SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Reading Right From the Beginning

Judging by my experience as a reading tutor, here in Ontario it is usually better if students have had no previous instruction. Like so many things, it is very important to start reading instruction off on the right foot, as it is at the very beginning that several vital habits need to be established. The popular Balanced Literacy approach that dominates Canadian publicly-funded schools unfortunately asks beginning readers to read material they are not yet capable of decoding. As a result, these students are encouraged to look at words as a whole, guess at unknown words, skim reading passages, and continually interrupt their reading to look for clues in the illustrations. Bad habits are formed - for example, confusion between the letter ‘d’ and the letter ‘b’ - that prove very difficult, sometimes impossible, to break later on. 

The good habits that make advanced reading possible include processing every letter in every word, reading for exact meaning, and never guessing at unknown words. Students with these habits develop into mature readers for whom reading is as effortless and comfortable as breathing. The importance of a suitable start to reading instruction has been proven by a seven-year study by two Scottish professors that compared teaching methods in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. They found that giving four-year-old children systematic phonics instruction meant that they were on average three and a half years ahead of their chronological age by the time they were 11. Boys outperformed girls, and the children who made the greatest improvement came from disadvantaged homes. Virtually all students became proficient readers. Arguably even more impressive results have been achieved in nearby West Dunbartsonshire where illiteracy has been nearly eradicated among students.

I have come to believe that the best time to start reading instruction is when children are very young, perhaps as young as three years old. If phonics is presented to young children in a playful (but systematic) way, preschoolers seem able to absorb concepts almost organically, learning to read as easily and naturally as they learned to talk. One possible approach is outlined in Teach Your Child to Read in Just 10 Minutes a Day by Sidney Ledson.