“When Will I Learn to Read?”

Many parents have been asked this question as their youngsters near school age. If you haven’t already been asked, you will and … you need to provide the correct response to avoid falling into the parent trap.  

Had I already been a teacher when my son asked me, “Mum, when will I learn to read?”, I would have answered with more caution. Instead, I stepped right into the giant pit of gooey ambiguity and confidently told him he would learn to read in grade one. The answer wasn’t incorrect it just wasn’t specific enough.

Learning to read isn’t magic, it is a process and involves several different skills. Foundation skills in an early years classroom setting include;

• phonemic awareness (smallest unit of sound)
• listening and speaking skills
• oral language skills
• socio-dramatic play
• visual literacy (reading images)

These foundation skills will continue into the kindergarten classroom along with added literacy skills that carry over into grade one and beyond. Since young children can differ greatly developmentally, each child may be working on mastery of different skills.   

• Reading enjoyment
• Visual literacy
• Phonemic awareness (smallest unit of sound)
• Phonological awareness (range of skills with different sizes of sound pieces)
• Phonics (sound print relationship)
• Vocabulary
• Fluency
• Comprehension (understanding, interpreting, evaluating)

When kindergarten was a half day, the bulk of this learning was completed in grade 1. Now, with full day kindergarten and high stakes learning and testing – many kindies learn to read prior to grade one. I’ll leave that topic for a future blog.

What happens prior to that first year of formal education? For some children, kindergarten will be their first year of formal education. While other children will have attended preschool or an early years programme. Historically, developing language, or building a child’s literacy resources prior to school, happened in the home. In recent times, children may have multiple literacy learning environments such as; attending daycare or play school and/or have in-home care or stay with grandparents. The inclusion of handheld devices has the potential to further increase the learning environment of the child.

Relational experiences that build a child’s literacy resources include reading with a child, using rich and varied vocabulary, and reading for pleasure in the presence of children. A bedtime story is one example of building literacy skills that is pleasurable for both parent and child. Investing in material learning resources such as, writing materials (chunky chalk, paints, crayons, paper), quality picturebooks, and tablets with high quality activities and stories provide additional literacy support. For many families, investing in material resources may not be possible and therefore the focus is on relational (my personal favourite). Talk with your child, sing songs, use a rich vocabulary, retell family stories, and visit the local library when possible. Here is a list of some home practices that build your child’s literacy resources;

• Hearing stories from expert readers such as parents, family members, or audio/tv sources
• Being exposed to rich vocabulary use in the home
• Oral language/Dialogue – talk talk talk
• Access to high quality picturebooks
• Learning songs, nursery rhymes, and poems

If a child asks you, “When will I learn to read?” Remember, reading is a process and it will not happen on the first day of grade one. Or the first day of any grade. If you don’t want to face the inquiring look or the interrogation – you said I would learn to read in grade one and I didn’t – then answer with something less ambiguous. That adorable and heartbreaking face of disappointment after the first day of grade one will stay with me forever.