Hi HelloBaby -- On how to teach a toddler to read... my rant, thank you for giving me a tidy way to insert it:
I notice well meaning parents pointing out letters to their kids -- "this is a D, can you say deeee?". But when does D sound like dee, only when followed by ee. It mostly sounds like duh. If kids learn letter names as the first thing they learn about reading (like when someone reads them their first ABC book and uses the letter names), those sounds have the possibility of getting linked mentally with appearance of the letters. Then if they do memorize that and they see the string of letters d-o-g, and a parent says "can you read it, say the letters quickly", they will say, "deeohjee". Which is not a word, and now they hit failure on their first attempt. This reading thing must be kind of complicated. An adult says, "That was a great try, reading's hard, you'll get it with practice. That was "dog". Hmmm -- Maybe we should learn what letters say".
So then there's a whole extra step of learning what all the letters say, like they are interesting species of animals. So now they know two things about each letter. They also know that letters are unpredictable, they have more than one sound. And there is also a understanding that reading is hard. So next time they see D-o-g they wonder, is it "duhowejee", is it deeoweguh, what is it. They feel tentative. The parent or whomever is teaching is still in the teaching role, the kid hasn't had any success and they've memorized by now 26 upper case names, 26 lower case names, now 26 upper case sounds and 26 lower case sounds. 104 random looking symbols that who knows, might go together in any order and do just about anything. Not to mention if someone accidently has pointed out what ch or th sounds like.
If all kids just learned a very few letters to start, 3 or 4 letters, just learning the sounds, it seems like it would be a lot easier. duh and ohh and guh, maybe mmm. A easy fun game very early helping mom or dad read one or a few words like "dog" and "mom", not some long drawn out two year process of memorizing letters. Then when there is confidence and interest, if it's there, add more. The confidence and good feeling, the "I can read!", was really helpful for DS for getting through the confusing bits like having to be told no, that ch didn't sound like kuh-huh.
Obviously there are lots of kids for whom symbols simply don't translate that early on. Or where memory doesn't keep it long enough to use it later. For whom there is some brain maturation that must take place before the shape D can get associated with a sound. So the ability to read early isn't going to be universal and that's just individuality. But it's not rare, I don't think the ability to read is rare, especially if they would ban the alphabet song.
Sorry -- ranting got away with me again... I just think so many K age kids struggle, thinking it's hard, when if right at the beginning it had been made much simpler then perhaps they would feel more of a can do attitude about it, build on successes, not remember a time when they couldn't read.
Polly
