Learning to Read: A Right or a Privilege?

What if all the children in the world could read and write? This simple but poignant question is posed by LitWord.org. Many of us take it for granted that children will have access to books and will learn to read, but did you know:

• Nearly a billion people entered the 21t century unable to read a book or sign their name.
• According to the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 37 percent of fourth graders and 26 percent of eighth graders cannot read at the basic level.
• As recently as 2006, more than 8 million U.S. students in grades 4-12 struggle to read, write, and comprehend adequately.
• Children in poor families are less likely to be read to daily.
• Across the globe nearly 171 million children could be lifted out of poverty if they left school with basic reading and writing skills.
• Reading aloud to children is the single most important activity for building knowledge required for eventual success in reading.

Today is World Read Aloud Day. I challenge you to read aloud to a child today. If you don’t have a child to read to, pass this information onto someone who does and encourage them to read to a child today. Learning to read is a RIGHT, not a privilege.

Related Posts:
World Read Aloud Message from Kenya
10 Tips on Reading to Baby 10 Tips for Reading Aloud to Children
10 Benefits of Reading to Baby
10 Books I Love To Read Aloud

Teacher Tip Tuesday: Poem of the Week Notebook

Every teacher knows that extending learning at home is an essential part of a quality educational experiences. At the beginning of the year, ask each parent to buy a small vinyl notebook like this. Each week, feature a different poem, nursery rhyme, song, or fingerplay. Make a copy and put it in each child's notebook on Monday and send it home that evening. Each night, the parent and child should read their poem or song together. The families should send the notebook back to school on Friday (so that you can add a new poem on Monday).

The parents and children in my classroom loved this idea because they could go back and re-read their favorite poem and at the end of the year, each child had a nice collection of poems from the entire year.

Whatever poem I would send home would also be featured in our classroom on chart paper. I would laminate the charts so that we could use dry-erase markers to write on them - sometimes we would circle our letter of the week, other times we might find a word that we recognize. Throughout the week the children would share this learning with their families each night.

If you are a teacher of infants/toddlers/twos you can adapt this concept by still asking parents to provide the notebook and sending home poems or songs bi-weekly or monthly. Parents will appreciate being able to sing or recite some of the songs they may hear their toddlers trying to repeat.

Other adaptations:

• If you have parents that speak other languages, ask them to either teach you a song/poem in their language or to translate a familiar song/poem. It's a great way to incorporate various languages into your program.
• For some poems, you may want to type and print them. But for others, I suggest writing them. These days children see a great deal of typed text (computers, books, etc) so seeing handwriting is good for them!
• Allow children to illustrate the poems on Monday before putting them in their notebooks. They will be additionally excited to show their family their illustration in addition to reading the poem.

Some songs/poems I used in the fall include:

• Way Up High in the Apple Tree
• Gray Squirrel
• Autumn Leaves
• Five Little Pumpkins

There are a ton of poems/songs/fingerplays to choose from. What are your favorites?

Happy Reading,

Reverse, Backward, and Upside Down: When to Worry When About Your Child's Writing

Some parents may worry when their preschoolers begin to reverse letters, write words from right to left, or confuse letters like b, d, and p in their writing. Even preschoolers who previously "got it right" might begin to reverse letters and words. But not to worry! This is a normal stage in learning to write. Between the ages of three and seven, it is quite common for children to write some or all of their letters and words backwards. Sometimes called mirror writing, research shows that this phenomenon is not only normal, but is likely the result of normal brain development.
As a former preschool and kindergarten teacher, I can tell you that such writing does not worry me and in fact it lets me know that often children have moved on to the next stage in their literacy development. Often, children "get it right" in the beginning because they have learned to write by copying something that a grown-up has written for them. When children start to write on their own without an example, they will make more errors. They are using their brains to figure things out and that is a good thing! When you watch a preschooler write, you can often see a level of concentration that says, "My brain is working OVERTIME over here!"


What should parents of preschoolers do?

1. Avoid making a big deal and correcting your child. Over corrections may discourage your child from future attempts at writing.
2. Model writing for your child. For example, when he or she asks you to write their name or a sentence on their artwork, start in the upper left corner so children see the direction of print.
3. Sometimes (but not always) point to the words books that you are reading so children learn that text is read from left to write and from top to bottom
4. Relax and don't worry! This is an awesome stage in your child's development and if they are taking an interest in writing, NURTURE it rather than over-analyzing it!

What if my child is in Kindergarten and is still writing backwards?

The same rules apply. Up until age seven or eight, children may continue to display mirror writing. Most of the time, children will learn the correct way with lots of practice that they are likely to get when they enter elementary school. If you are still concerned, speak to your child's teacher and your child's pediatrician.

Two Great Resources for Parents and Teachers

• Reading Checkup List
• Tips for Parents To Encourage Writing

Recommended Reading for Parents and Teachers

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Supporting Research

Cornell, J.M. (1985). Spontaneous mirror writing in children. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 39(1), 174-179.

Cubelli, R. (2009). Mirror writing in preschool - A pilot study. Cognitive Processing, 10 (2), 101-104.