Is My Child Ready to Learn to Read {How to Teach Reading Part 2}

This is the second article in my 3-part series about How to Teach Reading. In this article I am focusing on how to tell if your child is ready to sit down and focus on explicit reading lessons.

It is amazing to me that so many people want very young children to read. Yes, some very young children are ready to read very early, but... others are not! A lot of research has been done during the last five decades about how children learn to read, and we have learned A LOT of things. Sadly, this research has not translated into educational policy. One of the motivators for me in writing this series is to help parents and teachers understand how to teach reading better so there is less stress and more confident, relaxed parents and teachers. 

Let's begin by looking at what we know about reading based on research that has been done:

1- Children are ready to read at different times. Most children are ready sometime between four and seven years old.

2- Reading skills tend to equalize around 3rd or 4th grade. If you sampled a classroom of 4th graders, you would not be able identify, based on their current reading ability, which children started reading at four years old and which started reading at six.

3- The biggest predictor of whether a child will be successful at reading is if he or she is read to frequently.

4- When a child's reading instruction integrates word study, decoding AND meaningful stories to practice those skills, that child has higher reading achievement as a teenager than children who learned to read without integrating those three areas. (more info)  This will become more important in Part 3 when we look at beginning reading instruction.

5- Many different parts of  the brain and the white matter that connects them must be sufficiently grown and developed before a child (or anyone) can read fluently. This happens at different rates for different people and can be affected by many things. (more info here)

Since we know that children are ready to read at different times, I thought it would be helpful to make a checklist of indicators that might help you know if your child is ready to learn to read. 

If you can answer "Yes." to most of the following questions, your child is probably ready to move on to Part 3, and begin explicit reading instruction. If you answer "No." to a lot of the following questions, don't stress! Keep reading and playing with your children--they will be ready sooner than you realize!  (The exception is if you suspect a learning disability--you may want to get your child services sooner than later.)

Reading Readiness Checklist

I have divided this checklist into 3 areas with a total of 18 questions. The 3 areas are...

Phonological Readiness
Mental  & Physical Readiness
Interest

In most cases these questions are not quizzes of information your child has memorized, but skills that your child has developed that will make learning to read an easy activity. They are indicators that the brain is ready to take on a major learning project that integrates many different regions and skills.  

Here is the checklist (18 questions):

Phonological Readiness:

Can my child...

1-- recognize and create rhyming sounds?

2-- identify the little word "car" inside the bigger word "carpet?"

3-- hear me say "lllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnddddddddddddd" and figure out that I mean "land?"

4-- identify the first or last sound in a word? (for example, an "m" sound at the beginning of "map" or a "d" sound at the end of "road")

5-- recognize the letters in his/her name in other locations (like books or signs)?

6-- write his/her name?

Mental & Physical Readiness:

Can my child...

7-- remember and explain something that I told him/her two days ago?

8-- identify and perpetuate patterns?

9-- predict the story in a picture book based on the illustrations?

10-- alter his/her behavior based on cause/effect information I give him/her? (for example, if I tell him/her that a pan is hot, will he/she avoid touching it?)

11-- follow 3-step instructions?

12-- roll across the room on his/her side or doing somersaults?

13-- skip?

14-- tell me at least 2-3 things that happened during an hour? (for example, after a gymnastics class, your child might tell you that their favorite parts were playing in the ball pit and jumping on the trampoline. Or, after a trip to the playground, your child might tell you their favorite parts were the swings, slide, and playing with another child.)

15--tell me a story about something that happened to him/her or summarize a book or show he/she recently enjoyed?

16-- focus on one activity for 10-20 minutes?

Interest:

17-- Does my child want to read?

18-- Does my child "read" by opening a book and narrating the illustrations?

All of the skills associated with this list are discussed in Part 1(Pre-Reading) of this How to Teach Reading series. If you have questions about why Cause & Effect are important, why interest matters, or anything else in this list, please read through Part 1. I spent a lot of time explaining my rationale for these items there. ;)  

I personally do not start reading instructions with my kids until I can answer a YES! to all 18 of these points, but if you are answering Yes! to most of them (especially #17!), then your child is probably ready to  move on to Part 3!

Happy Educating,

Carla

Have you seen HEEP? It is a preschool homeschool curriculum! Learn more here!

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KEYWORDS: pre-reading, how to teach reading