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!

What IS literacy, exactly?

Literacy is a term you are going to hear a lot as a parent. I find that it's a term that everyone uses, especially educators, but it means different things to different people. You may have heard the term used in phrases like "early literacy," "home literacy," "health literacy," "financial literacy," and "literacy skills." Do all these terms refer to the same concept?

Well yes! And no. Literacy is a large "umbrella term" which covers all the skills that a human being can use to communicate and make sense of our world. So while the traditional definition of literacy was the ability to read and write, the modern use of the term in education encompasses language AND literacy AND background knowledge: the ability to read, write, listen, speak, view, and more in multiple content areas. All of us are continually developing our language and literacy knowledge, not just children.

This definition encompasses literacy in specific content areas. For example, when we talk about financial literacy, we are talking about knowledge about how to make a budget, how to balance a checkbook, how to file taxes, and understanding of how interest works on things like credit cards, student loans, and mortgages, the difference between pretax and aftertax income, and the various vehicles out there for saving and investing money! Adults are continuing developing and refining their knowledge in the areas, as I did this summer when we bought our first home!

When we discuss young children, however, we usually talking about the skills that children need to develop before they learn to read. Learning to read is like an iceberg. You can see the reading happening, but a number of important skills are working below the surface to make that reading possible. This understanding -- that early skills pave the way for reading development -- is one of the most important breakthroughs in reading science in the past 20 years (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002)! Historically, these skills have been described as "prereading"  or "emergent" reading skills. Now, the term "early literacy" is generally used to describe all of the language, sound, and print knowledge that a child needs to develop before they start reading. So, even though my son is very young, he is engaging and developing his literacy skills every day.

This is early literacy:

And so is this:

And so is this:

And even this:

In future posts, I'll talk about each of the foundational early literacy skills in turn; what they look like, why they matter, and how we are working on developing them at home. Until then, happy reading!

References:

Whitehurst, G. J., & Lonigan, C. J. (1998). Child development and emergent literacy. Child development, 69(3), 848-872.

Storch, S. A., & Whitehurst, G. J. (2002). Oral language and code-related precursors to reading: evidence from a longitudinal structural model.Developmental psychology, 38(6), 934.

The Literacy Mama -- Who I am and Why I'm Writing

My name is Laura Tortorelli, and I have always loved reading. I still feel a shock of thrill and recognition when I come across one of my childhood favorites: I am a Bunny by Richard Scarry; Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel; anything Nancy Drew. I still remember the first, magical moment that I got "lost" in a book; it was the summer before second grade, and I brought my first Nancy Drew to the pool. While I waited for my sunscreen to sink in, I opened it up. The next thing I knew, my mom was telling me it was time to go home! Hours had passed and I had never stepped in the pool. 

As a adult, I still love to read, but I have also dedicated my life to figuring out how to give other children that first moment when it all "clicks"; how to hook on them on reading early and turn them into lifelong readers. In my 20s, I worked as a reading teacher and curriculum developer for reading curricula and then I returned to graduate school to get a Ph.D. in Reading Education from the the University of Virginia. I'm now an Assistant Professor of Elementary Grades Reading at Michigan State University.  To put it simply, I teach teachers how to teach kids to read and write, and I conduct research on how children develop into proficient readers.

However, I am also a mama! I have a son, Will, who turns two and a half this week. So, for the first time in my career, I get to watch this process unfold from infancy. It is a joy and privilege to watch him grow as a future reader, to talk to his teachers and other parents, and to try new things out in the comfort of my own home. 

And what I've found is that this period of time is confusing for parents -- even me! My parent friends experience a lot of anxiety about early literacy and how to help their children develop their reading skills before and during the early elementary years. How do I know which books to read to my child? Should I teach my child the alphabet? She knows the alphabet -- what should we do next? Do we need to teach sight words? Does my preschool focus enough on literacy? Or too much? How early can a child learn to read?

I'm starting this blog so I can collect and answer these questions all in one place, based on my professional research and personal experiences as a teacher and a mama. I will post about what the research says about early literacy, answer parent FAQ, and share activities and routines that our family have developed at home and let you know what works -- and what doesn't for us. 

I'm looking forward to sharing this journey with all of you!