How to teach reading (plus two things successful kids this generation need to learn really, really well).
How to teach reading, etc.
Do I know how to teach Reading? Well…sort of? I know how to read, and I know how to fill a space with books and make them accessible, and I know how to craft narratives and introduce and model the delicious joy of falling into a story and falling in love with characters and falling in love with crackly dialogue and big ideas and fun setups and…
…I know how to love books, and it’s important to me to share that love with those I love. Our older kids learned to read fine, with some help, and our third - at age 6 - is learning. Here’s a couple things, for what it’s worth, that I think about when ‘teaching reading’. This is coming off a wonderful conversation with my brother Jonny, who thinks a lot about some of the same things I do, like relationships and child development and lifelong learning stuff.
Ten Thoughts on teaching reading to Young children.
If you want children to love to read, then read.
Read with them.
Read to them.
Let them read to you.
Let them see you reading.
These four things above may be all mashed up together over the course of a half hour. Or five minutes. That’s messy beauty. It’s a good thing.
Chances are, your children will learn to read at some point. With or without your help. With or without your encouragement. With or without you modeling your relationship with reading. So what is so important about them learning to read early?
I don’t know. It opens doorways to new worlds and imagination and all that? I completely resonate; I also resonate with the Finnish-ish model of not formally starting to teach reading until age 7 - or having compulsory formal school until seven. Finland is huge on children having early childhoods be about…being a kid. Playing outside, being in nature, running, exploring, all that. An emphasis on playing.
So 2-3 days a week, Becca or I sit down with our 6yo and go through Bob Books books with him. We have an old hand-me-over set from a few decades ago, and we used them with our Olders as well. The Dick and Jane of this century, built on steadily-progressing, fundamental old-fashioned phonics-based skills. We’ll read through 2-3 books together for 10-20 minutes maximum. Approximately 100% of the time, his younger brother is sitting alongside, straining and craning and trying to sound out words too. He sees older-others enjoying the process and finding joy in the challenge, and wants to be a part of it. One of his fortes is identifying the letter A and question marks.
Number of days a week we try and read with them: seven. Not reading for ‘learning.’ Reading for fun.
You are never too old to be read to out loud. 12? Not too old. 15? Not too old. 43? Not too old. 86? Not too old.
Never look down on Picture Books because they’re “for little kids.” The best ones are not. There’s so many good ones.
I try to cut things off sooner rather than later. Sometimes he’s really into it, sometimes he’s not. But the look on his face as he absorbs and retains new sounds, new words…is worth everything. I do not always do it well, but what I try to do is find the right balance of pushing and nudging, so he’s slowly moving a little further each time.
There’s probably all kinds of good ways to teach the formal aspects. Anything you learn, in pretty much any discipline or skill, requires a certain investment in the building blocks. Reading, for example, requires an investment in learning a few things, like:
The alphabet
The sounds a letter makes
Phonics in general - and guess, what?! Phonics is old school, phonics, can be fun, and phonics is musical, in the sense that it’s built for reading aloud and sounding out.
You can read anything - anything - out loud, at any point, and ask this question, starting in early-toddlerhood: it’s this:
What letter makes this sound?
How many syllables in this word?
Do these together. Again and again. You can approach as rote memorization. Or you can approach like a song.
I see no value in spending massive amounts of time formally trying to teach reading, in any form. Reading should be a joy. If we ‘worked’ on it every day, for longer periods, I absolutely convinced the overall payoff would be negative. Little bits, repeated. Repeat. Repeat again. Small amounts of time, frequent, circle back around and build on the roots you’re planting.
There should not be, as far as I’m concerned, big rewards for reading. Reading is the reward. There are ways to measure accomplishment and to let a child know they’re doing great…but I am generally opposed to providing rewards such as television or video game time to kids for reading. What does that say? It says that reading is not fun. Or less fun than many other things, and builds in an implicit idea of punishment or at least obligation. Reading, at this point especially, should be a joy.
Reading should be a joy.
I believe there are a couple things that those of this upcoming generation will find especially helpful in finding success - however each measures it.
One of them is the ability to Synthesize (see below for another soapbox treatise).
The second is the ability to give Attention. To start and finish a task and get through the middle portion that’s often the least exciting; that’s not about the big idea or the excitement, it’s about the execution. How does reading fit in? Okay, here goes:
I love stories. Stories come in different forms, and I’m including visual stories such as films, movies, and television.
About a decade ago, I really started noticing a shift from teens watching movies to watching series…
…then a shift from series to YouTube…
…and increasingly, a shift to shorts on TikTok, YouTube, etc.
In other words, a digestion of content that is shorter and shorter. My argument is this: there’s nothing wrong with shorter, per se. But what is the shorter content? Is it stories?
Frequently not. Frequently and often, this visual content is not narrative in the sense of having:
Beginning
Middle
End
Is this a bad thing? Well, that’s a tough question…
No it’s not: the answer is Yes, it’s a bad thing.
The reason it’s a bad thing is not because of the content itself. Forget the genre or anything else. Just consider the structure.
So much of the content people absorb now does not observe the rules of structure as they relate to story and narrative. Before you go throwing Tarantino and non-linear storytelling and postmodernism at me, consider this: a good story can be told an infinite number of ways. Perhaps there’s a small number of actual plots that are actually told and retold, but the variety of ways a story can be told is limited only by the imagination.
But a song needs a melody, generally speaking.
Technically, yes, there’s percussive music that exists without melody, so sure, we could go to…
Rhythm. You can’t have music with rhythm.
I prefer to stick with melody for this example though, so I’ll go back to it.
A story needs structure. Otherwise it’s incomplete. It’s something else.
There may be entertaining or interesting or even educational content that is absorbed in tiny bite size pieces, but they are not usually narrative, therefore they are not fully-storied, therefore they are not a Story.
Because a song has melody and rhythm and a story has structure. A beginning, middle and end, in some form.
The end is what I’m concerned with here.
What is the reward for reading?
The reward for reading is the reading. The joy of reading, of turning a page (in some form) and finding out what happens next - no matter the genre or literary value or style. You keep going until you come to…the end. And there’s the payoff.
The End. The End is the payoff. You’ve completed something. You’ve finished a story.
Reading stories is a great way, from early early childhood on, to absorb stories, through books and reading. You learn to anticipate, to savor, to immerse, to empathize, to think and feel, and how to value the completion of something. The completion of a story. This is why how you learn to read, early on, is important. Not when. How. Give me the experience of someone who loves stories and listening and absorbing stories but doesn’t read until age 10 over someone who learns the rote process of reading at five…but has trouble absorbing or finding the joy and anticipation in a story. Along the way, the byproduct is that a child learns both the concrete value and the emotional payoff of finishing something.
If you want your children to learn how to read, those are my thoughts.
Read with them.
Read to them.
Let them read to you.
Let them see you reading.
Remember the joy of phonics, of turning words into songs, and of making the process embedded into everyday life and interactive; swirled into a two-way highway of dialogue and engagement.
Loop the reading into their own creative pursuits: help them pursue reading as not just passive consumption but active production - how does reading and connecting with stories relate to other parts of life? There is a power in experiencing the stories of others, and there is a power in telling and creating your own. They’re linked together.
Get them making, illustrating, writing, and telling their own stories. Make a circle. Keep the stories going. The more stories they read, the more stories they’ll tell. Some cycles and circles are beautiful. This is one of them.
Oh, and five more things about reading
Slow down and point at words. Point at pictures. Encourage them to do the same.
Let them turn pages.
Ask them questions and ask them to ask questions.
Remember the power of phonics as a building block. It’s old school and guess what? It works pretty well. Doesn’t mean there’s not other methods or ways to learn, especially in looking at different specific challenges or learning styles - but, as a concertedly-involved parent and interested layperson in learning curriculum, I would still argue that a reading education based in phonics, generally speaking, makes the most sense.
Don’t get hung up on content. Our 3-year old loves to pick out books at the library - and the section he loves right now is the YA section. He loves to examine the covers of these books and thinks he wants to check them out. So I’ll let him choose a couple; these 200-page books that he loses interest in once we’re home, and then wants to move back to (mostly) selections I’ve pulled from the picture book section. But he has agency, he has opinions, and he knows that he has a certain element of choice in being excited at choosing some of his own books
Keep books around. Lots of books.
Go to the library. As much as you can. They are the white blood cells of every vibrant society, as far as I’m concerned.
Other Learnings today
Breakfast and a book
I read a story about an 8th grade boy and his 5th grade sister who didn’t always get along. He’s cool, she’s not so much, but they’re both in a beginning band. Trumpet, French horn. First performance coming up. She’s nervous. He writes her an encouraging note; out of character for their relationship, and it carries her on a wave of confidence, etc. The power of passing along kind words.
Discoveries
I was outlining materials to learn with the children today, and stumbled across something in a children’s music book. A South African singer from the ‘60s. Miriam Makeba. Pulled up a couple tracks and fell in love quickly. Brand New Day is the standout so far (1967). She was widely known - apparently - in the 1960s, but has flown under my radar. To those who know me, this is not an insignificant statement, as I love music and at the least, generally have at least cursory knowledge or awareness of notable rock, folk, and (to limited degree) world music figures from this time.
A happy discovery.
My buddy Jon from Michigan also texted me early this morning about his new-found love of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane and the recurring appeal of Pixies’ Surfer Rosa. I concur. I love having friendships with music as a core. You never run out of conversation.
Training
Some of us are learning chess, and some of us are learning to use the toilet instead of a diaper. The goal is to progress in whatever our field of learning might be given our phase in life.
Workbooks for ages 3 and 6
They have work books that they take very, very seriously. They go back and forth between caring deeply about following the directions exactly and between coming up with their way of doing each page. Our 6-year old is working in a 1st grade workbook. Our 3-year old is working in a 2nd grade workbook. It’s fair to say that there’s an inconsistent level of exact direction-following.
Picture books
We read a bunch. I kept my eyes open, barely.
One more big thought tangent dive
Short Story - All Summer in a Day
I read Ray Bradbury’s 1954 All Summer in a Day aloud with the Olders. It’s a brutal look at humanity: a group of 9-year olds live on Venus, where it rains constantly. The sun comes out every seven years. Margot moved from Ohio - on Earth - several years previous, so unlike her peers, she has memories of the sun. This makes her different. Her classmates don’t like different. And the sun is about to make its every-seven-years appearance.
It’s brutal. Brutal and haunting. It’s a great example of what Bradbury did so well:
tell stories that shine a light on what it means to be human, as set against backdrops alien to our current comfortable existence, in ways that are profound and poetic.
The best science fiction - and best stories, period - tend to find a way of connecting humanity across time, across decades and centuries and trends and technology and even worlds. This is such one. How are the ways that we ostracize and punish and bully and other those who are different? How does our envy and jealousy and resentment turn from inward thoughts to actionable anger, rage, and bullying?
I had the kids write up a short response after. This led to my not-very-nice response to their response. I could have handled things better. Basically, I went off on a tangent about the difference between summarizing and synthesizing. This is familiar terrain for them.
Most everyone can learn to ride a bike, draw a representational figure, or summarize a story. Not everyone can learn to summit Everest, innovate like da Vinci, or synthesize like…like a…anyway, read below:
To synthesize is very different from summarizing.
You must bring yourself to the synthesizing process. You must bring questions.
Why? Because synthesizing is a triad-act of organizing, creating, and imagining, all swirled up.
Summarizing is a small part of the synthesizing process. You take the important parts, curate, crop, and select them, combine with other responses or reactions, bring your own questions and theories to the mix, reorganize them, and develop a thesis in response to somebody else’s creation.
The important thing is you have to ask questions, then develop ideas into something original based on your understanding of the material.
You are creating something in response to something that’s been created. Something that transcends summary.
Synthesis is a little like the Art world’s version of the Scientific Method. You absorb what’s come before, then you create or imagine something from it. A hypothesis. Only in this case, the point is not to prove or disprove. Science is about proof. Art is Persuasion.
Synthesizing involves high-order critical creative thinking (CCT). Parents are up in arms over CRT (“critical race theory”). What they should be up in arms about is why CCT is not at the forefront of our learning process, from early childhood education all the way through post-doctoral programs.
So yes. We read and talked about Ray Bradbury’s short. Under the larger umbrella of synthesizing.
Poetry - wrap up Yeats, begin Road Not Taken
The Olders finally have Yeats’ Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven memorized. I do not. The rapidity with which they can memorize is confounding.
I read some Langston Hughes with the Youngers. New favorite: Merry-Go-Round.
Other:
Harlem - Langston Hughes
Theme for English B - Langston Hughes
Art - Elements of Design
Planned to, did not.
Greek / Latin
Planned to, did not.
Music - percussion
Planned to, did not.
Outdoors
The Olders trudged off to their job caring for farm animals once a week. I read with the Youngers - Beverly Cleary’s Henry and Ribsy - and our 3-yo nodded off…until I tried repositioning so I could share in a short power nap. At that point, he awoke,
and we all headed to the forest, to tromp, tramp, shuffle, and - and shoot.
Mr. 12yo brought out his bow and arrows and made like Leonidas; his brothers collected arrows and watched in awe as he sank them into the sky. Eventually we devolved to tag, hide-and-seek, and in the case of some, peeing in the wild.
History - early Renaissance
Planned to talk about, did not.
Carnage in the name of…what?
In writing these words, I might come across as a rational and articulate person, full of patience and kindness. In reality, I sometimes am, and am often not. We have four children who have engaged in feats of creativity and art-making at head-spinningly prolific levels since the time they could first hold pens in chubby little filthy fingers. We have a home full of art and art supplies and the tools and materials that may or may not be used at some point in the creation or pursuit of making something beautiful.
From 6am on virtually every day, there is a 3- and 6-year old moving their dreams onto paper and cardboard and wood in various forms. Pens, markers, paint, scissors, tape, string, twine…ad infinitum. The amount of carnage - often beautiful carnage - they can unleash up on the world - specifically this house - in short periods of time is breathtaking.
So what word to use with what they can unleash in long periods of time?
I don’t know. I need to invent a new word.
Other
A 3yo designed a video game out of 20 pieces of 3x5 cards, makers, and a clip. He went to sleep with under his pillow and is very excited about playing his video game tomorrow. The pictures he has drawn are inimitable. That is a good thing.
A 15yo is re-reading Matilda for a comparative literature assignment. I love that.
A 12yo is immersed in chess and a book about the Rwandan genocide. I love that. His interests in learning those things, not the horrific happening in Rwanda.
We continued watching an HBO documentary about Frederick Douglas and five of his speeches. It is moving, chilling, and horrifying. A great deal to think about.
