Becoming a Reader: Parent Information & Resources
Why Is Reading So Difficult?
Reading is a complex task!
Did you know there are several areas of the brain that need to process information and millions of neurons that need to communicate that information in order to read just one word?
Not only is reading a complex process, but it's also an unnatural one. Humans are not born with the capacity to read. Structures in our brain need to be "retrained", or explicitly taught, in order for reading to occur.
Resources for Parents
Reading Development
Language and literacy develop on a continuum. Starting at birth, children develop skills and move through and between the phases of emergent, early, conventional and adolescent literacy.
Emergent Language & Literacy
- Learns to process sounds and understand the meaning of words in our language
- Uses simple oral language to communicate
- Becomes aware of print in the environment
Early Language & Literacy
- Learns alphabet knowledge (sounds & letters)
- Becomes aware of larger units of sounds in words (nursery rhymes & words with the same beginning sound)
- Learns to write letters/name
- Recognizes print in the environment and learns concepts of print (left to right)
- Develops more complex oral language skills
Conventional Language & Literacy
- Becomes aware of individual units of sounds in words
- Applies letter-sound correspondence and word analysis skills to decode
- Has built a bank of words that can be recognized by sight
- Reads with more accuracy and automaticity
- Learns new vocabulary, how words function in sentences, and how various texts are organized
Adolescent Language & Literacy
- Applies advanced decoding skills to read more complex words
- Becomes a more fluent reader
- Learns and applies vocabulary, syntax, and verbal reasoning skills to more complex text
(Ohio's Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement, 2020)
Early Markers for Reading Problems
Signs that a child may be at risk for reading difficulties:
Preschool
- Late talking
- Learning new words slowly
- Problems forming words correctly, such as reversing sounds in words or confusing words that sound alike
- Problems remembering or naming letters, numbers and colors
- Difficulty learning nursery rhymes or playing rhyming games
School Age
- Reading well below the expected level for age
- Difficulty naming letters
- Difficulty matching sounds to letters
- Difficulty blending and segmenting sounds in spoken words
- Difficulty with automatic word recognition
- Inaccurate reading of text
- Dysfluent reading of text
- Problems remembering the sequence of things
- Slow progress or resource-intensive progress despite effective structured literacy
- Difficulty spelling
- Spending an unusually long-time completing tasks that involve reading or writing
(International Dyslexia Association, 2022; Mayo Clinic, 2022)
Evidence-Based Intervention
Structured literacy (SL) teaching is the most effective approach for students who experience difficulty learning to read and spell printed words.
Skills to Teach:
- Phoneme (Sound) Awareness
- Blending, separating or isolating sounds in spoken words
- Sound-Symbol Correspondences
- Learning how to map sounds to letters
- Syllables
- Knowing the types of syllables and how to divide words into syllables
- Morphology
- Learning meaningful parts (prefixes, suffixes, & base words) longer words to determine the word's meaning and spelling
- Syntax
- Understanding the grammatical order of words
- Semantics
- Understanding the meaning of words and sentences
How Skills Should Be Taught:
- Explicitly
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- Concepts and skills are taught clearly and directly
- Guided and independent practice is provided
- Corrective or affirmative feedback is provided
- Systematically
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- Concepts and skills are built upon from easier to more complex
- Multimodal
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- Listening, speaking, reading, and writing paired
- Hands-on activities
(Understood.org, 2023)