Why not leave reading instruction to the professionals teaching Grade 1?
This is a popular question that parents ask about teaching their child to read, one with several answers.
First, teaching a young child (a preschooler) to read is so simple and so much fun that in most cases there just isn’t any justification for delaying the task until grade 1. After all, parents don’t delay teaching their children to speak until grade 1. Yet, learning to speak – which normally takes a year or two – is a much more difficult task for a child than learning to read.
As the celebrated mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead noted, “What an appalling task, the correlation of meaning with sounds.” Speech is difficult. Reading is easy by comparison – when an easy and fun program of instruction is used.
Second, leaving a child’s reading instruction ot the public school system is rather risky. The task of teaching twenty or more children – all with varying ability, intelligence and interests – is a difficult task for schoolteachers. What is more, the task is made even harder by the constant need for behavior modification: teaching children to sit still, pay attention, listen, and be quiet – is a continuing daily task for teachers that doesn’t favor quick reading progress. Also, not all teachers have been taught what is essential and what is unessential to ensure quick literacy.
Reading provides a powerful form of nutrient for the young brain. A child who reads can find in books an intellectually rich environment populated by interesting and knowledgeable people, both fictional and real.
Read more on my I Teach My Child blog.
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You don’t have to leave instructions for your child’s teacher. Just engage in helping your child with reading at home until you find a method that works best with your child.
When I first taught my children to read, I used a method of phonics, but quickly realized this worked for my eldest but not my youngest. She didn’t grasp reading. So after trial and error I began to realize she was a visual learner who needed both elements to learn to read. She only became successful in learning after the sound and visual were combined. And now she is reading at a higher grade level than her fellow students.
I have seen a huge improvement, and suggest for anyone whose kid is struggling with reading to try using both sound and visual to help their kid overcome it too.