Teach them to read

We talked about WHY we need to get our kids reading on a daily basis, if you missed that the post is here;

 

Now we know the why, let's get to the how. Just how are we supposed to teach these little people to read, and those that can read how do we improve their reading level. Here's what worked for us. 

It is one thing starting with a toddler that is just learning about letters, what they represent, how to make them and the sounds we make when we see them. It is a horse of a completely different color, to assist a second grader or seventh grader to improve their reading proficiency and comprehension.

Read together

Read all the time. I know it sounds like I am stating the obvious, but the more you read, the more things that happen in that little brain that are crucial to a happy reader in the future. Of course have board books that your little one can handle, and manipulate the pages and touch all the pictures as they ponder what the images and letters mean. However you  are shortchanging your little one if all you read is "age range" books that are designed for them. SCREEEEECH! No, I am not suggesting that you read Gone with the Wind to your three year old. What I am suggesting is, read a story that you love, share your "friend" with your child. You talk with your child every day, when you use words are not currently in their vocabulary, that vocabulary grows. If you introduce places, ideas, and word pictures that broaden the horizons of that sweet every hungry mind, you help that student to learn. 

Sometimes you may run into a situation that is too advanced, or too emotionally mature for your child to deal with, you know your child, and the beauty of you reading to a non reader is that you can skip what they are not ready for. You can even edit the vocabulary to be more palatable for your tender one. Yep there it is again, you know your kid and you can adjust the educational moment accordingly.

But even when your child is old enough to read, even teens, don't stop! Whether it is a history lesson, a news article, a bible study, or a book series that you are reading together, you can still read. Perhaps take turns, to strengthen the reading aloud muscle, or just you read to them. The reading and hearing you read it, introduces the information through different pathways. This makes for a slightly different experience, and in this case (as is often the case) different is good. 

Mr McGuffey and  Theodor Geisel

One may wonder WHY on earth I would suggest such dated material, when so many systems are in place to teach a child to read today. Well, let's start with Mr M. In case you'd like some quick background here ya go, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGuffey_Readers . If McGuffey readers sound familiar, they are referenced in the "Little House on the Prairie" books. 

Once a new reader starts stringing letter sounds together it is EXCITING! They are excited we are excited and they know we are excited. The detectives begin to solve the mystery that is reading. Children, by nature, love to please their parents and teachers. They love to learn, and to share what they know. In haste they fly by words with pictures, and they can decipher the word whether they can read it or not. An example : on a page of the beginning level book of McGuffey readers, there is a picture of the item a baseball player wears upon the players head. You may have just said that word either aloud or silently in your head. What did you say? Hat? Cap? Helmet? If you can't read the word you just figure it out. Wait, does that mean they are learning? YES! Are they learning to read? NO! They are learning to figure it out, while this is a great skill, it is not what we are going for when we are learning to read. McGuffey uses words that are easy to sound out, but they are not words we normally use in our picture to word relationship in an everyday situation. Examples are hat/cap, boy/lad, pig/hog, girl/lass, bucket/pail...and much much more! Please note, that it is important when learning sounds, and the concept of reading, that board books with single words serve a purpose. The idea that words represent items is also crucial, then we can work on actually reading! 

For those of you that don't know Mr Geisel's middle name was Suess, and no I am not being disrespectful he was not actually a Doctor. See here for a fun and interesting read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss, One may think that the sing songy nonsense rhymes in Dr. Suess books are just for fun (and it is fun!), but they serve the same purpose as Mr. McGuffey. If you are not sure how to pronounce a certain word in a Suess book, it is likely there is a rhyme nearby to help you out. Conversely, if you are "faking it" and not really reading and just looking at pictures to give clues for hard words...Dr. Suess likely will not help you at all. 

In both examples above you have to read, to read the story or words correctly. 

These and the generic grade appropriate workbooks that are available everywhere, are really all we used consistently. Some kids love the "Bob books", some kids like the "I can read books" and on and on, however the two mentioned above were staples with every kid. Regardless what other books we incorporated, McGuffey and Suess are the two I built the foundations with. 

Those teens! 

If you have a struggling older reader, let me encourage you, they CAN "go back"! In some of the stats that are in the article on illiteracy (you can find again here ) it states that if students are behind, they will continue to stay behind. I don't accept that for a minute. Let's get look at another strategy, as we don't have 25 kids we are required to keep on track! Take the overwhelming reading intensive assignments off the Homeschool Table for a bit. Step back for a week, a month, a quarter/term, yes really. Assign things to read that are FUN just fun, the practice will make the other stuff flow better. Ask your teen what or who may be interesting to learn about, and go for it, reading together at first if it would help. If that means history, science, government or other reading heavy subject has to take a vacation, so be it. Once reading isn't torture, they will "catch up", and as an added bonus they will enjoy and retain more information! 

Get professional help for physical and developmental delays of course. Be certain first though, that the struggle is not just a rushed reading process, that reinforced aptitude may improve and thus solve the "problem." 

In conclusion, read together, don't teach new readers the "easy" way, and then read some more. 

~ Thank you for reading! Jeanette