5 Myths Parents Believe About Learning to Read
Myth #1 Learning to read is a natural process that will happen on its own. This is the first of 5 common myths parents believe about learning to read. The thought that children will learn to read on their own is about as true as me learning to create a metal machine part on a machine shop lathe without being shown HOW. Once shown how, I would need to practice using the lathe myself before developing confidence in my machining skills.
Children need to be taught the relationships between sounds and symbols and practice phonics skills, so blending sounds represented by symbols or letters on a page in order to accurately and fluently read text.
After initially being shown a phonics skill, a child will pick up on reading skills quickly, without requiring the same amount of repetition another child may need to apply this skill to reading text. However, he or she had to have been shown the relationships between sounds and symbols in order to read text on a page by decoding letter symbols representing basic alphabetic short vowels and single consonants, as well as more complex phonics skills when sounds are represented by digraphs, r-controlled vowels, suffix spelling rules, etc.
Myth #2 Your child should begin reading at age 4. Again, this is another of the common myths parents believe about learning to read. This entirely depends on your child’s stage of development. As a homeschool mom with friends of young children, I’m sure you’ve noticed how different children at the same age show different stages of maturity and cognitive readiness for reading.
At age 4, I believe children should have exposure to alphabet letters and sounds through play. I believe a 4-year-old can be capable of applying decoding skills to simple CVC words if taught, and if they are ready to receive, retain and apply these simple phonics skills. If you try and force phonics skills on your child too early, this will lead to frustration for both you and your child.
Myth #3 Learning to read is like learning to speak. This is like saying, seeing a painting means you can paint it. Visually observing a painting is a very different skill than using brushes and mixing colors to reproduce art painted by someone else. Learning to speak is an oral skill. Learning to read involves both visual and oral skills, and recognition of sound symbol relationships that your child needs to be able to apply when reading text on a page out loud. As you can see, this 3rd out of 5 myths parents believe about learning to read is easily debunked.
Myth #4 Phonemic awareness doesn’t need to be taught to be understood. Phonemic awareness is an awareness of sounds. Children can obtain oral Language and speaking skills by listening, but phonemic awareness is the ability to orally segment each individual sound in a word, not just speaking the whole word. Phonemic awareness has a direct impact of your child’s ability to accurately spell words. Basic oral language and taught phonemic awareness are two different skills sets. They are NOT the same.
Myth #5 Children with dyslexia will never read well. If a child has difficulty reading, a parent may too quickly jump to the conclusion that her child has dyslexia. According university of Michigan’s website called ‘dyslexia help’, and article titled ‘Debunking the Myths About Dyslexia’ states that Individuals with dyslexia can become terrific readers with the appropriate intervention. It is important to test a child early in his/her school career in order to identify any problems and attempt to prevent major reading difficulties before they even start.
As you can see, these 5 myths parents believe about learning to read are easily debunked! It’s time to replace common misconceptions about how kids learn to read with truth!
