Why is it easier for some children to learn to read and harder for others? Explain your answer in the light of the concepts in Module 1 AND your own personal experience as a reader and/or reading teacher.
If, by Jennings, reading begins in the womb when the body first senses and “interprets” its universe, then the children who were allowed or encouraged to “explore” their universe learns more easily than those who had not this happy experience. Encouragement from a child’s parents or elders plays a vital role in the ability to read. Let me explain…
Encouraging discovery
Just as oral language is culled from the articulation of one’s experiences, then children whose experiences had been enriched by those around them are better able to translate non-verbal reading (such as body language, interpretation of events, and the like) into a facility for reading the printed word. How does this happen? By encouraging curiosity.
Curiosity stems from wondering why and how this or that thing is. A parent who encourages a child to ask questions, encourages discovery of the universe beyond his front door. Answering questions also lead to even further inquiries and discoveries, which in turn whets the child’s appetite for more. A print-ready environment, at this juncture, is of great help to encouraging this search for discovery.
Although the parents or the elders who are proximate to the child during this stage is the major source for answers, this does not preclude the child from independently searching for answers to his/her questions. A child exposed to the printed word – whether in newspapers, magazines, or books – will eventually learn that these strange markings on paper do indeed “carry” the knowledge that he needs to satisfy his curiosity. Such an inquisitive mind will eventually want to discover how to interpret these strange markings, thus s/he is at this point reading-ready and teaching reading will not be as difficult as pulling teeth.
Encouraging imagination
However, in my experience, being reading-ready does not easily translate to a happy reader. In order to sustain a child’s interest for reading, encouragement in the form of stories is necessary. Just as adults are bored with highly technical stuff, so is a child bored when s/he cannot make a story out of the words s/he reads. Stories appeal to the imaginative part of the child and if he constantly hears them, then he will choose to read writings that have these in its pages.
Stories and curiosity reinforce each other, and thus both contribute much to reading readiness. The “what happens next” factor is the bait that entices the child towards venturing further into the reading experience.
I was quite fortunate that my mother was a teacher and my grandfather loved comic books hence, there was an abundance of reading materials at our home. My mother tells me that my grandfather, who had looked after me since birth, had taken up the habit of telling me stories at bedtime. So even as a baby, oblivious to this nightly ritual, I have been exposed to stories. These stories usually focused on his war time exploits (he was a guerilla on the Death March), but there were also legends and myths and fairy tales liberally thrown into his repertoire. When I was older, at two years, he would read from children’s books, his fingers pointing out the words to me as he read them. My mother said my eyes would stick to his gliding fingers like glue, following each utterance. She said she wasn’t surprised that at three, I could already recognize words and sometimes read these out loud. (She said I particularly loved reading the Dick and Jane series.) By the time I was four, I was already reading the Language Arts textbooks of my Mom who taught third grade in a local public school.
As a kid, I remembered settling in my favorite corner and losing myself in the worlds that I found in these books. One unbreakable rule at home was that if a child was reading a book, s/he was not to be disturbed for chores. Again, reading was encouraged and I found reading opened to me a whole universe of knowing and being.
Encouraging articulation
I believe that not only the stories or the encouragement that factor greatly in a child’s facility with regards to learning how to read. More than these, it is a whole household of elders who have the time and patience to tell stories, answer a child’s persistent queries, and allow a child to explore and discover, and articulate these discoveries and experiences that contribute much to learning how to read.
As a child, I was not discouraged too much from talking. I was quite talkative, usually telling stories I read and experiences I’ve had to all and sundry. I also asked a lot of questions, and I had endless follow on questions that daunted most of my caregivers (yayas). My grandfather didn’t censor the thoughts I spoke out loud. In short, I was able to articulate what I saw, felt and experienced.
Today as when I was a kid, as I read, I can almost predict the direction of the author or the conclusion of what I’m reading. I can “read” what I read. This has helped me much in understanding the intricacies of the world around me as well as in proactive thinking. I believe that children who had been encourage to articulate are themselves comprehending readers, able to quickly understand the texts they read.
Contrast
Compared to my experience with learning and loving reading, my siblings weren’t as fortunate. My younger brother was raised by my grandmother – who loved to travel, and our youngest sister was raised by my parents – who were busy with their careers. Although they do not abhor reading, neither do they choose to read. They like reading short pieces – like magazine or newspaper articles – but not novels or other books. And they’re more ready to accept explanations given them, not willing to ask further questions or search for other sources if they are not satisfied with the answers they have. More telling, they learned to read while they were already in school (unlike me who read early).
Our experience, of course, may not be the norm. However, I believe that A LOT of encouragement is necessary so children may have an easier time picking up the facility of reading. I believe that the children who have a hard time learning how to read had a lack of encouragement from their parents or primary caregivers, in terms of sharing experiences, stories and articulation. There has also been a lack of access to materials that would have made self-discovery quicker; for example, books and other printed matter. Reading – which is the interpretation and management of the signs of things around us – has not been thus encouraged, hence the difficulty in learning the skill.
Paper submitted in my very brief stint with EDR 201 (Psychology of Reading), a course in the Professional Teacher Certification of the UP Open University.
