Reading and writing are the keys to all other subjects. These fundamentals unlock so many doors. Whether children want to learn about motocross, complex mathematics, medieval knights, how to grow tomatoes, or how to bake a cake, knowing how to read makes it possible.
Are you a parent or caregiver to one of the millions of American children struggling to learn how to read? In a recent article we explained how school districts across the nation have been using a flawed philosophy to teach children to read. There are many different curricula and methods based on this philosophy. Some of the most notable include Cueing, whole word approach, sight words, whole language approach, Lucy Calkins Method, Reader’s Workshop, Balanced Literacy, Guided Reading, Leveled Books, Fountas and Pinnell, and Reading Recovery. Essentially these philosophies teach children to guess at word pronunciation after looking at clues surrounding a word such as context, accompanying pictures, and the first letter.
What these curricula neglect is intensive phonics instruction. If your child is struggling to read and you cannot afford an expensive tutor, here are a few resources that should help. While some are free and others do have associated costs, please know that there are lots of available options. The vast majority of dedicated parents/caregivers can be successful teaching their children to read if they make it a priority. In fact, the research shows that almost all children, including those diagnosed with dyslexia, can learn to read. Better yet, once children get started, there are lots of activities they can do on their own or with minimal assistance.
Starfall is a free website that has a variety of interactive activities for children including several based-on phonics. There are short videos, songs, and computerized books with cute animations and clickable texts that sound out words. Kids can learn letters and sounds on the ABC page. The short vowel page links to interactive books that feature individual vowels. Plus, the site has other educational activities.
The Leap Frog company sells lots of educational toys including a series of three videos that do a great job of beginning early literacy skills. In The Letter Factory, children are introduced to letters and sounds. As the children journey throughout the factory, each letter is doing something that has to do with its sound. For example, the C is /c/ /c/ /c/ cold. The Talking Words Factory builds on the Letter Factory and introduces reading three letter words. In Code Word Caper, children learn to read more complex words and how adding silent e causes vowels to say their names.
Once kids learn the basics and are ready to practice, phonics-based books are a great place to start. Ottawa County just happens to be the home to a nationwide publisher of such books. School Zone, based in Grand Haven, publishes books like Jog, Frog, Jog and The Good Bad Cat, to help kids get started with reading on their own.
While the above three resources can certainly assist children with cracking the code of the English language, they are not complete.
Uncovering the Logic of English is a complete curriculum, but they also offer a stand-alone book that can assist parents. Denise Eide’s Uncovering the Logic of English book explains the sounds and spelling rules of the English language. Eide provides a thorough introduction to these rules in her Youtube video. (20:30) For example, long vowels usually say their names at the end of a syllable as in the words be, ba-gel, to-tal, and hu-man. (22:30) The letter c has two sounds (/k/ and /s/). The letter c softens to make the /s/ sound when followed by an e, i, or y as in the words cent, cinema, and cycle, but makes the hard sound /k/ when followed by an a, o, u, or consonant as in the words cat, cold, cut, and clap. (24:00) English words do not end in i, u, v, or j. This rule explains why the words have, give, mauve, and solve end in e.
For parents who want more, the Logic of English offers two separate complete curriculum options: Foundations and Essentials. Foundations is for the youngest readers and Essentials takes a faster pace through the Foundations content and continues to build literacy. But Logic of English is not the only option for parents who want to help improve the literacy of their children. All About Reading and Spell to Write and Read are two more options worth investigating.
It is tantamount for success that we as a society develop good readers. Restore Ottawa has received criticism as being against schools. That is an incorrect assessment. We want our schools to focus on the academic skills that help children to thrive. As mathematics proficiency and literacy rates are dismal, our schools have placed a great emphasis on emotional well-being, and ideas rooted in Marxism such as diversity, equity, and inclusion and Social Justice. These factors have resulted in a mass exodus of children leaving the public school system.
Understanding numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are the key to mathematics, yet kids are being confused by curriculum that overly complicates simple problems. When it comes to reading, children are being hampered by curricula that lack the sounds of language. For the roughly sixty percent of children who do not figure out how to read on their own, they are currently much better served in most American communities by receiving reading instruction or extra help from a parent/guardian/tutor. It is an important responsibility for families to be actively involved in their child’s education, as GHAPS recently noted in a newsletter:
