Learing to Read isn’t something you can just pick up
The following facts give you an idea of the scale of our’s reading problem : Just about 40% of 4th Graders have not mastered basic reading abilities. It’s almost 60% in California, and virtually half these kids live with college-educated parents. If a kid is a poor reader at the end of First Grade there’s an almost ninety percent chance the kid will remain a poor reader at the end of 4th Grade. Gurus say about five percent of the state’s kids learn how to read without effort, nearly intuitively. An extra twenty percent to thirty percent learn how to read with relative ease after they enter school and begin formal instruction. However, the majority of youngsters ( about 60% ) have problems.
Myth: Youngsters learn how to read by being read to.
FACT: Reading to babies will help develop their interest in reading. Many kids learn bits and bobs this way ; however, being read to does not equal learning to read. And only five percent of kids really learn how to read by being immersed in reading. Learning to read isn’t like learning to communicate, where youngsters literally soak up a spoken language. Youngsters must learn the abilities required for reading, and for all but a couple this needs explicit instruction.
Myth: Reading is a natural process that may occur on its own when a kid is prepared.
FACT: There has to be a fixed level of reading readiness, and most two-year-olds, for instance, are not prepared to read. At one point, reading was thought to develop naturally, when a kid was grown up enough, but this isn’t longer the belief. Research now implies that the 4- to 6-year-old range is the sweet spot for teaching reading. Outside the age of six or seven, teaching a kid to read is just a game of catch up. Most youngsters don’t learn how to read all alone – and if a child is trying to read at age 9, the Council for Basic Education maintains there is a 75% chance the child will have problems with reading throughout highschool.
Myth: All children will learn how to read at school.
FACT : not really. The range of entering abilities among small children – irrespective of their background – varies widely, and is highly challenging to control even for our best teachers. Providing individual attention and interaction primarily based on each kid’s unique capacities, and handling a complete class at the same time, is a frightening challenge. Yet reading pros say that kids need heaps of practice with reading basics ( phonics, sounding out, mixing ). Given the facts of life in a school room overall student / teacher proportions and general work overload – most teachers do the best job they can. However, too many youngsters are being left at the back.
Take these facts and misconceptions to your child’s teacher, your youngsters college directors, your college district and your pals. Ask them what they think. Ask them to fight these facts and misconceptions. Challenge them to face the truth about what it takes to coach a kid to read, and to elucidate to you how they are addressing these issues. Ask them if they are concentrated on improving their reading programs? Ask them if they have got a plan are they welcoming technology ; have they got personalized reading programs? What are they going to do?
