How do we help our kids be ready to learn to read? This is a question that people rarely ask. People almost never talk about reading readiness. But if you're having questions like should my child already be having reading lessons or I get frustrated when trying to teach my child to read, then these are common questions and to help us answer this, we're going to talk about reading readiness today.
I've invited Reading Intervention Specialist, Teacher Tasha Mendoza, to join me today. You don't want to miss this episode that can take away a lot of the stress and pressure around helping kids learn to read. Are there days you feel you've had it with the sleepless nights, the temper tantrums, the constant fatigue of trying to keep up with an active baby?
Does it feel like you're always working so hard as a parent, trying to do everything for your kids and family, and yet it never feels enough? We get it. You love your child more than anything, and yet parenting is also exhausting and challenging. Especially when you're bombarded with criticism and pressure to be the perfect parent, which, spoiler alert, does not exist.
That's why we created Discerning Parenting, the podcast that helps you cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters in your parenting journey. This podcast is jam packed with valuable insights and practical tips specifically tailored for parents of kids age 5 and below. So join us and discover how you can use the combined power of science, knowing your child, and your own intuition in making the best parenting decisions for you and your family.
Welcome to the Discerning Parenting Podcast. Let's say hello to teacher Tasha Mendoza. A reading intervention specialist and mom of four, she's worked with hundreds of parents who, like you, are worried about their kids reading skills. And she also works directly with kids and also coaches parents on how to help their kids.
Now, each time I talk with teacher Tasha, I learn so much from her. I always say she's such a treasure trove of parenting wisdom. So this is the third of a series. On How to Teach Your Child to Read, our first two episodes answer the questions, how do kids learn to read? How do reading skills develop? Be sure to listen to these episodes too.
We talk about the different stages that kids go through when learning to read. Today, we're going to talk about a very, very important piece of the puzzle, which is building reading readiness. Teacher Tasha, let's start by defining what does it mean to have reading readiness? All right. So first, thank you for having me today.
I'm so happy to be back. Reading readiness is a buzzword in our field. A lot of parents ask when do kids start to read, when they should be reading already. I think the word readiness is something that we take for granted all the time. I know in your field, Dr. Victoria, you also use the word readiness.
In our field, we use the words reading readiness, and there's certain behaviors and characteristics that children present for that, and it's that moment in their life, in their childhood, where they're actually mature enough and ready enough to sit down for formal reading instruction. Finally without the struggle, without forcing them and without the frustration and stress of having to sit down and absorb lessons, we finally have them at their, in, in, in their childhood where they are so ready and willing.
To learn the alphabets, how to put the sounds together, how words are read and how books work. So it's an amazing time. And what I like to emphasize at this point is that reading readiness comes naturally, normally from zero to six, and we have to wait for that moment. We have to also nurture them to be ready.
No. So there's also what we call home literacy. Which we can build, okay? So building home literacy is also now a buzzword in many research studies in, in reading education, because really the first teachers I think of reading should be parents at home. And we can talk more about that now, but just in a nutshell, being ready means capturing them at a time when they can, one, pay attention.
Extend that length of focus to, they are curious about symbols and letters and how these letters work. Three, they can pick up books because they're curious about how these books work. They have the urge to independently read, so you'll have kids that are pretending to read, even if they don't know how to read.
Maybe some are still struggling with their speech, but they're at least mimicking some sense of sentence structure or, or story that they are reading to themselves, similar to what maybe their parent has modeled. And this is what we want, no? When they're ready, that's when we, we expect them to read. To pay attention, sit down and do the work, not before that.
Yeah, so thank you teacher Tasha for telling us about reading readiness and for talking about that because I do parent coaching for behavior and quite often I would get questions like what do I do to encourage my child to sit down and do worksheets? That's one of the most common behavior challenges, quote unquote, that are brought to me and that's.
A struggle with having a child who doesn't want to sit down and write letters of the alphabet, doesn't want to finish worksheets, and I know this is something that gets missed a lot because sometimes they will look at parenting advice from the internet and they will be told, okay, you can give rewards, you can do behavior charts, you can do all of these things, but then They would miss the first step.
And I would ask, how old is your child? And does your child already have the signs of readiness? So before we go to what are the techniques to, let's say, motivate a child for reading, we have to look first, is the child already at that stage developmentally, where we already start this formal reading instruction?
In other words, before we ask how to do it, what are the steps we're going to do, We have to ask first why we're doing it. And that is what we talked about in the last episode, so if you haven't listened to that, you should do it. And the second thing that we have to ask is, are we doing it at the right time?
Which is what we're talking about today. Now, I always say that development is not a contest. And when we look at whether or not our child is on track, we don't... Compare with let's say other kids in the playgroup or let's say the cousin, but we look at objective standards and That's why we have, for example, our past podcast episodes about developmental milestones because we look at objective standards.
Unfortunately today, kids are under pressure to do more and more at earlier and earlier ages. And parents are under this immense pressure too. Are you also seeing this teacher, Tasha? Yes, definitely. You know it comes from the word comparison. Comparing, no? Comparing your child with, let's say, their classmates.
Yeah. With Let's say parents comparing their children with other parents children of the same age, of the same grade level. And then when they start to describe programs that are available, that were taken, parents tend to make other children the benchmark of their parents development, which I think where the anxiety and the stress begins.
But what we find is that each child has their own pace. And has their own time to be ready. Let me give you a case in point, because I, I learn things as I go along, even in parenting. My eldest learned to decode words, to read words, at three years old. And I thought that at the time, oh, wonderful, because others can't yet at that age, right?
So I was pretty proud of her and saying, oh, my child can read. And I hardly even taught her. She just saw me teaching other children read and She sort of absorbed that but as I learned later on through the years in my work and interacting with speech therapists and, and occupational therapists and how all reading development and, and how we nurture the love of reading.
I realized that it's not the age. It's just at three years old, she was interested in it. It just came naturally. And now she's 17 and she's into languages. So there are some kids that are sensitive to, to absorbing language, using it and have the facility for it. But in contrast, I have another son who at four years old and five years old is being expected by the school to read and couldn't memorize.
His alphabets and I had the courage because I am in my field, I had the courage to tell the teacher to say. If he needs to get a low grade, if you have to fail him in the test because he can't read, please go ahead and fail him because I know he is a delayed speaker. So he went through some speech and communication therapy at an early age.
So I had projected that he was going to be a late reader and that was fine. Yeah. And that's something I want to point out also. A lot of parents don't realize this, that many kids who had language delays when they were young kids, even if they catch up later on, they can have difficulties with reading.
So that's why it's important to follow up with your care provider if, let's say, you've had language delays. So that's a given, because there is a very high positive relationship between language learning. and reading ability. So it follows where you have a delayed speaker. Now, someone who has speech delays and articulation problems will likely read later, and that is okay as long as the help is given.
But what I can say with these two children, one learned to read at two and a half or three, the other one learned at six, six and a half. By the time they both hit grade one at seven and a half or seven or eight, they were on the same level. They were both good readers with very good reading disposition.
They were independent readers, and they were very curious about what they were reading all the time. If they needed a strategy, they would ask for help. And that's a very important skill, letting them know that they can ask for help and how to ask for help. Yes. So even just asking for the meaning of a word like, Mom, I saw this word.
I don't know what it means. I don't know how it's spoken. Please help me. That for a grade one child is what we want to hear. It's not really them knowing everything, but for them to be curious about words and how words work and how it enriches their knowledge. I think that's what we want. And more than anything, I've mentioned this in the The previous episodes, reading dispossession and their attitude towards reading and writing once positive, they can catapult into, wow, they're successful readers in the long term.
And I think we have to reflect on what makes that, what makes them like that because of what we invested in the early years, which is your speech and language, your vocabulary, your communication, and what we call. Yeah, now those are a lot of ideas. A lot. So let's talk about reading readiness. What goes into reading readiness?
Okay. Reading readiness is something that is built over the years, no? So reading readiness can come, like I said it can come at three, it can come at four, it can come at five, depends on your child. It's this urge to, to want to know more about Oh, what are the letters and how are they used? Or how are, how do they work?
Right? Oh, I see a book. I see that the front page or the cover page has letters and the letters are put together into words. Of course, they won't label it as letters and words, but they notice that, you know, there are gaps between a bunch of letters and mom reads that as one word. They're now becoming aware that anything they, they say.
can be written in print and can be read in print. So there's a correspondence now. In, in the center, in beginning reading, we don't only teach alphabet. We also teach book handling and what we call concepts of print. So this is the direct instruction of telling them, you know, this is how to read.
Mommy reads, our teacher reads from the left to the right. Yeah. Or for some kids with dyslexia, you know, I, I actually use the, the name, the, the words front and back of the word. Oh, this is the front of the word, and this is the back of the word, you know, like a train? Yeah. Like there's a front of the train and a back of the train.
So we read from, from the front. to the back, not the other way around. We also know that a word is made up of letters. We can count the letters if we want. We can sound them out. So that awareness is so important, more important than just memorizing ABC. and filling out a worksheet. . Yeah. Yeah. This is, and it's human.
When, when the child is ready, when there's readiness, they will want to listen to a human being, a teacher or a parent. Not an app. . Yeah. Not, not a a toy or not a, A workbook. A worksheet. Yeah. Not just. to learn to read. A real teacher, a real parent that will give them feedback and say, let me show you how.
Now you do it. Oh, very good. Right? Or if they make mistakes, let's do that again. I don't say wrong. Some parents, they get so frustrated, it's wrong. I just say that was a good try. Let's do it again. This is how it's done. Let's do it together. So there's a lot of nurturing and scaffolding, I think beginning to read when there's readiness becomes a positive experience and a nurturing experience.
And you want them to have an experience that will carry them on with a positive disposition through the years. Right. Because, you know, disposition, reading disposition is something that is very hard to address later on. If it's a negative reading disposition and they go to read 2, until high school, it's so hard to reverse.
Negative reading disposition meaning maybe in the early years they felt reading was forced. They had constant fights over worksheets. Yes. So, From the start, they already learned that reading is a chore and reading is something that they would rather avoid. So that's very, very hard to avoid. Yeah, I don't like to say the word, but we've seen a lot of kids where it was a traumatic experience.
It's trauma. Like they see letters, grade 2, grade 3, they see books, they want to throw the books away. Because in the beginning reading stages, it was either hurried or the instruction was not clear, you know. So even the... The way phonics instruction is presented has to be done in a systematic and in a way where it should be easy for them and not confusing.
It's, it's something that experience, you only learn to read once, right? So you want to, to catch them where they're ready and not when you know, they don't have the memory back to memorize letters and they're forcing it on them. It's really stressful or they don't have the attention span to sit down.
And absorb everything, but you're forcing them to. It's not even about reading, it's about the behavior, right? Yeah, so I saw that you were pointing out three things that you need to see for reading readiness. So that means understanding oral language. And then being able to express themselves, you said choosing the right words to say, and then distinguishing between the different sounds, and also having the attention.
Yep. Can I talk about articulation? Yes, yes. What is articulation? Yeah. When they're able to express themselves using the correct sounds, no? Yes. One of the things that we see in the center is that some of them are brought to us very early. And when I say early, it's not that It's not the age that we're looking for, early because they haven't developed their articulation yet.
It's very hard to teach someone reading, because that's on print, right? If they cannot distinguish their sounds. For example some kids cannot yet distinguish between The sound of F and the sound of V, V, it can kind of sound the same, but maybe the facility to pronounce that is not yet there. Yeah, and I can imagine if they can't distinguish between.
F and V, it's going to be a challenge to teach them the alphabet, the letters of the alphabet for F and V. Yes. Distinguish them in the sound and distinguish them in the print. They're going to, they're, they're going to mix that up. A very common one is also M. and N, right? They sound alike. Some of them can distinguish the sound, but they can't produce two different sounds, M and N, right?
That's for sound, right? They're, they're also, that's for articulation. Sometimes it's also visual, no? We find a lot they still cannot put into memory, let's say the difference between B and D. Very, very common. Those are usually the Letters to be mastered. B and D. And we have strategy for that. Sometimes some of them mix W and M or cannot write it properly.
W and M. Or we have a lot of reversals. So, letter E, that's the other way around. Or P, B. The other way around things like this, and, and that's so normal. They have to go through that explorative stage first and make those mistakes before they perfect the let's, it takes time, but what you want is that the attention is there.
They can tune in in your, when you're giving instruction or you're giving correction and you can, they can actually absorb that much. during instruction. So it's a tall order, you know, not two year olds, three year olds cannot naturally do that. They'll be playing on the floor. So once they can sit on the table, And then you'll see it in their faces that they're willing to learn this, that's when you teach it.
And I think, parents don't believe kase that that time will come, but I promise you, that time will come. That time will come. I think that's the hard part about being a parent. You can't wait, eh. But I've seen so many children across the lifespan. From Forrest Gump. Three year olds until college level.
I teach them readiness is what's important. Even transitioning from one reading stage to another readiness is important. So that time for sure, a hundred percent will. Wow, that's so hopeful and that's so inspiring. And Teacher Tasha, you talked about home literacy. What does this mean by home literacy and what can parents do at home to help their kids get started in building reading readiness?
Yes, home literacy is something that I like to talk about because it's that magic that People don't talk about, people are always talking about like, what programs to enroll their child in, what's available out there that I can buy, or like, what are the nice books I can purchase, but before even that I'm looking at relationships inside the home.
You know, where you have both parents, siblings, maybe even household help or whoever is in your house and looking at the way they behave and communicate as regards literacy. So first, are parents reading? I know a lot of parents that don't like to read. They're reading off the internet. That's fine. But what we find is that there is a relationship between reading behaviors in hou in houses or in homes and reading habits of children.
Yeah. So anyway, it's just kids books. So, sometimes I have parents who are intimidated. Mm. I've seen a lot of researches about this, that even if the parents are not great readers, if they get books and share it with their kids, it does build the child's reading skills. So maybe if you haven't been a reader, maybe if you yourself had traumatic experiences as a child surrounding reading, And then you want to avoid that for your child, you want your child to learn to read, maybe you can pick up a few books, anyway they're children's books, and then look at the pictures with your child, show your child that you are reading, yes, yes, that's enough for them to want To, to pick up a book themselves.
And that's already a big thing. When your child has a beautiful view towards books and they just want to pick it up on your own, on their own, then congratulations. That's something that, it doesn't even have to be about the words, it can be just about the experience of sitting beside you, looking at the book together, looking at the pictures.
Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . There's some parents that also try to hon their storytelling skills, and I think that's something that children. Absolutely love. I have yet to see a child who does not like to be read to. None. I don't, I think that's human nature. Children love stories. They love to listen. In fact, even newborns.
will listen to language, especially if it's a parent's voice. The skill of reading aloud is something that is so precious. I'm telling you, what are you developing really? Good reading programs in beginning reading have a listening comprehension component. But when you're reading a story to a child, you don't know, and they don't know that they're already developing listening comprehension.
They're following a plot, reacting to characters. They're looking at conflict in a story, they identify a problem, and they're giving solutions to a problem. These are thinking skills. You're developing thinking skills. in your children that they will use through the school years later on. And the best time is this time when they're not realizing they're learning these skills.
For me, we see kids that are so grade conscious in the grade school, because they have to identify a plot, follow a plot, identify character, conflict, and all that. Really, these skills could be taught very early. The decoding and the spelling and all that, those are easy things eh, pero comprehension is the hardest part to teach.
And if you can teach them at home at a very early age, you're good to go. Parang they will not have difficulty with comprehending text later on. So that's what I, well. That's my belief, and I've seen that with all my four kids. And it's actually, it goes beyond our own personal experiences. We've both experienced this at home, but there are also a lot of research that would support these.
So we build home literacy by modeling it, by talking with our kids, by telling stories, by reading books. And enjoying books with our kids. So it's really just appreciation of, of books and reading and communication, speech and language at home and giving value to it because it's both functional, there's communication within the family.
There's a harmonious relationships built through language and at the same time, you're honing skills in them that they will use later on in schools or in daily life when they grow up and it carries through, you know, in, in a family where there's good, healthy home literacy, you'll see the conversations among.
Even when we are in the dining table, now my kids are in high school and once entering college, so it's on politics. It's on current events in the world. So you have the smaller ones trying to understand what this is about, but, and what they read, what they watch, what they see in the internet and what they learn from school can now be processed in conversation and it's not time that's wasted, it's actually substantial because again.
What do they take away from school? It's not information. It's the thinking skill. Yes. And you get to know them in these conversations that you started when they were in, in their early years. So that's basically what home literacy is. Yeah. Wow. Thank you so much, teacher Tasha. This was such an enlightening episode.
And I know for a lot of parents, I'm sure they feel relieved and it removed a lot of stress because the tips that teacher Tasha taught us about building reading readiness through home literacy, it's actually much, much easier than what a lot of parents think they need to do, like get your kids to read, to sit down and answer worksheets, which can come much, much later.
But now, parents will know how to take the appropriate actions if needed. Now, this episode is the third of a series on teaching your child to read and be sure to follow the Discerning Parenting podcast so you don't miss any of our episodes. And be sure also to go to discerningparenting. com slash reading.
We have a free guide on getting your child started. In learning to read. So be sure to get that free guide. You'll also get emails with parenting tips, and you'll also learn about our program. We have a program that helps parents teach their child to read in a way that is joyful and stress free. So thank you and follow the Discerning Parenting podcast.