How to teach your child to read

December 15, 2003

An estimated 22 percent of Americans are considered functionally illiterate. SAT scores have dropped so low that the test was rejiggered. Huge percentages of children are failing the oft-mandated reading comprehension tests despite the low scores required to pass them.

But it is no mystery to me why so many children have a difficult time learning how to read. Unlike the vast majority of Americans, I have adult experience in learning how to read using competing whole-word and phonetic systems.

Japanese features three reading systems: hiragana, katakana and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are both phonetic syllabaries, wherein each of the 46 symbols equates to one phonic. Kanji, on the other hand, is a whole-word system wherein one pictograph or combination of pictographs equals at least one word.

I mastered both kanas in about six weeks. After six months, however, I only had about 250 kanji down, less than 1 percent of the approximately 50,000 total, and not quite 8 percent of the 3,000 required to be newspaper-literate. It proved to be too arduous a task, and I finally gave up.

From this experience, I conclude there is simply no comparison - if you want to teach a child to read, you must use phonics, not whole language or sight reading or whatever they're calling it now.

Nor is it difficult to teach a child to read if you use phonics. A computer with Impress or Powerpoint is ideal, but paper flashcards will also suffice. Here's how to do it:

Create two slideshows, one consisting of the small letters of the alphabet, one in capitals. Use Times New Roman fontsize 200 to help them get used to serif characters. Run through each twice every day. Once they have mastered an alphabet, randomize the slides. Don't move onto the next step until they are reliably perfect with a random slideshow. You can begin doing this pretty much anytime after the second birthday.
Create a slideshow of base phonics, one for each letter. Add a clipart picture of an animal for each letter. Run through it twice every day, saying b - buh - bear and e - eh - elephant and having them repeat it. Once they know them all, drop the letter - just say the phonic - and also randomize it to confirm their mastery before moving on.
Create a slideshow of around 50 combination phonics. CA as in cat, DO as in dog and so on. It may take a while before the light bulb goes off on this concept, so don't be impatient. They will determine the speed of progress, not you.
Create a slideshow of simple three-letter words. C-A-T. D-O-G. At the same time, create a slideshow of all 200 English phonics and begin running through them. Be prepared for some skepticism regarding the "silent gh."
Buy Bob Books A1 and begin having the child read them to you. They start out very simple and get progressively more difficult.

This process works very well. In one year, I have seen a 3-year-old go from reading a page consisting of "Mat sat" to: "'Thank you, Mouse,' Toad gratefully said. 'No problem,' said Mouse, as the two went into the house. 'I am always happy to help a toad across the road!'" (Bob Books C1 "The Visit")

The entire process never takes more than 15 minutes a day, and can be used for any language. Some languages, like Italian, are even easier for the children, as there are fewer phonetic irregularities than in English. If you're interested in classics, it's very easy to teach them to read Greek at this time, since to them all the symbols are equally meaningless. They don't know that they're supposed to believe that zeta or pi is strange - although for some reason, the children I've been teaching find tremendous humor in upsilon, and the whole notion of two sigmas is downright hilarious.

Of course, you can always wait two or three years and hope your child will pick up reading through osmosis and mass whole-language drill.

There is a potential downside to teaching your child to read this way, of course. Seeing the profound intellectual development of your child in comparison with his peers may cause you to wonder if it makes any sense to place him in a classroom where everyone is several years behind him.

For links on where to find the resources mentioned here, visit Vox Popoli.