How to help my child with reading.

Effective Literacy is similar to Goldilocks

“This one is too hot. This one is too cold. This one is just right.” 

“This one is too hard. This one is too soft. This one is just right.” 

Do you recognize these examples of the literary rule of three? Did an image of a young curious girl wandering into an unlocked home pop into your brain? That’s right those lines probably brought back memories of the fairy tale Goldilocks. The dialectical three, as author Christopher Booker calls it, 

is used throughout his story. Booker explains that the dialectical three is the idea that the way forward lies in finding an exact middle path between opposites." Quality teaching looks similar - you must find the middle path - you do not want the material to be too hard - frustrating the learning and you do not want it to be too easy - where little or no learning occurs - it has to be “just right.” 

The Orton Gillingham science of reading method aligns with Booker’s dialectical three concept. Children need to be presented with just the right amount of new information to maximize learning. Over the years I have noticed that finding this balance can be difficult for parents to navigate and rightfully so - once we know how to read and spell being able to break the concepts down into small manageable learning chunks isn’t easy - especially when we don’t have a solid grasp on phonics. Yep, I said it, if you don’t have a strong phonics foundation, because that method of literacy instruction wasn’t used with you, then you might be doing some things wrong. My top 4 common parent literacy mistakes will better arm you with the tools you need to support your learner.

Top 4 Common Parent Literacy Mistakes

“Just sound it out” 

Raise your hand if you have said that once or twice before. Here is the challenge with this statement - it is easy to sound it out when you have the grapheme (letter) phoneme (sound) correspondence knowledge necessary to “just sound it out.” However, when someone doesn’t have the orthographic mapping for the sounds in the word and the ability to identify patterns in the word it is like telling someone to “just bake the cake” without giving them ingredients and a recipe. 

Let me give you a few examples that I have witnessed. The first example happened in my own household (what I mean is my husband was trying to help my son). The word was “neighbor.” When my son came to this word and struggled, my husband said, “just sound it out.” Well unless my child knows that eigh makes the long a sound there is no way he can sound that out correctly. So he attempted to sound it out /n/ /ei/ /g/ /b/ /or/ - naygbor. Well now we are in a pickle, he is royally confused because he has never heard that word before and it doesn’t make sense in the context of the story. My husband did not know that eigh is a spelling for long a and that is fine but telling my son to sound it out is not the best route. It usually leads to confusion and misinformation.

Another more simple example that I have witnessed kids do - A TON - is to sound out every letter in words like man, can, ham, bam. For example the word “man” would sound like this /m/ /a/ /n/ and then they are supposed to read it as “man” BUT the sounds they just isolated don’t say “man.” This is because a and n are glued sounds and should be kept together when blending. They make the /an/ sound. So, if you were to sound out “man” it would be /m/ /an/. Then you can easily and correctly hear the word those sounds make - “man.” 

Here is the bottom line if you don’t know how to explain how to decode or read a word to your child DON’T. Instead take the less confusing, frustrating route and just tell them the word. However, if you are feeling extra thirsty for phonics knowledge you can use my Phonics Guide for Parents resource to see what sounds make up the word so you can accurately break it apart for them. Email me at [email protected] to get a FREE copy of my Phonics Guide for Parents. 

Spelling Crutch

Do you hear this often in your home “Mom/Dad how do I spell _______?" The reason you hear this more times than you would like is because you probably spit out the answer faster than ChatGPT responds to messages. It is easy - we all do it - I do it - but try to stop yourself from this habit and put more of the responsibility on your child. Oftentimes they are asking before they have even tried themselves because it is easy and faster. 

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Think of your support as teaching your child to fish. The Simultaneous Oral Spelling (S.O.S.) procedure helps equip students with the tools necessary to spell words. If you want a free S.O.S. Visual to use with your student email me at [email protected].

The Most Common BUT Forgotten Sound to Teach

I wish I could see your reaction when I say this one - you are either going to nod your head in agreement or have a look of confusion on your face - the schwa. If you know that schwa is more than just an awkward word to say and hear then I am pretty confident you will agree with me that learning this concept is essential for students to gain confidence when reading and spelling. And if you don’t know this concept I think you will soon agree that students who know and understand schwa have an easier time making sense of multisyllabic words that don’t fit the “normal” phonics “rules.” 

The schwa is a soft, unstressed sound like "uh" that can replace any vowel in English words. It's the MOST COMMON SOUND in the English language and is often heard in unstressed syllables. 

The vowels a, i, and o are usually the letters that represent the schwa in a word. For example, in the word “along” the a says /u/ and is the schwa. In the word “definition” the second i says /u/ and is the schwa. In the word “bacon” the o says /u/ and is the schwa. Be aware though that the schwa does not always have to say /u/. It can make other vowel sounds in the unstressed syllable in a word. For example, the e in “problematic” says /i/ and the second e in “celebrate” says /i/. 

Now that you know about the funky word and concept of schwa you will be prepared when your student comes to a vowel sound that is pronounced differently than what they see in the word. You can confidently explain to them how the vowel sound can be “lazy” in the unstressed syllable of the word and it is called a schwa.

Neglecting Fluency & Comprehension

This one is a combo  - neglecting fluency and comprehension. Oftentimes when reading we become consumed by decoding (breaking apart the words) that we forget that reading is not merely the action of reading the words on the paper but understanding what they mean. In order to understand a text a reader must be able to read it fluently and in return comprehension will likely increase. 

Fluent reading is when a text is read smoothly, accurately and effortlessly. To build fluency at home encourage students to read short stories or chunks of texts multiple times. My go to number is 3. My  tutoring students know that they are expected to read their words and decodable texts 3 times and this is why. 

• first read is to simply ensure they can read all of the words; this is where they might need to stop and decode 
• second read is when they will focus on grouping words together - I like to think of it as scooping; this is where they try to make their reading more fluent 
• third read is when they focus their efforts on comprehension; this is where they stop and think about what they have read to ensure they understand the text

Comprehension can be demonstrated in many different ways: orally, in written form, and through pictures. The way it is done is not the critical piece, the critical piece is that it is done. When checking your child’s comprehension, give them options on how they want to share their learning from the text. Also encourage explicit and implicit answers. 

• explicit answers are answers about key details that can be found directly in the text
• fiction text: characters, setting, problem, solution
• non - fiction text: summarizing, main idea, questioning 
• implicit answers can not be found directly in the text. This is where a student’s background knowledge, opinions, experiences are tied into their understanding. These can be open ended questions leading the student to think more freely. 

I challenge you to spend 5 - 10 minutes after reading with your child to ensure comprehension has been achieved. If you need to shorten the actual duration of reading do it because comprehension is worth it. During this comprehension time, ask your student explicit and implicit questions. If you want a handy dandy cheat sheet of questions from these categories send me an email at [email protected]. 

Although decoding is critical and one of the beginning steps to reading, fluency and comprehension should not be neglected or forgotten. Fluent readers can understand written text quickly and accurately, extracting meaning without undue effort. 

Large ROI

Adjusting your support by tweaking these 4 small things will benefit your child. It will have a large ROI for your student and takes minimal effort on your part. Give one of these a try today and see how helping your student in a “just right” way makes a huge and lasting impact.

Check out these additional parent resources to better support your learner:

https://readingsimplified.com/5-proven-ways-for-you-to-support-your-childs-reading/

https://www.theliteracynest.com/2023/03/5-tips-for-supporting-challenged-readers-at-home.html