Reading to your child will create a special bond between you. It will also help in many other ways, ie to develop listening and concentration skills, vocabulary and imagination, introduce new experiences and help your child learn to read and write.

• Choose a cozy, comfortable place and snuggle up together
• Choose books with bright pictures and short text, and talk about connections with things or events in your child’s own life as you read
• Encourage your child to join in, ask questions and talk about the book
• Introduce different types of books, such as lift-the-flap. pop-up and board books
• Be prepared to reread favourite books!

When working on your child’s oral language skills, it is important to understand that you have to initiate most of the interactions, at least at first. As her oral language develops, you can encourage her to take a more leading role in conversations.

Some particularly good oral language strategies that, in turn, help develop good reading comprehension are:

• Giving only one or two instructions at a time, in short sentences
• Modelling activities that require reading, eg reading the rules of a simple game or following an easy recipe
• Reading to her every day and discussing what is happening in the story, as well as discussing some pictures and words used in the story
• Reading stories that contain some words that are new to her, and talking about those words
• Frequently allowing her to choose the story, and reading it often if she enjoys it
• Asking some “who, what, when, where & why questions” after watching a movie together or reading a story, eg Who was the main character? What did you like best about the mother? When did the boy come home? Where did the little dog hide? Why do you think the cat wanted to sleep in the tree-house?
• Giving her the opportunity to comment on your own stories
• Modelling retelling some events that happened in your day, and encouraging her to ask you questions about your day
• Asking her about her day, using “open-ended questions”, eg What was the best (or funniest) thing that happened to you today? Why do you think that happened? What made you happy today?
• Talking aloud as you help her understand and solve everyday problems
• Asking how things are the same or different in everyday situations
• Modelling correct grammar and speech as often as you can
• Pointing out print in everyday situations, eg on signs, posters, food labels
• Singing songs or familiar rhymes, making occasional mistakes, and encouraging her to pick up on these
• Encouraging her to use adjectives when describing something, eg a furry brown teddy
• Encouraging her to describe a picture she has drawn, and then writing down her description and reading it back to her
• Talking about shopping lists and giving her the opportunity to write something on your list
• Modelling writing for other genuine purposes, eg notes, letters, signs, diary entries, menus
• Encouraging her to write short text for genuine purposes, eg notes for people, signs, lists, and discussing with her what she wants or needs to say

Sound awareness is an understanding that:

• Spoken sentences can be broken up into words, eg, My dog is hairy. (4 words)
• Spoken words can be broken up into syllables, eg, win-dow (2 syllables)
• Spoken words can rhyme, eg, fan, van, Gran (The ending sounds the same)
• Spoken words can begin with the same sound, eg, bee, bus, boat (They begin with the /b/ sound)
• Spoken words can be broken up into individual sounds, eg, pig (/p/../i/../g/)

It’s easy to check your child’s sound awareness!

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1  Check awareness of words

Take a step for each word you hear in this sentence:

I love running under the trees.

(Correct response: 6 steps)

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2  Check awareness of syllables:

Clap each syllable or beat in these words:

Daddy, house, television, butterfly

(Correct response: Daddy – 2 claps, house – 1 clap, television – 4 claps, butterfly – 3 claps)

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3  Check awareness of alliteration:

Tell me what is the same about these words:

sun, summer, surfing

(Correct response: They begin with the /s/ sound.)

Tell me the word that does not have the same first sound:

jelly, jump, teddy

(Correct response: teddy)

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4  Check awareness of rhyme:

Tell me the word that does not rhyme:

king, sing, tree

(Correct response: tree)

Say a word that rhymes with these words:

might, kite, …  (Correct response: any ‘ite’ or ‘ight’ word)

wish, dish, …  (Correct response: any ‘ish’ word)

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5  Check awareness of phonemes:

Tell me the sounds you hear in these words:

fish  (Correct response: /f/../i/../sh/)

tin  (Correct response: /t/../i/../n/)

bag  (Correct response: /b/../a/../g/)

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Activities to support the development of sound awareness at home

The type of activities your child needs will depend on the results of your assessment. For example, some children will need extra help listening for the number of words in a sentence, whilst others will need more practice with rhyming words.

• When you are reading a book to your child, point to and count the words in a sentence. Then say a sentence and ask your child to listen and take a step for each word they hear.
• Point out long and short words written anywhere… signs, packets, books etc. Say: Look! That’s a long word because it has a lot of letters in it.
• Read books with real and nonsense (silly) words in them and discuss with your child. (Dr Suess books are great for this.)
• When reading or singing songs, tap out the the syllables or beats in words. Say two words and ask your child if they have the same number of beats.
• Read lots of books with rhyming words. Talk about which words rhyme.
• Make up silly words that rhyme with names, objects etc.
• Play I Spy. Make sure you use the sound, not the letter.
• Choose a Sound of the Week. Cut up picture of things from magazines, or find food that begins with a particular sound.

I often get asked how to start teaching a child to read. This story gives some practical tips to use at home, as well as a peek inside an everyday classroom situation.

At a school I used to visit, there were three Grade 2 students who hadn’t yet learned to read. Their classroom behaviour was an issue – often defiant and disruptive, especially at reading time. The class teacher was having a tough time trying to keep her other reading groups on track with these little ‘rockets’ exploding whenever they had a mind to. I began working for an hour twice a week to teach them to read and give the teacher some respite.

These kids needed to experience some genuine success with reading as quickly as possible because as soon as they felt they couldn’t do something, they created drama.

Setting them up for success was easier said than done, however. Initially, it was a challenge to engage them at all. Being now in their fourth year of school, they were becoming masterful at avoiding reading.

Working as a group was often not possible as they would verbally abuse each other and refuse to stop or have tantrums and get violent or sulk. Sometimes one or other would hide under the table and refuse to come out. They always wanted to go to the toilet or get a drink, and fought over who was going to get the books or put them away…anything to avoid further exposing their failure to learn to read.

Why were these students not reading like their peers?

Focusing on the idea that that oral speech is made up of words, the kids quickly learned to take one step per word when given a short oral sentence to step out. The realisation that spoken words are actually made up of individual sounds was still a way off, however. Consequently, they didn’t understand that the letters of the alphabet actually represent the sounds in spoken words. Although singing the alphabet song together was always a big hit, when these kids talked about the alphabet, they frequently confused the letter names with their sounds, and hadn’t made any connection between the alphabet song, the names of the written letters, the sounds the letters represent and the sounds in spoken words.

For three years, these children had been reading books that contained repetitive text, ie, books with an almost identical sentence on each page – with perhaps a one-word change. Many reading series start off like this and it’s usually not a problem, but the idea is that children move on from this type of text fairly quickly. This hadn’t happened for these three – they just weren’t getting it. When someone told them what the sentence was, they memorised it and used the pictures to work out the word that changed from page to page.

Five simple tools helped teach them to read

• Plastic letters – 3 sets of upper and lower case mixed together
• Childrens’ picture dictionaries – and, later, slightly more advanced dictionaries with fewer pictures
• Phonic readers – 3 sets of the first 10 books in a series
• Cards with rhyming words taken from the phonic readers – the words were just handwritten on blank cards.
• 10 page ‘list’ booklets made from 5 sheets of wide-lined paper cut in half lengthways and stapled at the top

These tools were used because the first three were already in the school, and the cards and booklets were easy to make. The choice of tools wasn’t the key factor…it was how they were used that made the difference in teaching these children to read.

Plastic letters, picture dictionaries and lists

The students first had to pick out any letters they knew the name AND sound of from a pile on the table. Less than a handful each…oh no!  Next they were asked to pick out any they knew the name OR the sound of, and we went through whichever of these wasn’t known. After practising for a while, we went around the group person by person to share. I had a turn too, not just because turn-taking needed to be modelled, but also because having an adult involved made the activity more enjoyable. It didn’t matter that I knew all the letters and sounds. When it was our turn, we had to choose any two of our letters – which were in front of us – and say each letter’s name, the sound it represents and a word that begins with that sound. We were all able to do this and contribute successfully to the lesson! The kids were also exposed to hearing different letters and sounds as we shared.

They learned how to sing the alphabet song as they flicked through a picture dictionary to the appropriate starting page for each letter. This link between oral and written letters was a revelation, and the activity became very popular. We always had an interesting time slowing the song right down for l, m, n, o and p. After a few of these sessions, they were ready to expand and start hunting in the picture dictionaries for three words beginning with one of the letters being learned. These had to be written these down on a list and then read to me. The kids found this really exciting, although the transference of words from dictionary to list was often a very slow process because they were fascinated with the dictionaries and tended to get caught up exploring them. To keep the process moving along, each word needed to be ticked as soon as it had been written and read.

Phonic reading books, rhyming cards and lists

The phonic readers had no repetitive sentences, and immediately the memorising problem disappeared. The books were very easy to read because many of the words repeated all the way through to give practice in a phonic pattern. For example, the first one had lots of ‘at’ words, like ‘cat’, ‘mat’, ‘fat’, ‘rat’, ‘bat’.

Three sets of the books were necessary because, later on, the students would be learning how to select books to suit their own level of reading, and this meant that each child would need a full set to choose from.

Everyone started off together on the first book in the series, following the words as it was read to them. The book began with just 2 or 3 words per page, building up to a couple of short sentences later on. We then took turns to read a page each and talk about it.

At first they didn’t recognise that there was a visual pattern to the rhyming words. Each child needed to say the words and circle the ‘at’ in each word in the book in pencil. It was exciting when different ‘at’ rhyming words began springing to mind.

Later, the children moved on to write short lists of ‘at’ words. They had to hunt for them in the reader or in the classroom environment, then write and read them accurately. The goal was to have 5 words per list and they received a tick for each word.

We also played rhyming snap, beginning with a few of these rhyming ‘at’ words and several other familiar words, including their own names. Initially this was a disaster because they were extremely competitive…and abominable losers. After a few terminated games, they began to calm down and co-operate because they really wanted to play, and over time we were gradually able to add in rhyming words from later books.

On the way to reading success!

When the kids realised they could actually read the first book, they started to get excited about the idea of practising by themselves. Being allowed to sit in a beanbag in a corner of the room to practise was a great privilege. I listened to each student read after practising, and they couldn’t wait to demonstrate how much they had improved. Confidence was growing! One of my favourite moments was when, just two weeks after we started, one child rushed over after practising his book and whispered into my ear, “I can read”. He genuinely felt that he had moved forward with reading. Success is often defined as this feeling of moving forward with something.

Two of the students were very irregular attendees at school and had no support with reading at home, so naturally they progressed more slowly than the third. After a few weeks, these two were still on the second book while the third student was on the fourth book. This caused a lot of jealousy and it was difficult to get these two to accept that they weren’t ready for the later books.

This was resolved by getting them to self-select books. They were asked to choose two books to read. One had to be a book they could already read and were practising. The second could be a ‘challenge’ book to work on.

It was very interesting watching the kids choose from all the books on the table in front of them. The weaker two immediately chose No 10 in the series as their challenge book. Their desire to be great readers was immense! However, after trying their books out, they soon realised they weren’t ready to jump to No 10, and from then on, more sensible choices were made.

When working with the challenge book, I would offer to read to them first. Then they chose which side of the book (ie the left or right hand side) to read, taking turns with me to read the pages. Usually they’d choose the side that appeared easier at the beginning of the book, but sometimes I had a turn at choosing so that they got practice in reading all the pages.

Rather than giving praise, I talked to each child seriously each time they finished reading, asking how they thought they’d gone and making comments such as ‘If you practise this page a bit more, you’ll probably be able to read the whole book easily from start to finish’. They only wanted to hear the truth about their progress, and all feedback was well received.

After ten weeks, all had moved forward significantly. Reading had become an enjoyable experience and turn-taking was now rarely a problem. One student had read all ten books and was able to join another reading group. Because of frequent absences, the other two had read only six books and needed to continue with the same process for another ten weeks. All three students were far less disruptive and considerably more focused on their work in regular class.

When we think about early reading skills, we usually picture children learning the alphabet and the sounds the letters represent, learning what words actually are, and learning how to isolate the sounds in words to work them out and blend sounds together to make them. But is this enough to produce a good reader?

Most children go through this process easily enough and learn to decode words AND interpret the text as they go along. Some children, although developing good decoding skills, don’t pick up on the comprehension side, ie they read but don’t understand what they’ve read. Teaching reading comprehension strategies is easy and fun and is guaranteed to fix this problem.

But why teach these strategies even before they can decode words?

As pre-readers, children are not under any stress. They are being read to for pure enjoyment. Listening to stories is all about fun! Imagination is in overdrive and children will often pretend to be characters in the stories, and explore what they’ve heard in their play. Many parents already unconsciously teach reading comprehension as they read to their child, by talking with them about what the book is about, what it reminds them of, what’s happening in a story, what might happen next, etc.

Reading comprehension is best developed by TALKING about the content of books or other texts!

It’s very easy to learn to direct this talk a little and consciously teach the most effective, proven reading comprehension strategies. In this way, you can make sure you’re maximising on something that you may already be doing with your child.

Then, when it comes to learning to decode words, not only will your child know that the printed text (in books, signs, posters or anywhere) is telling us something, but they’ll also expect to understand and enjoy it. In other words, your child will already love the printed word even though they can’t yet read it. This early engagement with reading is a far cry from the actual fear that many children feel when they look at printed text and think of reading as just about working out the words.

Children who have been taught reading comprehension strategies use them! They know when something they read is not making sense to them, and they re-read or re-examine it without prompting.

But should this happen or have happened to you, it is only sensible to take a good look at exactly what is meant by dyslexia, why it is a relatively recent term and what helps children to overcome this condition.

The birth of the term ‘dyslexia‘

It is generally accepted that there is a group of children who have persistent literacy difficulties despite apparently appropriate learning opportunities.

The use of the term ‘dyslexia’ in officially describing this group is relatively recent, however, and many authors and educationalists continue to have reservations about its use as a one-size-fits-all description.

The phrase ‘specific learning difficulty’ was frequently used in official descriptions of this group of children up until the 90s. Government documents appeared to begin giving official endorsement of the term ‘dyslexia’ around this time. Even so, these documents continued to reflect some reluctance to accept the concept of dyslexia as distinct from other difficulties, and they continued to refer to ‘specific learning difficulties’, with dyslexia being cited as just one example.

Milestones in research

Dyslexia was always considered to be some sort of deficit up until the early 80s, with research centering around various cognitive and neurological weaknesses. However, an alternative view then began to emerge, likely sparked by Howard Gardner’s work in 1983 on his theory of multiple intelligences. He proposed that intelligence is expressed in several different ways, linguistic ability being only one of them. Practically speaking, this would indicate that traditional pen and paper approaches are likely to be less effective in teaching those children who express their intelligence differently. Gardner’s theory appeared to spark a significant shift away from the deficit thinking about dyslexia, suggesting instead that dyslexia might be a difference rather than a deficit.

Galaburda’s work with adults in 1989 supported Gardner’s theory. While performing autopsies, he noticed that the right hemisphere of the brain often seemed to be larger than the left hemisphere in people who had been diagnosed with dyslexia. The right hemisphere is said to be concerned more with creativity and visual processing, and Galaburda concluded that dyslexic people were likely to be more creative and to use a more visual approach to learning. His view was that perhaps dyslexia was a normal variation of the development of the brain and not a disorder.

Later, in 1996, another view of dyslexia emerged from Solity. Rather than entering the debate on whether dyslexia was a deficit or a difference, Solity took the view that children with literacy difficulties had likely been deprived of appropriate early learning experiences and that the origins of their difficulties were more likely to be found in the children’s environment than in the children themselves.  He believed that a disadvantaged social environment and poor early language experiences resulted in literacy difficulties, and that these difficulties could be overcome with appropriate learning experiences.

In 1996, Kavale and Forness studied 152 students with literacy difficulties, and found that 75 per cent of them had poor social skills. This appeared to support Solity’s view to some degree.

Do dyslexics have problems that are different from those suffered by other poor readers?

Solity’s work reminds us that whatever the origins of dyslexia, or indeed whether dyslexia is a difference or a deficit, children with learning difficulties still require expert teaching.

David Mills of The Telegraph writes:

So do dyslexics have problems not suffered by other poor readers? Numerous symptoms have been put forward to justify the hypothesis but it has never been proven. So, there is no scientific evidence that the syndrome exists. And if “dyslexia” doesn’t refer to reading problems, either – as the dyslexia establishment maintains – then it doesn’t refer to any condition which has been scientifically established.

Although dyslexia is commonly accepted today as an official category of specific learning difficulty, there is continuing debate among some educationalists over whether any kind of label is necessary or advisable to describe this category of children. Labelling has the potential to be counter-productive, for example, by implying that everyone has the same problem and therefore the same needs. It can even at times become an excuse, and as such, limit expectations of progress year after year.

Having worked with many children who have been diagnosed with dyslexia, I find that there is no difference between them and other children who just haven’t learned to read yet or have other literacy difficulties. I agree with both Gardner’s and Solity’s views. Children are individuals who have different needs, and those I have worked with all appear to have had either poor early speaking and listening experiences or one-size-fits-all learning experiences that didn’t suit them…or both.

Poor early language experiences are very common, and becoming more so. Recent research shows, for example, that only about 20% of families regularly sit down and converse over dinner. I have seen an increasing number of children starting kindergarten without the ability to speak in sentences or listen to other people. Many early childhood teachers worldwide would concur.

I’ve found children improve quickly, even drastically, when best practice teaching strategies are employed. Best practice teachers are attuned to recognise and acknowledge individual differences and cater for individual needs. They know through experience that every child is capable of learning. In my work, I share with you the strategies I have found to be the most effective in helping children with literacy complexities.

Now you may think that it’s putting the cart before the horse to teach comprehension strategies to a child who can’t read many words yet or is still unsure about letters and sounds. Not so!

Reading comprehension strategies can be taught to very young children even before they start learning any decoding skills (letters, sounds etc). They don’t need to be able to read any words at all.

It’s very easy for children to learn comprehension strategies because they’re all about enjoying the book and the reading experience, and talking about it in a guided way. You introduce each strategy when you’re doing the reading and they’re listening.

Recently I worked with a kindy class and had the opportunity of teaching them reading comprehension strategies. I taught them how to make connections, make predictions and create images with fictional and non-fictional texts.

While they were listening to a story or some informational text, I would encourage them to share, for example, a personal connection with the text. It was very exciting to see young students raising their hands and saying ‘I made a connection’ and then sharing that connection with the whole class. I would write their names on sticky notes and leave them on the pages of the book as a reminder of their connections. We’d revisit the book later and as the sticky notes showed up, we would again talk about the connections they’d made.

Of course, these kids were not ‘struggling’ readers. They were just learning to read. They were learning decoding strategies as well as comprehension strategies. Comprehension strategies take away a lot of the stress that struggling readers feel, however. Let’s skip to a teenager I worked with recently who ‘hated’ reading.

She had learned to decode and read lots of words, but didn’t understand the meaning of what she was reading. She couldn’t identify the main idea of a sentence or paragraph of text. I taught her the same reading comprehension strategies as I’d taught the kindy kids, and a few more, and we practised them when I was reading, when we were taking turns to read and when she was reading. This was all it took for her to start understanding and engaging with texts. Her reading level skyrocketed.

My e-books for parents explain how to teach reading comprehension strategies. I wrote them because I couldn’t find any others that provide this information, and yet these simple skills can change a child’s life.

The team plans to build bots that are customized to each child; bots that can actually learn and grow with them over the course of one year. The robots aren’t being designed to replace teachers or caregivers, but will be “helpers” that can give children any extra attention they need. The idea is that these bots could help children with anything from exercise and healthy eating to learning to read. Imagine if every child with special needs had a bot to help them each day!

“At the end of five years we’d like to have robots that can guide a child toward long-term educational goals, be customized for the particular needs of that child, and basically grow and develop with the child,” said Yale computer scientist and project leader Brian Scassellati. “We want the robot to be the equivalent of a good personal trainer.”

Having taught children with special needs, I have no doubt that an extra pair of hands, be they metal or plastic, could potentially be helpful in some circumstances. The danger is the possible dehumanisation of these kids if, over time, their robot “helpers” began to play too great a role. Kids with special needs need unlimited warm, nurturing human support, and anything that has the potential to reduce or diminish this in any way would need very careful consideration.

I think some of the greatest challenges will be in ensuring the bots are totally safe and in building up teachers’ and other caregivers’ trust in their safety. Many kids with special needs are totally vulnerable and dependent. There is absolutely no room for safety error.

Click here for help with reading comprehension issues