I, like many parents, trust the public school system to teach my kids all they need to know to make it to high school graduation, but the truth is that many parents don’t realize just how many students have difficulty learning the basic skills like reading!
Why Aren’t Kids Being Taught To Read? is a great article about Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the problem they had there with kids not knowing how to read all the way up into the higher grade levels.
I wouldn’t believe this myself but I did run into a grad student in college who couldn’t write a complete sentence to save his life. I truly don’t know how he got into grad school in the first place. At the time I didn’t connect it to any kind of a learning disability, but knowing what I know now it seems like a common occurance for kids to be passed onto the next grade without really having a fully grasp of reading!
It shouldn’t be this way though. Reading is a skill that everyone experiences. It something that drives all aspects of our lives!
“This [reading] is the most studied aspect of human learning.”
Louisa Moats, an education consultant and researcher who has been teaching and studying reading since the 1970s.
Phonics and Balance Literacy is debated a bit in this post. Both methods have their strengths and weaknesses. You’ll definitely learn a lot about reading and how it’s not as easy as you think to teach a kid to read.
Personally I learned phonics as a kid and I feel like it set me up for success. I don’t have a learning disability though so I am probably biased.
The key to this article though is do some research. If what is going on in your life isn’t working then try something different!
#dyslexiaawarenessmonth
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