5 Myths About Teaching Your Child to Read

Being a writer of young learners activities, I’ve heard a lot of encouraging words from parents who appreciate how much their child has learned through my interactive activities. I have also gotten a lot of harsh comments from parents/caregivers about putting too much pressure on children to learn and not letting kids be kids. These are valid concerns; however, I think these concerns need to be addressed because they are myths. . .especially when it comes to teaching your child to read.

Myth #1 - Kids should have a chance to be kids and not be pressured to learn to read.

Kids should have the opportunity to be kids! They should play, be creative, get messy, make friends, and everything in between. But they can ALSO learn to read. They can play games and play games to learn letter sounds. They can play on the playground and spend a few minutes practicing blending sounds. They can paint a picture and learn how to sound out a word. Teaching a child to read doesn’t mean it will be boring worksheets 6 hours a day (no child needs that). Teaching a child to read can be playful learning so that it’s fun for everyone!

Myth #2 - Learning to read is a natural process.

This just isn’t true. Learning to understand spoken language is a natural process; however, learning to read is a very unnatural process for our brains. It’s actually one of the most complex things that we ask our brains to learn and understand. We have to repurpose parts of our brains that are meant to do other things. The temporo-parietal cortex is normally used for understanding speech and what words mean, but when learning to read we use this part of the brain to sound out words. The inferior frontal cortex helps us speak, and when we learn to read it helps us blend the letter sounds together to form the written word on the page. The occipito-temporal cortex helps us to recognize faces and objects, and when learning to read it helps us recognize words by sight from seeing them so often.

Myth #3 - Kids will learn to read in school.

I wish this was true, but unfortunately a child learning to read in school is not guaranteed. Many schools are currently teaching children to guess the words on the page based on context clues in the picture or story instead of teaching children to decode words based on letter sounds. Research shows that this style of teaching doesn’t teach a child to read. The child could guess the unknown word to be “bunny” based on the picture, but the word is actually “rabbit.” This style of teaching has not improved literacy rates amongst our students, and yet nothing has changed in the schools so it would be hard to rely on schools to teach your child to read proficiently.

Myth #4 - They will eventually catch up.

It’s true that children learn to read at different ages and different paces. In fact, each of my children were very different. However, we can not simply wait for children to develop reading skills on their own. They need to to be taught. There’s a term called the “Matthew Effect” that comes from the Bible that basically says the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. For reading, the gap between children who have developed literacy skills and those that don’t will get wider and wider if not addressed. Sadly, this gap happens early. If a child is not reading at grade-level by fourth grade it is very unlikely that they will catch up (but not impossible). Currently two-thirds of fourth grade students are not considered proficient readers which is heartbreaking!

Myth #5 - I’m not a teacher so I can’t teach my child to read.

Actually, you are the best teacher for your child! I went to school to become a teacher. During my education program, I was only required to take one reading course. Even though I had a degree in education, I felt ill-prepared to teach my students or own children to read. So, I researched and taught myself the best ways to teach a child to read proficiently, fluently, and comprehend what they are reading. And I share everything I learned with you in my “Learning to Read Series” so that you can feel confident and capable to teach your child to read!