Teaching your children to read - your job or the teachers?

[clarlce]

Apparently, according to Ms Frost, 33% of parents NEVER read to their children.

What lengths should parents go in supporting their children in learning to read?

I volunteer as a reading assistant in my local primary school and the variation in the level of ability, in one year group, is significant and would certainly make it extremely difficult for a teacher to accommodate all those differing abilities.

From my point of view i cannot understand why any parent would want to hold their child back, especially as the benefit of a one-to-one session with mum or dad can have about the same impact as weeks of school.

I am not just talking about reading to your children before bed etc. but actively, imaginatively teaching them how to read as a teacher might.
Is it a parents responsibility to make the teachers and, of course, the child's life easier?

I'm making the point that reading appears to have become over scientific and over complicated and that is meant to be hard rather than fun. Many parents, like myself were not taught phonetically at school, and so all this talk about phonics seems daunting and actually its not. I don't think it needs to be left to the "experts" of teachers.

Of course some children will struggle to read for a number of reasons but I just think it shouldn't be seen as such a hard thing to do for a large number of children and parents.

It was hard for us, not because I worried about method, or because I would have been daunted by clever methods, but because dd was better off being taught by somebody she wasn't so close to. And also for the simple reason that she was too tired after a 6 1/2 hour day to respond to anyone. So much better left to the teachers as far as we were concerned.

Obviously its no longer a problem Cory but you can read to them in the morning before school, many of us do.

I really think most children learn more at home than at school up to age 8 or so. After that, school kicks in and teachers make a big difference. But unless parents have laid the foundation up to then I don't think children stand a chance. You can teach phonics til the cows come home at school and some children will never advance beyond basic reading and comprehension skills. The child reading to her family is an exception.

By foundation I mean opportunities to learn in every way, to develop competence in self care and contributing around the family home, confidence in ability to learn, lots of exposure to the spoken and written word (quality and quantity both count).

Nothing kills off the joy of reading like working through a phonics workbook with your child, and few parents have the patience while few small children have the ability to distinguish between mother and mother/teacher and behave accordingly. Anxiety kicks in and make it an uphill struggle if you try doing it formally. Reading (and reading and reading) to them is far more enjoyable and I think better in the long run. Reading is very difficult to approach (for parent and teacher alike) if a child is just not ready to tackle it. Maybe that is how it comes to seem so complicated and difficult -- it is attempted before most children can reasonably be expected to be ready?

I came up with quite a few quirky ways of teaching my son his letters (both phonically and the standard alphabetical way). We used giant chalks and wrote out the alphabet in the yard as a big wiggly snake. He then had to jump on each letter and shout out the letter and the phonetic sound. Another great method is sticking large alphabet cards to every step on the staircase so as he goes to bed he reads them - obviously doing only part of the alphabet at a time since we don't live in a mansion.
I have first hand knowledge of how slow the reading progress at school is. With one on one teaching the progress is unbelievable.

Children will learn new skills extraordinarily quickly if there is someone ready to bombard them when they're keen. They do not respond very well to the steady drip, drip, drip method used in schools (the only practical method available to teachers). Parents have to be ready to pounce on them with all the assistance they can give at just the right time and if the child looses interest then you back off.

My son seemed to work to a weekly rate of absorption - learning his alphabet (both phonetically and the standard way) in a week and then (a few months later) another week going from basic sounding out to very fluent reading. This natural ability of children to commit fully to a certain object or area of interest and then suddenly drop it in favour of something else is how they're designed to learn and it is incredibly effective. To rely on teachers to not only spot the signs but to then dedicate enough time to that individual is simply unrealistic. I feel sorry for teachers as they do not get the credit or support they need.

Parents who use the excuse 'its the teachers job' are, without question, holding their children back because they cannot be bothered to make the effort.

Chestnut, I never had a problem reading to them; even dd was always happy for me to do that . But made it quite clear that she did not want me to teach her reading. It wasn't just about her being tired: she didn't like me doing formal teaching, full stop. Most of all she didn't like me checking up on her progress. She is still a bit like that: always happy to discuss areas of interest with me, but does not want me to go poking my nose into her homework. Works well for us.

As a teacher I would offer the following advice:

1. Ensure there are lots of reading material in the house.

1. Let your BABY see and hear you read - whether it is a book, newspaper, flyer - it doesn't matter. Continue to do this throughout childhood. Children are easily influenced and will copy your lead.

1. Read ANYTHING as you go about your daily business - signs etc.

1. Look at pictures and talk about what you see in them.

1. Read bedtime stories. Don't be worried about reading the same story over and over again (in schools this is recommended as part of 'talk for writing'). You'll find your child will have a favourite -encourage it!

1. Visit a library - buy a book on birthdays and at Christmas.

1. Be positive about reading. If you had hang ups as a child about it, get over it otherwise your own child will follow suit (especially if you make it obvious in your behaviour and talk).

1. Once they start school, follow the school's recommended home-school reading programme. About 5-10 minutes reading time is sufficient on a daily basis (up to age 7).

1. Some schools will offer short classes or presentations about how to consolidate their phonic learning at home. (Especially about not putting a /u/ sound on the end of letter sounds - it's 'ssssss' not 'su'!).

10. Early Learning Centre have Jolly Phonics material (wall frieze, dvds, books, flash cards). Helpful if your school uses them but be warned not every school does but fundamentally ALL schools teach the same sounds. They may use different actions, songs, rhymes and teach them in a different order.

Parents who use the excuse 'its the teachers job' are, without question, holding their children back because they cannot be bothered to make the effort.

On the other hand they might do just as well without you making much effort. Mine did!

CecilyP, just as well as who? You can't know what your kids potential was but anyway I'm sure you did loads for your kids, just not stuff you counted as formal learning otherwise they couldn't have made successes of their lives.
We all know why middle class kids do so much better than their less privaleged contempories. Do you know how many kids on free school meals end up getting 3 'A's at A level? Apparently about 300 each year. In other words as good as none - given that some 'middle class' type kids are on free school meals. We know these deprived kids that fail at school weren't all born thick. What you do with your child is crucial to their intellectual development. A child's learning is the sum of what they learn at school and at home. Doing more at home equals more learning as the example above sort of demonstrates. Fortunately for those that don't like to teach their kids directly, giving them a good start is much more than early reading.
However, whether one wants to believe it or not, statistically a child is more likely to become a proficient reader if they come to school recognising letters. How you make that happen, formally or during shared reading is entirely up to you, but saying your child will do just as well without your input doesn't change the hard reality that they won't. Nobody on this thread seriously thinks their child may do just as well if not read to. To not expose your child to the idea of number, counting to ten with your child or counting objects would be foolhardy, we don't hope they might just 'get it' once at school, we know that to not introduce the concept of number would seriously handicap them. A peculiar blind spot seems to exist when it comes to reading skills. Why make life harder for your kids?

I have never done phonics with my DC, nor I have I been overly zealous with the school reading books. I read to them very often, even now they are both very proficient. Had they struggled, I might have been more involved in the actual teaching, perhaps, but although they weren't particularly early readers, they were very fluent by the end of year 1 and have continued to read well and often. I do very little formal stuff with them. It's not how I want us to spend our time, and I think it unnecessary for their learning. I am a secondary school science teacher.

Basingstoke, I like your phrase 'Its not how I want us to spend our time.' To my mind thats a good reason not to do more formal stuff with your kids. I think what winds me up though is the claim that not doing anything doesn't make a difference to a child's academic development. I love reading and I don't want to leave my childrens acquisition of reading skills to chance. By giving them more input pre-school I make it more likely they will become proficient readers - fact.

I also said it's unnecessary for their learning. But I don't kid myself I do nothing with them. I just think what I do is more fun, as well as providing a different way of learning.

I didn't leave my DC's acquisition of decoding skills to chance! I left it to their teachers. I did of cause help them develop other reading skills, by reading to them, talking to them and giving them great books.

I have stopped thinking intelligence is inate in the last few years and now think its created. Those that don't do much with their kids and refer to examples of how 'they all catch up' clearly think intelligence is more fixed or don't value intelligence...

Well...

It's fairly robustly demonstrated to be both.

And there are some pretty smart people who have problems decoding, for all sorts of reasons.

And again I would argue that extra formal instruction on top of school shouldn't be necessary for most children. Actually, I'd go further. I think that there are better ways for parents to help their children develop intellectually. But perhaps that's because it's my day job and I want something different at home...

Both my children went to school knowing their letters. Both had been read to regularly since they were tiny. dd learned to read quickly and easily. ds on the other hand absolutely hated reading. I tried helping him at home and it was a total disaster. Lots of screaming and crying and generally really stressful and horrible for us both. Even dh, who is a natural teacher (patient, great at explaining things, gentle and calm) couldn't get him to read a book for more than a minute or two. I learned that although I am highly literate (I am a total bookworm, was a very early reader, have a masters degree and a very large vocabulary) I don't actually know how I read, I just look at the text and somehow absorb the reading.

ds is dyslexic, which was why he was struggling so, and once we found a specialist tutor in synthetic phonics he was fine. I went to his lessons and it was fascinating, I really hadn't paid much attention to the coding before. Before that we got a special phonics dictionary, and I discovered that I didn't have a very good idea of language rhythm either (it was based on syllables). In fact at the end of it I slightly wondered how I learned to read at all.

The long and short of it though is that both dd and ds now love reading. I would not attempt to teach reading unless I really knew how, because if the child is struggling I don't have the tools to help, and could very easily make it worse (I was told that teaching letter names was a bad thing for example - I should have done sounds instead).

I think my comment on 'leaving it to chance' is partly based on the shocking experience dd2 had in reception. Lots of children don't become proficient readers - despite having teachers. Thats what I mean by chance.

Intelligence is both nature and nurture. But its amazing what you can do with the proportion you have some control over...

Reading does not = intelligence! Plus children's brains develop in fits and starts, a child that is a high achiever at 5 might be average at 7 and vice versa. In my opinion home is for experimenting and developing your own interests in totally lateral directions. When my two were little we visited museums, took lots of public transport, did experiments, I read them lots of books and we talked and talked about everything they were interested in. School is for structured learning, so skills like reading fall very naturally in that arena.

The point I made earlier in this thread is that for pre-schoolers what counts as 'formal instruction' and what doesn't is just to do with social norms.
I do formal stuff with my school aged children because I have discovered what a huge difference it makes to their progress - most particularly in maths. To say that its not necessary indicates that you either don't think extra work makes much difference ( I couldn't more strongly disagree) or that while you think extra work benefits a child academically it is at too high a price (a much stronger argument in my mind.)

My older kids learned to read way before 5. It just happenend. But then i home edded. Number 4 however, is 7 and cant read. She is at school and its up to them to teach her. She is blind. I have no expertise in that one!

I never said reading equalled intelligence. However research does show that children that read in bulk become more intelligent.
I do think that a child's changing ability is to do with outside influences, not brain development.

The fact that one MNer has noticed that formal teaching at home of certain basics leads to progress is not proof that this is the best approach for every family.

I really do not think I need to accuse myself of being lazy simply because I did not always practise phonics with dd or heard her read aloud: I read her the entire LOTR trilogy when she was 6 so was hardly afraid of spending time with her. It was just that I felt I knew her and knew from experience what approach worked best for her. And it clearly did work: she was reading Thackeray with great enjoyment before she even got to secondary- did she need more than that?

I don't recollect my mum hearing me read regularly, but I could see that everybody in my family got enormous pleasure from reading, I was constantly read to and told stories, I was involved in family discussions from a very young age and I quickly sussed that the people who read most were the ones with the best stories. By the time I got to secondary I was a voracious reader in two languages (and no, we were not a bilingual family). By the time I got to Sixth form I was reading for pleasure in four languages (and studying a further two). I really don't know what I should regret about my reading ability or how much extra reading capacity compulsory home reading would have added to that. Admittedly, I did not learn to read until I was 5, but I cannot see how this has held me back in any way. My brother did not learn to read until he was 6, but at the latest count I think he reads some 20 languages (and writes very learned books too).

I think it boils down to two things:

a) encourage a general sense that learning is fun and available and something that your family does

b) get to know your own child and use that knowledge to decide what approach is best for them in supplementing their education

For some children this might mean worksheets, for others a more play-based approach. For a child with dyslexic traits it will probably involve more work on decoding. The luxury one has as a parent is to be able to focus at one child at a time and think directly about his or her needs.

"camicaze Sat 16-Jul-11 22:45:41
The point I made earlier in this thread is that for pre-schoolers what counts as 'formal instruction' and what doesn't is just to do with social norms.
I do formal stuff with my school aged children because I have discovered what a huge difference it makes to their progress - most particularly in maths. To say that its not necessary indicates that you either don't think extra work makes much difference ( I couldn't more strongly disagree) or that while you think extra work benefits a child academically it is at too high a price (a much stronger argument in my mind.)"

Here I would add the third possibility: that a particular parent has discovered that a more lateral approach gets the best results with a particular child.

This is a fascinating thread. I'm not sure that all parents could 'teach [reading] as a teacher might' and it is clear that many feel it is a partnership - between parent, child & teacher.

What isn't being said is that it isn't always an equal partnership. There are some amazing teachers out there who get fantastic results and really inspire, but sadly that isn't every teacher.

I've posted previously about problems with reading and maths so won't reherse that here. But agree with Cory - in that an encouraging parent who takes some time (not huge amounts) to build a reading routine with their kids does gradually and cumulatively make a difference. I'm not completely clear what cory's 3rd way is exactly - but do agree that different solutions will be necessary for different children, even within the same family.

I certainly feel that if you should find yourself in a school where books aren't changed regularly and your child rarely reads with teachers or teaching assistants - that at least in our case - asking friends what they're reading to children of similar age, going to the library, going to web sites like the Book Trust and learning what is recommended for certain age groups has made reading more varied and interesting for my DDs and in our case has fortunately lead to improvements that we and their school have noticed.

I remain hugely unclear whether this is me teaching my kids or just my making sure they have access to the opportunity. However, at least in our case, I am seeing the benefits since I proactively started to supplement their reading materials from school.