Posts Tagged vital skill

You Can Teach Someone to Read

At least 30 million people living in America are illiterate. This includes students who cannot read to their grade level as well as adults who never learned this vital skill. Interestingly, there are more than 30 million pre-boomers living here too. If those of us born between 1930 and 1945 helped just one person to learn to read it would go a long way in wiping out illiteracy.

When I was learning to read in the early ’40s schools taught us the fundamentals, and our parents made sure we read at home as well as complete the rest of the homework assignments. This approach worked nicely for my generation. But something went terribly wrong along the way. Teachers lost control of the classrooms and schools became conveyor belts to graduation rather than institutions of learning. Parents lost control of their kids through permissiveness and their lack of involvement in the education process. Children who don’t learn how to read become adults who don’t know how to read. The result is a dumber and more dangerous America.

Look at the disturbing facts offered by the National Association of Adult Literacy (NAAL). One in four children grows up unable to read, most have parents who don’t know how to read. Nearly half of these adults live in poverty. Three out of four receive food stamps, since 90% of those on welfare are high school dropouts. And teenage girls below the poverty level are six times more likely to be unwed mothers than girls who read. There are also unmeasured health care costs that can be attributed to low literacy. And US industries found it necessary to mount educational and retraining programs in order to make non-readers capable of doing more than menial jobs.

“Two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare. The fourth grade is the watershed year,” the NAAL stated. It shows 85% of all juveniles who interface with the court system are functionally illiterate, as are more than 60% of all prison inmates. So it is logical to assume that education will make all of us safer as potential criminals learn and develop the tools needed to function within the law and become useful members of society.

This information indicates there are problems for the federal, state and local governments to solve or for the school boards to address. However, illiteracy lives in virtually all neighborhoods throughout the country and we not even recognize it, because people will go to almost any lengths to hide this malady from others.

Let’s do something to help. Pre-boomers have time to help at schools, boys and girls clubs, churches, and adult education venues. Contact any of these near you and volunteer to help with their reading learning programs. If they don’t have one, offer to start one after going online and finding out what this entails. This is a wonderful opportunity to make a contribution to society as a whole, and it will be a blessing to each of us accepting the challenge.

Five Vital Keys to Teach Kids to Read

Reading is an absolutely vital skill that we all need to function effectively in today’s society. Whilst it is pleasing that most children develop into good readers, there are also far too many who struggle to become competent in this crucial skill.

Statistics show that children who do not master the basics of reading by the end of the second grade often go through years of difficulty throughout their schooling and rarely catch up with their peers. Experiences of failure in the early years of education can unfortunately lead to a cycle of failure right through adolescence and into adulthood.

The alarming fact is that many adults never reach their potential because they did not master the basics of reading in their early years of schooling. In the past there were many career options for those with poor literacy skills, but in the 21st century many of those jobs are simply not around any more.

Don’t let this happen to your child!

The good news is that given appropriate instruction, all children of normal intelligence can become highly literate. An effective reading program to teach kids to read will include the following:

* learning by sight at least 100 commonly used words. This is vital because common words make up the majority of any text. When students know these words by sight they are then able to concentrate on working out the more difficult words.

* a comprehensive program of phonics instruction. This program should cover all of the sounds and letter combinations in the English language. This is vital because it provides students with the code to English so they can analyze unknown words.

* a range of reading materials, especially books for students to read of various types (e.g. factual, fiction, instructional, reports etc.) and with graded levels of difficulty. This is vital because it exposes students to a major purpose for reading, and the right books will make it a highly enjoyable activity. Naturally students need regular practice reading books of an appropriate level of difficulty.

* activities relating to the books being read. This is vital as it consolidates a student’s level of understanding. It could include writing or drawing about an aspect of the book, predicting what might happen next, or responding to questions about the content.

*opportunities for students to discuss the content of books and to talk about their own opinions on the particular topics. This is vital as it helps in developing both oral language skills and comprehension of the ideas that a writer is seeking to convey.

Check with your child’s teacher on the program at your school, and decide whether or not you need to arrange some supplementary activities. Or if you are home-schooling your child, check that your program covers each of these 5 vital elements. Do this and you will be helping your kids to read and have them on the path to a successful future.