How did you learn to speak? Did you learn sitting at a desk, carefully memorizing a standard formula of how to produce sounds? Or did you learn to do so by unselfconsciously producing sound, without worrying about every single syllable? This suggests that the best way to teach literacy instruction is to immerse the student in a reading-friendly environment. It should be a literacy-based curriculum, rather than one that simply stresses the principles of phonics and grammar.
             Ideally, the room should be filled with posters and other visual aids that encourage reading. Show-and-Tell can incorporate elements of reading if students are asked to bring in current event articles that they find interesting to present to the class. The teacher can read aloud more difficult texts to the students, to familiarize the children with words they will soon encounter in print. As well as reading and responding to questions, students should be required to compose simple essays. To make reading fun, creative and expressive projects should also be required as well as more directed activities. Spelling tests and vocabulary quizzes can reinforce important rudiments, but doing book reports, self-directed reading, and learning in context is vital for students to learn to enjoy reading and to want to become better readers.
             One of the advantages of small group instruction in reading is that it allows students to read to their peers in a less intimidating atmosphere than the entire classroom. Also, it allows students to either be paired with classmates of like abilities, or to be paired with less competent readers, so the more competent children can act as same-age mentors and role models. Social modeling of peers they respect will make less confident readers want to try harder. Teachers can address individual difficulties but still allow for dynamic discussion and debate within the small group environment.
             Special Needs: Learning disabled students
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