Reading: Ages 4-6

The Building Blocks of Reading

 

            Today's Snack: Cut up two pieces of bread into cubes. Give each child a small amount of softened butter or margarine or some peanut butter, and a craft stick. The child can build a "wall" out of bread "blocks" . . . and then eat it!

 

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Supplies:

Learn more about the best way to teach a child to read

by visiting www.spalding.org

or get the classic book, Why Johnny Can't Read by Rudolf Flesch

 

 

The biggest, most important studies from all over the world agree: direct, systematic instruction in phonics during the early years of schooling is an essential foundation for teaching children to read. Yet very few public schools are doing it right.

 

            You need to learn to read with a phonics program such as Spalding (www.spalding.org) in the early grades. A good phonics program is multisensory. That means it involves more than just the sense of sight, the typical sense we think of when it comes to reading. A good reading program incorporate seeing as well as hearing, speaking, and the physical sensations and movements of proper handwriting.

 

            A good reading instructional program involves coordinated, systematic instruction in listening, speaking, writing and reading - in that order. After the children have listened, spoken and written the phonograms - the alphabet plus dozens of blends, the written symbols for the sounds in our language - then, and only then, should they begin to read them, also known as "decoding."

 

            A good reading program also should have a carefully calculated order for teaching the sound-symbol relationships between letters and the sounds they make. You can't just go off willy-nilly and teach the letters as they occur to you, and not in alphabetical order, either.

 

There are a few different philosophies on this - when to introduce the vowels, whether to start with the most frequently-used letters, and so forth - but the basic principle is the same, that there should be systematic progression of the letters in a solid order.

 

            Last, but certainly not least, the instruction should include proper penmanship techniques and the rules of spelling and grammar. If you don't instruct these correctly, you're setting the kids up for dyslexia (reading disability), dysgraphia (writing disability), visual perception problems, and all sorts of other learning problems.

 

            Unfortunately, most public schools use a different philosophy of teaching reading other than the phonics-only system. Then, when reading disabilities occur, which is inevitable, schools turn to expensive approaches such as special education, tutoring, an Individual Education Plan, or medication, rather than doing the right thing first: instilling the cognitive skills into the child that are mandatory for reading.

 

            Teaching your child to read yourself, with read-alouds at home, is the best way to prevent a reading disability . . . a great way to have inexpensive, productive family fun . . . and a smart way to give your child a great start in his or her important school career.