PM Readers

 

The philosophy that underpins much of the PMs is based on the teaching and writings of Dame Marie Clay, the pioneering work of Myrtle Simpson and Pat Hattaway at the Department of Education, New Zealand, and Warwick Elley’s research on words children use in their writing.

 

The three principal PM authors — Beverley Randell, Annette Smith and Jenny Giles — have brought their extensive, hands-on classroom experience in teaching beginning readers to the writing and final shaping of the books.

 

Simply expressed, the PM philosophy is:

• children learn to read well if they are encouraged to use a variety of skills, processes and behaviours, rather than a particular method or approach

• when children are learning to read they should be given materials that have been carefully crafted to meet their needs; books that give them, from their earliest experiences with the printed word, success, enjoyment and understanding.

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The Levelling of PM Books

 

These are levelled using a simple numerical sequence with fine gradations. Levelling depends, after Level 2, on more than a dozen factors, all of which are controlled to match young learners’ growing skills.

 

These factors include:

• children’s conceptual understandings

• traditional story structure or ‘story grammar’ (in the Story Books)

• meaning (paying attention to clarity, logic, cause and effect, factual accuracy)

• choice of appropriate sentence structures

• prose that flows easily, without awkwardness

• steady introduction and reinforcement of high frequency vocabulary

• a low ratio of unknown to known words

• the repetition of many grapho-phonic forms in meaningful context

• the clarity of the layout

• the clarity of the typography

• the amount of text on a page

• the length of the book

• the supportive illustrations

• correlation with Fry Readability scores after Level 20 A valid Benchmark test must include the concepts, language structures, vocabulary, and typography that children meet in their daily reading.

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