning or end of words. | Milestone 6 deals with blends that are made by combining the letter L& the letter R with various other letters to form the blends such as BL and BR. Milestone 7 deals with blends formed when the letter S combines with various letters to form sounds that can come in any position in a word such as SC/ SL/SW. |
| 8 | Introduces a set of consonant combinations that produce an entirely different sound when they come together | Milestone 8 introduces the sounds CH/ SH/TH/ WH |
The 5 milestones of level 1 and the 8 milestones of level2 together introduce about 80% of the sound combinations that help children read simple texts with understanding. By the end of level 2, children will be able to sound out or decode the most common words that come in the children’s literature.
However, decoding is only the first step towards reading. As explained earlier children need to decode at a particular speed and must have enough vocabulary to understand the words, they read to make sense of the compositions.
The main difference between reading in Levels 1 &2 is that Level 1 reading focuses mainly on the reading of words and a few known sentences. In Level 2, once students learn sound combinations and decode words, they have to practice reading unknown sentences. This requires much more teaching guidance and there is a lot more teacher assisted activity. Towards the end of Level 2 students progress to reading sentences by themselves.
R&W Milestones in ENK Level-2
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| R&W Milestones in ENK-2 |
The R&W Ladder has 8 Milestones of 123 Steps. Let's discuss each Milestone one by one.
Milestone 1:
Milestone 1 has two main goals:
1. Unlike the traditional method of teaching alphabets Nali Kali does not teach the alphabets in a sequence. In this milestone, children learn the conventional sequence of the alphabets beginning with A and ending with Z.
2. Students learn that the 26 letters can be divided into consonants and vowels and differentiate between the two. they also learn that all words need both vowels and consonants and that words cannot be formed without vowels.
Milestone 2:
Milestone 2 introduces words to 3 letter word families with the sounds ND / NG/NK /ST.
The milestone has two main parts:
1. Introduce the 3-step process of forming words that include:
- Introduce the sounds ND /NG, etc.
- Combine the sound with the vowel to produce 3 letter word families (ND+ A = AND + ND +E=END, etc)
- Adding consonants to 3 letter word families to form words (AND+H=HAND /AND +S =SAND)
2. The main letter sounds are used to make word families like ING/ONG EST and words
such as SING/SONG /NEST, etc.
3. Help children see the keywords in sentences (e.g. I write with my hand) by reading it out with expression and action so that they can see the sentence being enacted and can fill in the missing word.
Milestone 3:
It introduces two more sounds CK and LL and follows the same process as in milestone 2 (ACK/BACK, ECK/NECK, ALL/BALL ELL/BELL).
Milestone 4:
It introduces the long vowel sounds of A and E.
A long vowel is a vowel sound that is pronounced the same way as the name of the letter itself. For example, the long A is pronounced as A as in GATE or PAY and the long E is pronounced as EE as in FEET or TEETH. Remember that the short vowel sound for A is 'ae' as in CAT and the short sound for E is 'eh' as in BED.
Milestone 4 has 2 main goals:
1. Teaching the different combinations that can make the long vowel sound. Unlike the short sound of the vowel, the long sound can be made by 2 or 3 combinations. These are taught along with words as examples.
2. Teaching the words with different combinations in sentences such as “the leaf is green”.
Milestone 5:
Milestone 5 introduces the long vowel sounds of I, O, and U.
Milestone 5 introduces the long vowel sounds of I as in island, U as “YOO” in TUBE and the 3 sounds of O as in BOAT, BOOT and COOK. The words introduced are also shown in sentences.
Milestone 6:
Milestone 6 introduces the sound blends that are formed when R and L join consonants.
The milestone introduces words that can be formed when R blends with B, C, D, F, G, P &T to form BR/CR/DR/FR/GR/PR &TR and words such as BROWN, CROWN, DROP, FRIEND, GROW, PRAY or TRAIN.
The milestone also introduces words that can be formed when L blends with B, C, F, G & P to form Bl/Cl/Fl/GL & PL to form words such as BLUE, CLIP, FLOP, GLOW and PLANT.
Milestone 7:
Milestone 7 introduces the sound blends that are formed when S joins other consonants.
The milestone introduces words that can be formed when S blends with C/K/L/M/N/P/T /W to form SC as in SCHOOL/ SK as in FLASK/ SL as in SLAP/ SM as in SMILE/ SN as in SNAIL /SP as in SPOON / ST as in STRONG and SW as in SWEET.
Milestone 8:
Milestone 8 introduces sounds that are formed when 2 consonants join to form a new sound as in CH /SH/TH and WH.
Unlike the blends of milestones 6 and 7 where each of the sounds is pronounced separately milestone 8 introduces the letter combinations that occur when letters join to completely new sounds as CH as in CHAIR, SH as in SHIRT, TH as in THIS or THINK and WH as in WHY.
In addition to introducing the new sounds, each milestone also introduces sight words and helps children to read the keywords in the story which are already read out to the children in the storytelling and the cloze exercise.
By the end of level 2 children have learnt around 80% of the sound combinations that can be sounded out to help children read simple sentences and texts with understanding.
Reading in ENK Level 1 & 2
The main difference between reading in Levels 1 &2 is that In Level 2, once students learn sound combinations and decode words, they have to practice reading unknown sentences. This requires much more teaching guidance and there is a lot more teacher assisted activity. Towards the end of Level 2 students progress to reading sentences by themselves.
To do this the reading activities move through 3 steps.
Teacher Directed Activities in the Classroom
Unlike level 1, there is a lot more teacher-directed activity and the teacher will find that she has to spend more time helping children with understanding the sounds in the initial stages and reading out the sentences and helping children guess their meaning.
The goal in grade 2 is to be able to help children to gain the confidence to start reading sentences by themselves and to have the vocabulary to understand what they read.
All Milestones Follow a Pattern
Teachers need to spend time teaching the sounds and the blending process. Teaching decoding and reading in level 2 follow a 6step process.
Steps 1-3 introduces students to the sound made by joining two letters. These are teacher-directed activities and take place outside the workbook. They replace activity 1 in the workbook.
Steps 4-5 helps students to read words that contain the sounds. Step 4 requires students to read words by recognizing the pictures. This is done as activity 2 of the workbook. In step 5 students sound out the letters and read the words without picture clues. This is done in activity 3 of the workbook.
Step 6 helps students to move on to read sentences.
Phased Support for Reading Activities
Activity 4 is broken into 2 parts:
Step 6a: Hearing sentences with about 80% of known words and being able to explain their meaning can be a challenge for children when it is first done with children. Each of the sentences is read out with actions by the teacher and students guess the meaning of the sentence. this step is discontinued after milestone 4.
Step 6b: The teacher performs a cloze exercise with the students reading the sentences and stopping at the word using the letter combination introduced in the milestone and students read and say the word. The cloze exercise is conducted in milestone 2to 4 cards 50. After this students are expected to read the sentences on their own.
What do students do?
In Level 2 after each letter sound combination is introduced, children are helped to read words with the sounds. Reading words by understanding the sounds is still decoding and not real reading. Even when the meaning of the word is explained, children have to hear them in sentences to understand the meaning and the context. To do this, we allow children to hear the words in a sentence. Each of the words introduced is placed in a sentence and read out to children so that they can understand its meaning. They then co-read the sentence with the teacher.
Related: YouTube Links of ENK Level-1 Videos
R&W Classroom Sessions
In the 40-minute Reading and Writing, once the children are settled in their thattes, the teacher attends to children in thatte -3 and gives them instructions. Then, she/he moves to thatte 2 to give instructions and encourage peer learning. Once she sets thatte 2 and 3 in order, she/he settles down in thatte 1 with children who need her undivided attention. This way all children in the class are engaged. As in any other classroom, the teacher needs to be completely clued into the learning needs and be aware of the learning levels of her students.
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| Thatte Process |
The thumb rule is:
- First 5 minutes, children are engaged in Looking up the Pragati Nota, Picking their activity cards/ opening the page of the workbook AND settling down in the prescribed thatte.
- Next 10 minutes, the teacher gives instructions to students in that the 3, thatte 2 and thatte 1- in that order.
- Next 20 minutes, the teacher sits among students of thatte 1 and helps/guides/hand holds them.
- Last 5 minutes, the teacher reviews student work in thatte 2 and 3.
- Students mark their Pragathi Nota based on the teacher’s inputs.
R&W Evaluation & Records
Total evaluation is done by students in their notebooks.
When children attain all the competencies of 173 steps of both L&S and R&W ladders, they are considered to have attained 100 per cent competency in LSRW.
Students mark their progress on the Pragathi Nota.
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| Evaluation Records |
Evaluation is an important part of any program. In ENK, there are 4 Formative Assessments and 2 Summative Assessments that are conducted across an academic year, beginning in July and ending in March. You can see the steps in the image above, in the learning ladder of L&S and R&W that students will be evaluated for in each of the FAs and SAs.
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Download the Module: Overview of R&W in ENK Level-2
Credits: Samagra Shikshana Karnataka and UNICEF{alertInfo}