Should I teach my child to read?

"Should I teach my child to read?"

As a literacy educator, this is the question I get most of all from parents, so I thought we should start here. The second most common question is "how do I teach my child to read?" and we'll cover that question in detail too.

Parents who ask this question usually have a few specific, and often conflicting, concerns and motivations.

• They can tell that their kids are interested in learning to read.
• They want their kids to be ready for kindergarten and to do well under new standards.
• They want their kids to love reading and don't want them to feel pressure or negative feelings about reading.
• They don't know how to teach their kids to read and don't want to do it wrong.
• They have heard negative things about pushing academic skills too early and think they should focus on play, imagination, socio-emotional development, etc.
• They are not sure if their kids are ready.

First of all, if you have this question or concern, please know that you are NOT alone. Whether or not to teach reading at home has long been a fraught issue in American education. For evidence, just see this quote from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1963) about Scout's first day at school:

I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading.

  “Teach me?” I said in surprise. “He hasn’t taught me anything, Miss Caroline. Atticus ain’t got time to teach me anything,” I added, when Miss Caroline smiled and shook her head. “Why, he’s so tired at night he just sits in the living room and reads.”

  “If he didn’t teach you, who did?” Miss Caroline asked good-naturedly. “Somebody did. You weren’t born reading The Mobile Register.”

  “Jem says I was. He read in a book where I was a Bullfinch instead of a Finch. Jem says my name’s really Jean Louise Bullfinch, that I got swapped when I was born and I’m really a—”

  Miss Caroline apparently thought I was lying. “Let’s not let our imaginations run away with us, dear,” she said. “Now you tell your father not to teach you any more. It’s best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I’ll take over from here and try to undo the damage—”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Your father does not know how to teach. You can have a seat now.”

  I mumbled that I was sorry and retired meditating upon my crime. 

Sigh.

I think every parent has a scene like this one in the back of their heads when they debate when and how to teach their children to read, and for a long time, the dominant perspective was that, in fact, children could not and should not learn to read at home, or "too early" (Gates, 1937). Fortunately, we've learned a lot about early literacy and early reading in the past 8 decades! The short answer is that it's perfectly fine to teach your child to read and, in fact, you are most likely already teaching your child to read, even if you don't know it. I know, good news, right?

 The issue of what kind of instruction and support to offer your child is an individual question that depends on several factors that we'll discuss in more detail.  In my next few posts, I'll provide you some of the history of the ways we've thought about this issue, and begin to address the specific questions and concerns above. Stay tuned and happy reading!