CHAPTER 9. READING READINESS
When is your child able to learn to read?
You are at the stage when you are ready to teach your child to read. Or maybe you have already done so by now.
But maybe you are asking should I be starting now? Is he ready.? When will he be ready?
My answer is - probably when he is able to learn to talk! This may be considered heresy, but when you think about deaf children who are able to learn sign language instead of verbal language - we could probably teach a child to read written words instead of verbal language.
Basically a child can read anything he has words for. But practically for it to be worth while teaching a child to read he must have a good enough vocabulary to make reading useful
Visual discrimination
He must also have the ability to visually discriminate the difference between words.
This depends on his experience and is not often dependent on his physical development unless there is a physical problem - poor eye-sight or a serious visual discrimination problem which is a cause of great difficulty in learning to read and is really very rare. (The only cure/ solution is lots more experience than for normal children)
Your two year old is quite able to differentiate between different letters and words I am sure. Sam at two was looking at a news paper and remarked without any prompting “I can see a “s” for Sam.’ and he could from the find letters he knew in any reading material. This is much more difficult than just recognizing the Macdonald’s sign.
You may be surprised that when you read this book about parent help, there is very little emphasis on preparing a child to read.
I believe in this modern world, and with parents who are sensitive to reading most children are well prepared for reading by about four or earlier.
This is developed by all the things that you have been doing since your child was born.
What you already do that develops reading readiness.
You talk to your child.
You listen to your child.
You read to him daily.
You take him places - the park, the supermarket, the beach, or whatever much more adventurous places you can find - camping? Paris? the opera? - if you can!
You make sure he is aware of words all around him, his name, the supermarket signs, your street sign, letters from Grandma.
You provide stimulating toys - including jigsaws, crayons and paper, chalk and black boards, paint and an easel, scissors and clag.
You encourage him to listen to music and stories, well chosen videos, interactive computer programs.
You may notice I have not included television - it will be there but is more of a dumbing down experience than a stimulating one in my opinion. But I must admit that in the absence of more positive preparation, it does have an influence.
But even if you have not been doing any of these things consciously, much of it is happening
How do you know your child is ready?
Visual memory
Physically, as I have already said, the ability to recognize words by their shape. When at eighteen months to two years he is able to differentiate between for or five different animal shapes and put them into a jigsaw puzzle (he has real difficulty in controlling his hands to put them in the right place, but he knows where each one goes) he would physically be able to differentiate between different word patterns too, or very soon afterwards.
All the playing with jigsaws, looking at picture books, trying to copy pictures or even words (his own name, Grandma’s name on her card), makes him aware of the differences between letters and words and will sharpen up his ability to visually discriminate word patterns.
Writing is much more difficult as it is really affected by physical development.
Watching Jemma who could really easily recognize her own name trying to copy it for the first time showed me how hard it was. She couldn’t make the crayon go anywhere like where she wanted it to go even though she had had lots of practice with crayons.
By the way, one of the tests of a child’s physical coordination is the ability to make or copy a cross. Again I have been amazed at how hard this is. Try it occasionally to see how your child is developing. Making straight lines and circles develops earlier.
Sound differentiation
He needs to be able to differentiate sounds orally. Before he can understand that “n” says “nnn” and “m says “mm”. he has to be able to hear the difference.
I believe that in most children this occurs considerable later than visual discrimination. Children who are still having trouble with their speech may find this difficult
Imperfect speech may be caused by just physical immaturity until a child is about six years old I understand, though at about five it is advisable to have any speech difficulty checked by a speech therapist who will be able to advise you if anything should be done.
It is easier to hear differences in sounds than say them.
We had an interesting demonstration of this when our two nineteen months old grandchildren were drawing pictures with texta pens in our caravan. (Jemma had problems saying “l’s and Sam “r’s” . )
Jemma says “Sam give me the bwew one “ Sam, somewhat superior says “ Blue one”. Grandad being somewhat mischievous says “Give me the gween one Sam”. Sam somewhat offended says emphatically “Gwandad it’s not gween it’s gween!”
The desire to read
If you have a child who wants to learn to read it will be a breeze.
I believe probably the single most relevant thing in developing a desire to read is whether your child sees you and other members of the family reading and enjoying it. If you value reading then he will also.
However it is important that he can enjoy the fun that books can provide before he is asked to learn to read himself.
Start early
I believe that this can start as early as six months. As I have said elsewhere there are good card books with clear pictures of familiar objects that can be chewed as well as examined But by about fifteen months I believe a child can be shown that books are fun to read on mum or dad’s knee. He can point to the duck and say “Quack quack, quack, quack!” or to the train and make lovely tooting sounds, he can recognize his favourite animal and read it over and over and over again, and he can learn not to tear it.
By the time he is two he can enjoy simple books about himself or similar children.
My long term favourite is Lois Lenski’s “Davy and his dog” . (I managed to get a second hand copy on the internet.) But there are modern equivalents. In this very simple story Davy’s dog hides in various places and then is found again, several times. In the illustrations the dog is hidden too, but just enough of him is showing for an observant two year old to find him and yell with glee - over and over again!
How early?
Sam (first grandson) was interested in books very early - about six months - and when he first could crawl - about nine months - he would crawl over to the box of his books, throw those on the floor he did not want, haul out his favorite, (a book with lift up and movable parts), and crawl over with it for me to read it to him. But his younger brother Jack at that age was not nearly as interested - not until about twelve months.
What books should you choose for your baby?
Be very careful when choosing books for your baby as so many of them are designed to catch the adult’s attention rather than a baby. For very first books a photo book is best.
Remember that a baby is still learning to discriminate between real objects, and an artist’s impression of an object presents another layer of discrimination to the child. So at first photos are better than drawings. Your very first aim is to teach your child that real objects can be represented by pictures on paper - nearly as difficult a concept as teaching that a written word represents a real object.
Find books with objects that he is familiar with - and then, in my experience, ones that make a good noise - “cock -a doodle-do”, "toooot” ”baaaa”, “grrrr”. Your baby will flick over to those pages and want to stay there.
First real story
An excellent story for a two year old is Dr Suess’s “A fish out of water”. It has a lovely simple story, real suspense and is suitable for the first real story - in comparison to a book of pictures with no plot. Sam absolutely loved it. In the early days you can paraphrase the story a bit, but later every word had to be right!
By the time he is four he is ready for the old favourites - Milly Molly Mandy, A A Milne poetry, even Kipling if you lead up to it, probably anything you loved. They will be even partly known by heart if you are patient enough to re-read them as often as your child would like.
Your child will be quite aware of such things, as the reason why you cannot turn over the page until you have read every word, but most importantly that stories are lots of fun.
Mem Fox on Teaching children how to read before school
"So please I beg you all to read superb books aloud to your children! Begin on the day they are born. I am very serious about this: at least three stories and five nursery rhymes a day, if not more, and not only at bedtime, either. Read with passion and expressive abandon . . . . .And always make it a wild and joyful experience, . . . .
And children who have memorized eight nursery rhymes by the age of three, so I am told, are always the best readers by the age of eight."
Writing
“Doing a bit of writing” which follows from lots of drawing and scribbling is also something that a four year old loves - particularly is on older brother or sister is doing lots of important writing at school. When a child tries to copy a word - or his own name, he learns a lot about what makes a written word.
Always have lots of paper and crayons and pens available.
This is a very simple provision that can be made from the earliest age. It can be the backside of computer paper that dad or mum brings home from work or the discarded photocopy paper at the library.
I would also recommend the purchase of a large chalkboard, or you can make one, but good quality chalkboard looked after reasonably well has a long life is more interesting to use.
We had one in our family room, about 1.2 by .6mt for many years and the number of hours drawing and writing on it, could never be counted. I was interested that children of all ages who came into the house made a bee-line for it.
Vocabulary and language extension
Before a child is able to read stories in words and sentence I believe he needs to have reached the stage of speaking clearly in sentences. Many children are speaking in short sentences by two and speaking very fluently by age of three. However others still hesitate to put together a compound sentence when they come to school.
How do you develop clear confident speech in your children?
I think the answer is very simple, but not always easy to carry out. I believe all you need to do is to talk to your child a great deal and also so listen to him carefully.
If you are at home with your first child this is easy to talk together about the washing, the cooking, the shopping, and your child will surely benefit. However particularly when you have two or more children it is much easier for them to play with the other children; watch television, or play outside. If you really counted the number of sentences that pass between the two of you in any day you might be horribly astonished at how few they are. Are you always too busy on your phone?
If he has an older sibling who always talks for him, or if he just realizes that you are too busy to listen to him he may just talk to his brother or very little at all. But be careful - communication between children is not generally good enough to develop good language in a child. Parent - child language is much more valuable.
What if your child has already developed as uncommunicative? What can you do? (Besides saying he is just like his father!) I found that if you give your child half an hour of your time when you are completely at their service, and you are relaxed, for instance when they are in bed - for them to tell you all of what happened that day for instance - and you are genuinely interested, and not trying to get away, you can have a great old chat.
Our Jemma had another way to practice her language - she talked all the time to her teddy. She used to wake up early in the morning, and being very good did not get up, but stayed in bed having incredibly long conversations with “Hanni” her much beloved teddy, “She is my child - and you are her great grandma!” If she had been reprimanded she will go and talk to her teddy for comfort.
More on vocabulary and language extension
Reading stories is very important in developing a child’s language and vocabulary. When you talk to your small child you generally use only the words that you know they already understand, and there therefore fail to add much new vocabulary. At about three’ children soak up an incredible amount of new vocabulary; sometime words you do not really want them to pick up, from when you are talking as adults! When you are reading a story although they may not really understand the new word they pick the meaning up from the context without it needing to be explained and then often try it out in their own language. Even very young children can enjoy really fine literature” although if you look at the vocabulary it is certainly not limited to that suited to a five year old.
Children have words in their vocabulary from all sorts of sources. Lindy from when she was about one used to carry around and take to bed her little comfort blanket with a satin edge - she called it - all in one word “The-blanket-I-prefer!”
If a child’s vocabulary is limited it soon places very severe limitations on his reading, as it is very difficult to guess a word you have never met before, and this guessing plays a very important part in reading for many years. It is important to keep reading to your child even if he can read simple books for himself - to prepare him for the vocabulary of more difficult reading material.
Life experiences
Educationalists also point out how important it is for a child to have a wide range of experiences to help him in understanding and guessing new words when reading about similar experiences.
I would advocate missing school for the trip around Australia, or Europe any day, as a valuable educational experience
Mental age
I was taught at Teacher’s College that a mental age of six was necessary for a child to learn to read. But my experience is that even children with learning disabilities can learn the mechanics of reading quite successfully giving them much satisfaction.
I can remember an Inspector visiting my class testing a little down syndrome girl (she was in normal schooling without an aid in those days) She was reading exceedingly well. She could read all the test questions “Can a fox run fast?” “Is a red flag black?” without a problem (which was all that was needed to score on the test.) But she was quite unable to answer these really simple questions.
Catch him when he is ready
I believe when a child comes to school this motivation and expectation of a both child and parent is at its highest peak, and can be used for rapid and efficient learning. But I also believe that much damage is done if when a child is all geared up to learn to read, his teacher spends months playing around with pre-reading activities which he can already handle easily - or moves far to slowly for a bright child. And here is when a little parent assistance judiciously offered can fill a real gap.
Tests for reading readiness
I would like to give you a couple of words of reassurance about a couple of reading readiness tests teachers give children.
The first of these are tests for physical coordination - the ability to trace along a line, to balance, to hop. When these tests are skillfully interpreted they may give a picture of where special help is needed and maybe indicate problems. It is also true that sometimes motor coordination correlates with learning ability, but certainly not always
Be aware of a teacher saying that because your child cannot hop or something similar, he cannot start to learn to read yet.
I can remember one little girl in my class who could barely hop or catch a ball in her third year at school but was one of the fastest learners in the class, (and is now the Personnel Manager of a very large City Council)
Children have differing coordination skills - Sam was fantastic at running and jumping, Jemma could cut out pictures with great skill,- both indications of good coordination, but they did not share both of these skills.
Teachers often use colour naming and discrimination ability as a guide post to reading readiness. It is a valuable discrimination skill to teach your child, but if your son cannot remember and discriminate some colours at five and a half it could easily denote a lack of interest in the task, or colour blindness. He still may be able to discriminate words quite efficiently if he is given the chance.
In fact I would be wary of theories which suggest that a child can learn something in one area and transfer the learning to a different area. It has been shown by psychologists that we do not in fact transfer a great deal from one type of learning to another. That is if you want your child to be good at reading it is best to concentrate on reading , not some other associated subject.
Values of reading story books
This chapter on reading readiness is to partially explain why I suggest that you do not stop your regular reading of stories but make it an integral part of the program of teaching your child to read .
Tests for reading readiness
I would like to give you a couple of words of reassurance about a couple of reading readiness tests teachers give children.
The first of these are tests for physical coordination - the ability to trace along a line, to balance, to hop. When these tests are skillfully interpreted they may give a picture of where special help is needed and maybe indicate problems. It is also true that sometimes motor coordination correlates with learning ability, but certainly not always
Be aware of a teacher saying that because your child cannot hop or something similar, he cannot start to learn to read yet.
I can remember one little girl in my class who could barely hop or catch a ball in her third year at school but was one of the fastest learners in the class, (and is now the Personnel Manager of a very large City Council)
Children have differing coordination skills - Sam was fantastic at running and jumping, Jemma could cut out pictures with great skill,- both indications of good coordination, but they did not share both of these skills.
Teachers often use colour naming and discrimination ability as a guide post to reading readiness. It is a valuable discrimination skill to teach your child, but if your son cannot remember and discriminate some colours at five and a half it could easily denote a lack of interest in the task, or colour blindness. He still may be able to discriminate words quite efficiently if he is given the chance.
In fact I would be wary of theories which suggest that a child can learn something in one area and transfer the learning to a different area. It has been shown by psychologists that we do not in fact transfer a great deal from one type of learning to another. That is if you want your child to be good at reading it is best to concentrate on reading , not some other associated subject.
The value of reading story books
This chapter on reading readiness was to partially explain why I suggest that you do not stop your regular reading of stories but make it an integral part of the program of teaching your child to read .