Teaching a child to read is one of the most rewarding and invaluable lifelong skills you can do for your child, grandchild or student. Reading and language development begins early in a child’s life, as early as infancy. Parents that sing and read aloud to their newborns are planting the seeds that will eventually lead to the joy of reading and/or storytelling by their children.
While compiling research for this article, I discovered many blogs and articles regarding what is considered to be the appropriate age for teaching children to read. Some felt that Kindergarten might be appropriate while others preferred first grade and above. Why is it necessary to put an age limit or requirement on teaching a child anything intellectual in nature?
In my recent article, Interacting with your Newborn, I addressed the different stages of development up until age one and encouraged specific interactions that stimulate and encourage different forms of learning. I identified the fact that children begin learning at a very early age and can be taught many things without even realizing they are learning from our interactions with them.
Teaching your child to read should be no different. For instance, teaching a baby to use sign language to communicate his/her needs and desires until the child is capable of communicating verbally is one step toward language development, just like singing songs, reading stories and coloring pictures to tell a story are used to encourage language development and reading skills.
When I began teaching, I had the opportunity to choose my internships of which I had “four” specific semester long opportunities. I elected to teach in a Headstart Program with four year olds, followed by Kindergarten, first and then second grades respectively. I did this because I wanted to experience first-hand the developmental levels and milestones attained at each academic level. It allowed me to follow a group of children and learn from them while instructing reading and language arts from age four to age seven. It was an eye opening experience and provided me an exceptional foundation in which to formulate my ideas and philosophy about teaching children how to read.
What I discovered through my internships is that children who had been read to and stimulated intellectually as infants and toddlers came into the classroom willing, able and excited to read while those who perhaps weren’t engaged to the same degree as their classmates were equally willing, less able and often lacked the confidence found in the students already possessing a solid language foundation.
After entering my own classroom(s) which began with teaching Kindergarten, I decided that teaching children to read at the earliest possible age was key to providing children every opportunity available to them in life. My motto is, “If you can read you can do anything.” I shared my philosophy with each group of students and the parents of every child I ever had the pleasure of instructing and these words inspired and motivated my students in ways beyond words.
Teaching a child to read doesn’t begin with letter recognition and sounds as some people will have you believe. It begins at a much more basic level and begins upon a child’s birth. Below, I will identify the Different Stages of Development for children Birth to Age 6 as well as the literacy milestones attained at each stage. Keep in mind that no two children will acquire reading literacy at the same rate, but this guideline should assist you in recognizing the importance of teaching the fundamentals.
Pre-Reading Stage (Birth to Three)
Children will emulate their parents, caregivers and teachers during each stage of development.
Infants:
- Cooing, babbling sounds as form of communication and expression of happiness.
- Make sounds that imitate the tones and rhythms that adults use when communicating with them even completing words.
- Respond to facial gestures and expressions.
- Begin understanding the meaning of spoken words and can associate words with objects, i.e. people, foods, etc…
- Playing games such as “peek-a-boo” & “pat-a-cake” which is demonstrative of games involving taking turns, repetition and song.
- Develop new ways to express basic needs, desires & feelings such as screaming, laughing, grunting and physical gestures like facial expressions and hand signals.
Toddlers:
- Learn to handle objects such as books (best if soft in composition) and blocks.
- Begin to recognize books by their covers and enjoy flipping through the pages reciting memorized stories, or creating their own stories as they point to words and/or pictures (pretending to read).
- Enjoys being read too & may even have a favorite book or two.
- Understand how to handle books.
- Will be able to name some objects or characters within a book.
- Will learn to identify pictures in books and make the connection that they are symbols for real things.
- Are capable of identifying specific letters found in the text.
- Begin scribbling with a purpose in an effort to draw or write something.
- May begin to draw specific shapes and letters, i.e. the first letter of their name which they will also be able to identify in forms of print.
Preschooler (Ages 3 to 4):
- Enjoys listening to and talking about books.
- Understand that words in books are relaying meaning.
- Will attempt to read and write independently and with assistance, perhaps by reading to a doll or a pet.
- Able to recognize environmental print, i.e. restaurant signs, stop signs, candy wrappers and cereal boxes.
- Enjoy participating in rhyming games such as songs, games, nursery rhymes.
- Will be able to identify some, if not all, of the letters of the alphabet and might be able to produce the sounds of many.
- May be able to recognize and/or write own name.
- Some children may be able to write or attempt to write known letters to represent written language such as mom, dad, pet’s names, their siblings names, etc…
Kindergarten:
By Kindergarten, many children will already be able to recite the alphabet, recognize the written letters and even identify many letter sounds. Some children will already be capable of writing their own name(s) as well as other various words.
- Enjoys being read to by others.
- Uses expressions in their voice when reading or pretending to read aloud and to others.
- Can retell stories including characters and setting.
- Uses picture clues in an effort to read books.
- Will be able to use descriptive language to explain or ask questions pertaining to stories.
- Recognize the letters of the alphabet (both upper and lower case) and be able to identify the corresponding sounds.
- Capable of identifying and producing rhyming words.
- Able to demonstrate that print is read left to right, and top to bottom.
- Begin to match spoken words with written text.
- Will be able to recognize and read “high frequency” words used in text such as a, the, but, that, are, etc…
- Capable of writing letters of the alphabet and words.
- Will begin to write their own stories.
First/Second Grade(s):
Reading / Decoding will become substantially more noticeable at this age meaning that children will be able to associate letters with their corresponding sounds using phonics to decode written words. There are a variety of reading methodologies that are used to teach reading another form being “sight” vocabulary which is recognizing “whole words” based upon context, pictures and word shape. It isn’t uncommon for children at this age to focus on individual words often resulting in loss of the larger meaning of the story or sentence. Often at this stage in development children will be able to:
- Implement strategies to read unknown words (letter/sound relationships, context and word families.
- Easily decode phonetically.
- Able to identify a minimum of 100 high frequency words.
- Is capable of “self-correcting” mistakes made when reading aloud.
- Will be able to make reasonable predictions about stories that are unfamiliar based on story-plot, book titles and pictures.
- Are able to read and understand both fiction and non-fiction material.
- Should be able to retell a story including character names, description of the setting(s) and be able to identify problem(s) and solution(s) identified in the plot of the story.
- Will be capable of identifying the number of syllables in words.
- Can segment and blend sounds (individual phonemes) and “break” them to create other words.
- Be able to substitute, add or delete phonemes in words to make new words.
I have provided you the typical stages of development and developmental milestones that are associated within the age groups above. Please do not think that your child MUST be able to demonstrate each characteristic identified above nor should you believe that your child cannot exceed the capabilities as outlined.
Children are individuals and like snowflakes, each will be different including the ease at which they learn to read. It is a process and one that will occur naturally as they mature and development. By providing your child the stimulation that he/she desires and needs from infancy throughout their developmental years, you will influence your child’s rate of development in many ways. Case and point: My children received the same degree of stimulation as infants, however, my older son began speaking in ten word phrases and was capable of putting together complete sentences by the time he was six months of age. My younger son, although just as capable, had most of his needs communicated for him by his older brother and therefore he didn’t choose to use his words until he was closer to ten months of age. Today, both are excellent readers and have been reading since before Kindergarten. One son is a phonetic speller and can spell words that most adults struggle with spelling while the other reads for meaning and cannot spell some of the simplest words without assistance.
Children will let you know if they are ready to read through their actions and emotions. By acting upon your child’s desire to “learn” things you can actually encourage them at a rate more developmentally appropriate. One-size does not fit all when it comes to learning and therefore operating as though it does can be detrimental to the developmental capabilities of your children. Do what you feel comfortable doing in an effort to stimulate your child as long as the child responds in a positive manner. In other words, just because you would desire your child to be reading upon entrance to preschool and/or kindergarten does not justify making your child frustrated to attain the goal that you deem necessary and appropriate.
So remember parents, one day your child will learn to read. He/She may even take the lead. But for now the process may be slow. Just encourage them and watch them grow.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, more commonly known to us as Dr. Seuss, has provided many homes and families with literature perfect for entertaining and teaching our children. Books including life lessons about never giving up, trying things that perhaps one might otherwise turn up a nose to, or about colors, sizes and shapes., etc…Without his works what would we do?
entertainment. Few people are aware of his role in increasing literacy among our youth based on a report that was published in Life magazine in May 1954 outlining the illiteracy rate among school children in America. The study reflected that children were not learning to read because the general opinion was that their books were quite boring. In accordance with the study, William Ellsworth Spaulding of Houghton Mifflin completed a list of 348 words that he felt were important for children in the first grade to recognize (sight words). This list was presented to Geisel who was asked to condense the list even further reducing the total word count to 250 and to prepare a book using only these words. After nine months of laborious work on the part of Geisel, using 236 of the words on the condensed list, The Cat in the Hat was born. Geisel had risen to the challenge presented him and created books that children literally couldn’t put down. The books were a tremendous international success then and remain enormously popular today.
Since Dr. Seuss’ death, based on his sketches and notes, additional books have been published including Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! and Daisy-Head Mayzie. As a tribute to his phenomenal contributions, four years after his death, the University of California San Diego, University Library was renamed Geisel Library in honor of Geisel and his wife, Audrey, for their contributions toward and devotion to improving literacy among our youth. Additionally, the National Education Association established Read Across America which is observed in the United States on March 2 in celebration of Dr. Seuss, Theodor Seuss Geisel’s birthday.
