Help Me Read
Best Strategy to Teach Children to Learn to Read
What's the best approach to teach kids to read?
National Reading Panel is of the view that teaching kids
to manipulate phonemes in words was highly effective under a variety of
teaching conditions with a variety of learners across a range of grade and age
levels and that teaching phonemic awareness to kids significantly improves
their reading more than instruction that lacks any attention to Phonemic
Awareness." [National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
(2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An
evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and
its implications for reading instruction (NIH
Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office.] This is a position made by the
National Reading Panel (NRP) in their report titled "TEACHING CHILDREN TO
READ: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its
Implications for Reading Instruction."
Scientific evidence has strongly supported that phonemic
awareness instructions are an important part in helping kids develop reading
skills. Phonemic Awareness instruction was specifically chosen for review by
the NRP in their report because studies have identified phonemic awareness and
letter knowledge as two of the best predictors of how well children will learn
to read in their first two years of entering school.
Phonemic Awareness
One report discussed the presence of phonemic awareness in
Austrian children aged 6 to 7 that were unable to read when first entering
school. This study found that many children had not one correct response in
their test of a simple vowel substitution task. However, a few children who
exhibited high phonemic awareness scored close to perfect on this same task.
The study further asserted that "there was a specific predictive
relationship between initial phonemic awareness differences and success in
learning to read and to spell." Even more importantly, the study
indicated that it was phonemic awareness abilities, and not IQ, that predicted
the accuracy of reading and spelling at the end of grade one. Children with
high phonemic awareness at the beginning of grade one had high reading and
spelling achievements at the end of grade one, compared to some children with
low phonemic awareness who had difficulties learning to read and spell. [Cognition. 1991 Sep;40(3):219-49. The relationship of
phonemic awareness to reading acquisition: more consequence than precondition
but still important. Wimmer H, Landerl K, Linortner R, Hummer P.University of Salzburg, Austria.]
Beneficial Effects of
Phonemic Awareness
It was also highlighted in the National Reading Panel report that
the beneficial effects of phonemic awareness on reading lasts well beyond the
period of training. While phonemic awareness
instructions are proven to
significantly help children learn reading, it is not a whole reading program. It
only provides children with a foundational knowledge base of the alphabet
language. The NRP analysis also showed that phonics instructions produces
significant benefits for students from kindergarten through grade six, and is
also beneficial to children with learning to read difficulties.
Having been taught phonics and phonemic awareness
instructions, children should be able to consistently to decode, read, and
spell, and even demonstrated significant improvement in their ability to understand
text. Even older children who receive these similar teachings improved their
ability to decode and spell. The NRP made a key position highlighting that
"conventional wisdom has suggested that kindergarten students might
not be ready for phonics instruction, this assumption was not proven by the data. The impact of systematic early
phonics instruction were significant and substantial in kindergarten and the
1st grade, indicating that systematic phonics programs should be in place at
those age and grade levels."
Minimum Age for
Phonemic Awareness
Last but not least, I would like to further expand on that by
saying that kids as young as two years old can learn to read through phonics
and phonemic awareness instructions. Should a young child can speak, then they
should be able to learn to read, even if they are as young as two years old. In
fact, I have witnessed this with my own kids. We began coaching our son at two
years and eight months, and she was very capable at reading by the time he was
just two years and 11 months old.
