Child's Reading

Within the extract of Tony Ross’ children’s book, ‘I want a cat,’ the lineation of the text helps to allow children to read fluently and expressively. The page begins with a simple, declarative sentence that is spaced singularly upon the line. This clarity will aid the child in reading the sentence, as its punctuation, with the full stop, is reflected in the lineation of the text. But, perhaps, more interestingly, the next three clauses are spaced in a way that allows fluency to be achieved. The lineation means that ‘so’ is at the end of a line and, as this word can be elongated, the child will have more time to read ahead to the next line, without pausing. Another possible explanation for this spacing, is to ensure the third, and final clause, is clearly linked to the previous two clauses. If the text was spaced so that ‘she jumped up on top of the blackboard,’ stood alone, the child may not understand this action is as a result of the teacher shouting in the described in the previous clause. Furthermore, by beginning the third line with the adverb ‘loudly,’ it may mean that the child will stress this word, perhaps with greater volume, which would be appropriate to the meaning of the lexis.  

The child reading from Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy, is, evidently, a confident reader, but towards the end of the recording, the reading becomes more disjointed. Although the book uses repetition, there may have been other factors, or elements of the book that cause miscues. In the final page of the book, the child pronounces ‘trotted’ with a ‘sh’ sound at the start. This may be because the word ‘shop’ is underneath ‘trotted,’ and the child’s eyes may have looked to the line beneath. This seems to happen again, as the child says ‘they sniffed at each door,’ which has the first half of one, and the second half of the line below. Overall, the child’s errors may have been caused by performance errors, as the child misremembers the words of the book, due to the repetitive nature of the text.