|
|
|
HOW TO HELP YOUR CHILD BE
SUCCESSFUL IN SCHOOL |
by
Edward Haskins Jacobs
If your "Mary" is to be as successful in school as she should be,
she has to learn to read really well. I suspect most parents assume,
as I did, that teachers know how to teach reading and writing
effectively, and can be trusted to use lesson plans proven to result
in skillful readers without bad reading habits. After all, the
paramount secular function of school instruction is to produce readers
and writers (and thinkers) functioning at the best of their ability.
We assume the surgeon knows how to operate; so also we assume the
teacher knows how to educate. Surprisingly, most schools in the United
States do not use the best method available - explicit,
systematic, extensive phonics - to teach reading. This often results
not in confident, fluent readers, but rather in unfortunates with bad
habits, who guess at unfamiliar words, based upon the first letter of
the word, the shape of the word, the ending, little known words in the
middle, and the context. You do not want your Mary, or your Johnny for
that matter, to end up a contextual guesser.
If Mary becomes the best reader she can be, she will become a
strong, skillful reader, who loves to read, and who is a high achiever
in school. Do not doubt this: Know it. Virtually all children have the
ability, we just have to teach them correctly. Research demonstrates
that children should be taught to read and write our alphabetic
written English language through systematic, extensive, explicit
phonics. Through phonics, children learn the names and sounds of
letters; the sounds of special letter blends; the ability to blend
successive sounds, one after another; the knowledge of English
spelling patterns; the ability to break words into syllables; and the
habit of consistently applying these principles to the sounding out of
unfamiliar words. Rudolph Flesch's 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read
[Harper Collins] is still the best handbook for parents sending
children to school. Thankfully, Why Johnny Can't Read is still
available today in most libraries, although you may have to ask your
bookseller to order it for you. Twenty-five years later, Dr. Flesch
wrote Why Johnny Still Can't Read (A New Look at the Scandal
of our Schools) [Harper Collins], published in 1981, a worthy
continuation of Why Johnny Can't Read. These two little books
are jam-packed with clarity of thought and expression, and were
written by an exceedingly wise man.
What can Mary's parents do to help? Find out what method her school
uses to teach reading. Do not be fooled, virtually all schools will
assure you that they use phonics in their reading program. There is a
world of difference, however, between a reading program based
on phonics, and the typical program where phonics is only one of the
word recognition techniques taught. The difference is illuminated by
Dr. Flesch in the last chapter of Why Johnny Can't Read,
entitled "A Letter to Johnny's Teacher." Treating phonics simply as
one available word recognition technique, one that is sometimes used
and sometimes not, is a problem. Many children - given by the teacher
the option either to guess, or to figure out the word by sounding it
out - often choose guessing. This is only natural. These children do
not develop the Phonics Habit of consistently using the
principles of phonics to sound out and figure out words, rather than
guess at them.
If Mary is at the beginning level of reading instruction, see if
the lessons concentrate on letter names and sounds, progressing to
easily sounded out syllables, repeatedly using similar onsets and
rhymes. If so, this is good. Look at the material Mary is given to
read. Does the teacher require Mary early on to memorize whole,
frequently occurring words by their shape, and is she given little
books to "read" by recalling memorized words? If so, watch out! The
school is on the wrong track, as most schools are. Does Mary mistake
"camp" for "tent" in a story about camping, or make other guesses that
are based upon the story context, not the phonetic pronunciation of
the word? This is another bad sign the school's program is not based
on phonics.
So what do you do if Mary's school is a problem? In Why Johnny
Still Can't Read Dr. Flesch asserts that it is better to
bus your child thirty miles to get him into a phonics-first school,
rather than simply send the child to the typical school, which
nowadays would teach reading by the method currently in vogue,
whole language, or by using a "basal reader" system with
supplemental phonics. You may be able to shop around for a good
school. If the phonics-first schooling option is not available, you
may have to resort to out-of-school tutoring, by yourself, by someone
else, or by both. You can teach your child phonics at home if you
really have to. Dr. Flesch has included exercises for doing just that
as an appendix to Why Johnny Can't Read. Other home teaching
materials are also readily available.
If your child is getting off to the wrong start in school, do your
best to nip it in the bud! Try to get your child to understand that
whole word memorization and unfamiliar word guessing taught at school
are bad. Root out those bad habits as soon as you can. Do not let them
become entrenched. Phonics as a remedial program, as opposed to the
initial and continuous program, can be more painful and difficult,
since established habits must be changed. No matter what, do not give
up. Your child's learning to read and write well is too important.
Make it a top family priority. You can have a house full of phonics
materials, but if you do not establish effective family routines,
goals, incentives, and habits for making use of them, they will not do
you or your child much good. Allow for special times, special places.
Make it happen.
If you wish to assess Mary's phonics skills, Dr. Patrick Groff of
San Diego State University, in cooperation with the nonprofit
National Right to Read Foundation, has developed a Reading
Competency Test phonics inventory available through The National
Right to Read Foundation, 3220 N St., N.W., Suite 174, Washington,
D.C. 20007 (1-800-468-8911).
What else can you do? If your school's reading system is not
based on phonics, and if you have sufficient courage and fortitude,
you may want to try to change the school to a phonics-first system.
Short of that, perhaps Mary's teacher, without involving school
administration, would be willing to use only phonics word recognition
techniques with Mary. In some classrooms there is so little
classroom-wide teacher-led oral word recognition instruction and
activities, this may be a viable possibility. You can contact The
National Right to Read Foundation for suggestions and help.
One final point: an essential function of school is to assist
parents in instilling in their children an appreciation for the value
of work, and a willingness, even an eagerness to work. What is
work? Work is activity performed for purposes other than immediate
gratification afforded by the activity itself. It has been observed
that if parents wish to develop intelligence in their children they
should encourage their children to accept delayed gratification. In
contrast, play is activity providing its own immediate gratification.
This is why work can be play, and play, work. Sailing, straining with
all your might to pull in sheets and to "hike out", can be strenuous
work, while exhilarating play with the boat, wind, and water. So also,
learning to read is work, phonics is work, but it too can be great
fun. Kids can appreciate this greatest of all detective games devised
by man: the breaking of the codes of an alphabetic written language.
If you want tips on how to develop in your children an appreciation
for work, and tips on developing good habits, reading and otherwise,
in yourself and your children, I recommend The Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People [Bantam, Doubleday & Dell] by Stephen
R. Covey. Truly great habits are virtues. In our confusing world with
a cacophony of contradictory voices, many of us look through a glass
darkly to try to rediscover what is virtue and what is vice. For the
voice of truth, crying in the wilderness, I commend you to Peter
Kreeft's book Back to Virtue [Ignatius Press]. Drink of this
wisdom to gather the strength your parenthood stewardship requires.
Godspeed!
Click here for a
printer Friendly Version |
|
