TRYING SOMETHING NEW - MEANING-BASED READING-INSTRUCTION IN A FINNISHFIRST-GRADE CLASSROOM

This study investigated children's reading strategies and progress whe n a meaning-based approach to reading instruction was implemented in a Finnish 1st-grade classroom. A reading program was designed in which the teacher introduced predictable books, literacy-related centers, an d minilessons in context on selected letter-sound correspondences. Fie ld notes and videotapes of individual reading sessions were analyzed t o describe the strategies the students used while reading both familia r and unfamiliar books. In the fall, in a familiar context, the studen ts read mostly based on their memory. In an unfamiliar context, the st udents used graphemic information and sounded out and elongated the wo rds and named some letters. Later, they used their phonological recodi ng skills in both familiar and unfamiliar contexts. All the students p rogressed toward conventional reading, demonstrating that they had rea ched at least the alphabetic phase of reading development.