Why is it that in the 21st Century and with all of the vast resources available to us, our children are becoming worse and worse readers and high school drop out rates are at an epidemic level. This isn?t rocket science, it?s READING? something that every single man, woman and child should be able to do.
As a mom and a businesswoman, I have seen the devastating effects of poor readers, in school and in business. The hit to one?s self esteem when not truly literate is enormous. Statistics I?ve seen indicating that about 85% of all juvenile offenders are illiterate are tragic, to say the least.
I started researching this area many years ago and was shocked to discover that the centuries-old method of teaching one the sounds of the alphabet letters and their combinations had been all but been destroyed in the 20th Century. Apparently the old adage, ?if it ain?t broke, don?t fix it? didn?t apply to teaching reading.
In my research, I found that at the turn of the 20th Century, new concepts of ?whole language? and ?sight word? were introduced to our children as a way for them to learn to read. However, as able as some might be to memorize key words, memorization did not help them sound out every new word they would encounter and as a result, a staggering percentage of high school seniors only read at 4th or 5th grade levels!
We can and must turn this around. Teaching reading is actually easy, if you have the right tools and the rewards for both the student and the coach are enormous. But, this does entail some time from both the student and the coach? about 3 hours a week can achieve tremendous results, over about a 10 week period.
An older sibling or a parent can easily and effectively tutor a student to become a strong and proficient reader and the boost to that student?s morale is more than worth the small amount of time required. There are 5 essential ingredients to successful phonics instruction: 1. phonemic awareness (the ability to notice and work with the individual letter sounds); 2. phonics (the relationship between the letters and the individual sounds); 3. fluency (the ability to read words quickly and accurately); 4. vocabulary (the words we need to know to adequately communicate) and 5. text comprehension (understanding the meaning of the words spoken or written).
Deleting any one of these 5 components to reading instruction is a tremendous disservice to those needing to learn to read but these points are not necessarily being taught in every classroom and that?s not necessarily the teacher?s fault. Our teachers aren?t even being taught to teach reading properly. How can throwing some words on the classroom walls and having the students memorize them be considered teaching them to read? How do they understand the words they?re reading if they?re not looking up the words in dictionaries?
Only when we help our children become strong, proficient readers will we actually see them thrive as students and only then will we see them be afforded the full education they deserve in order to become strong, productive individuals.
For more information please visit my website: Smart Way Reading and Spelling
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