How Do You Learn To Read? A Four and Five-Year-Old Perspective

  
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How Do I Learn To Read? A Four and Five-Year Old Perspective

by Coreen Hildebrand, Kindergarten Teacher , Park Street School

You learn to read by reading. I don’t know who coined this phrase, but I have seen first hand how it is repeatedly proven every day. Ask a child how they learn to read and you will hear it loud and clear.

I asked my daughter this question - she answered me simply ... “You read books.” I didn’t let her off so easily. I asked, “but how do you learn to read the books?” She retorted quickly “I learned it from you because you read so much. You always say the words.” I pushed her further, “but Lauren, how do you learn to say the words.” “From you Mommy” (...I loved her answer, but I still wanted more). “So what do I do that helps you learn to say the words?” She was getting frustrated with what she thought were inane questions, so she said loud and clear “You read books!” Aha! There it is, in a four-year-old’s mind. It’s simple. Is she right? Of course she is. You learn to read by reading.

I decided to dig a little deeper with Lauren ... “What do you do when you read books by yourself honey?” “I read the words” ... (here we go again). “How do you read the words?” “I guess what they are. I make the front sounds. When I see a ‘B’ in the front - that means ‘bbbb’.” “What do you do after you make the beginning sound to know what the rest of each word is?” “Then I make out the guess.” “What helps you make ‘the guess’?” “A bear is on the picture so I know it’s brown bear - it shows a brown bear - it makes a difference, it’s not a polar bear - he’s white.” “Oh, so you look at the pictures too? What about books that don’t always have lots of pictures?” “Well, The Cat in the Hat rhymes - I can guess because it is easy to guess rhymes. I look at the pictures and I use my rememory to help too.” "Rememory" is a wonderful word I hear expressed often by four and five-year-olds - it’s kind of a ‘remember and memory’ collaboration.

My kindergarten children validated that they feel the same way about learning to read. “You train, you practise.” “Moms and Dads can help...they say the words.” “You get to know words and stories more and more when they tell it to you.” “They tell you and then you copy off them.” “The best is when they read a favorite one (story) over and over.” “Mommy reads it lots of nights, she reads it over and over, and I remember it now.” “What do you do when you read by yourself?” “You sound out the words...by sounding the letters out.” “You try to find some words you know like: no, on, the, I, me, love, yes, and you.” “You can also look at the pictures and then you know what the words say.” “First you read short words - then you try to read long words.” “But I know some long words, I know everybody’s names because my friends tell me the letters when I want to write them down.” “Our names are easy, ‘cuz they’re all over the place around here - on our nametags, our coathooks, on the special helper tags, in the writing center, everywhere.” “I think we learn them quick, because we see them a lot!” “You know, I can read a lot of things around this room.” “Do you mean the signs and labels?” “Yeah, and those too.” “The poems and songs?” “We all can read our ‘Poem and Song Book’.” “What about our I CAN READ Book, where you paste word labels from your favorite foods at home and words that you see in the newspaper flyers?” “I know what’s inside the boxes or cans, so I know what it says.” “I always knew what word ‘McDonalds’ was, because of that BIG ‘M’.” “Mrs. Hildebrand, you help us too - you share your reading secrets.” “Do you mean the strategies that I use that help me read?” “Yeah, you point with that thing (pointer) and read slow and touch all the words and tell us to make our mouths make the beginning sounds if we get stuck.” “And look at the pictures too.” “We all learn from each other, ‘cuz some of us can know more words and stuff.” The conversation slowed, so I had a chance to interject “Do you think we learn to read by reading a lot?” I was answered with a sea of nodding faces.

When a child begins to read it depends on his or her experiences, age, developmental level and interest. When I asked “what is reading?” one boy expressed his opinion that ... “learning about stuff in books that you never ever knew before - it’s really cool.” No one added anything, they nodded their approval. I think they felt he had it in a nutshell. It really does open up the world to children. Reading unlocks a treasure chest full of wonderful discoveries.

Do your children love to read? Are they on their way to becoming lifelong readers? Rosemary Wells clearly writes about the value of reading aloud to your child... “Your small effort of twenty minutes every day for a few early years will bear fruit for a lifetime.” In her picture book Read to Your Bunny Often she writes...

Read to your bunny often,

It’s twenty minutes of fun.

It’s twenty minutes of moonlight,

And twenty minutes of sun.

Twenty old favorite minutes,

Twenty minutes brand-new,

Read to your bunny often,

And... Your bunny will read to you.

Many thanks to my daughter, Lauren and my Kindergarten class of 1998-1999 for their insightful opinions, feelings and ideas.

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Editors: Anne Hunt, Pam Nason and Pam Whitty