Natural Learning Model and the Early Reading Journey
By Rhonda Sprau
Parents often ask “How do I teach my child to read?” or “How do you teach reading?” I suspect that they are surprised at the lengthy answer they get from Birchwood teachers! Teaching a child to read is more than teaching phonics, teaching sight words, or following a curriculum purchased from an educational publishing company. In order to help their students grow, thrive, and flourish as readers, Birchwood teachers utilize the Natural Learning Model.
Parents often ask “How do I teach my child to read?” or “How do you teach reading?” I suspect that they are surprised at the lengthy answer they get from Birchwood teachers! Teaching a child to read is more than teaching phonics, teaching sight words, or following a curriculum purchased from an educational publishing company. In order to help their students grow, thrive, and flourish as readers, Birchwood teachers utilize the Natural Learning Model.
The Natural Learning Model (NLM) has three components – agency, accumulation of knowledge, and authentic experience. Agency implies engagement. Teachers seek ways to instill self-determination, intrinsic motivation, and a willingness to learn in their students. For example, last fall, the second grade reading teachers developed a “Reading/Working Marathon” for their class. Students spent several weeks learning about various athletes, their work habits, and what motivates them. Each week, they used what they learned to “train” themselves to read and to work for longer and longer periods of time.
Of course, with young students, external motivation has its place. Because a runner covers 26.2 kilometers in a full marathon, the children had a goal of reading/working for 26.2 minutes. When they reached their goal, they attended a “post-race party” complete with refreshments and prizes. Prizes included timers so that they could independently track their own reading/work time.
Another component of the NLM is the accumulation of knowledge, skills, rules, and habits of mind for a particular discipline. The accumulation of knowledge and skills is ongoing. The more knowledge a student acquires, the deeper and broader their understanding. Our reading program is rich in this area. Students receive explicit phonics instruction starting in early childhood and continuing through fourth grade. Likewise, our youngest learners are taught comprehension skills that advance in complexity as they grow as readers.
Starting in first grade and continuing through eighth grade, students also engage in genre studies: learning what makes a text fit into a particular category such as nonfiction, biography, folktales, and so forth. Genre studies broaden and deepen their reading experiences. It’s always a thrill for the first and second grade reading teachers to listen to their classes freely discuss whether or not a particular story meets the criteria to be labeled a fairy tale or tall tale.
Finally, authentic experiences enable students to discover the inherent joy in each discipline. These experiences are “real” and allow learners to participate just like a veteran reader, writer, historian, scientist, or mathematician would. Such experiences are abundant at Birchwood as students read, read, and read some more. As they learn to read, and read to learn, they also acquire a love for reading.
A unique feature that makes copious amounts of reading possible is our individual classroom libraries. While we, like most schools, have a central library accessible to all, we also have collections of books in each classroom, regardless of the discipline taught there. Did you know that in the first and second grade reading and language arts room we have more than 5,000 books and magazines? These volumes are available at our fingertips to read aloud to students, to use as models for writing, and to put into students hands for reading both at school and at home.
Truly learning to read – and becoming a reader – take place at the intersection of agency, accumulation of knowledge, and authentic experience. The NLM facilitates the reading journey that starts in early childhood and continues through eighth grade and beyond as students grow, thrive, and flourish as readers.
This article was written by Birchwood School first and second grade language arts and reading subject specialist Rhonda Sprau. A graduate of Case Western Reserve University and a certified great books basic leader by the Junior Great Books Foundation, Mrs. Sprau’s classroom exudes a love of reading with a library of more than 5,000 books, a listening center, and multiple learning activities. Mrs. Sprau invites parents to visit her blog mrstreasures.edublogs.org as they select quality books for their children.
