By Ruthie Swibel, Research Consultant @ Redwood Literacy

In the spirit of partnering with your child's teacher to ensure your child is set up for success with literacy development, I want to provide you with questions to guide a conversation with their teacher. Don’t wait to have a collaborative conversation with your child’s teacher. It is essential to know the quality and nature of the reading instruction your child receives every day. Through no fault of their own, many teachers have been taught to use programs and practices to teach reading that are not based on science and are ineffective. Many school districts rely on commercially available reading curricula that have been proven by science to be ineffective. Your child could be struggling with literacy development because of a neurobiological difference or because they are receiving ineffective instruction in school; or both could be occurring, compounding and worsening the challenges. Remember: most children with reading challenges improve considerably with effective instruction and many children with low reading skills have preventable problems.

Learning to read is not a natural process. There are no brain systems that are designed for reading. If there were, learning to read would be like learning to talk or walk. Children would learn through simple exposure and experience. But we know reading doesn’t develop like this in the brain. For ALL children, parts of the brain designed for language and visual processing must be reorganized for reading. For most children, this reorganization of the brain for reading requires systematic, explicit instruction on the relationship with letters and sounds, systematic spelling instruction, and ample time to read and write text with immediate corrective feedback. In order for students to become skilled at comprehending what they read, they must also receive instruction in developing a wide and deep knowledge base and vocabulary. With this in mind, here are questions to discuss with your child’s teacher:

1. How much time is spent on foundational elements of reading? Consider asking, “How much time do you spend each week on phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and spelling?” Listen to see if they integrate explicit instruction into a daily routine.
2. Has the teacher screened the class on their reading skills and, if so, can they share the results of the assessments? Ask, “Can you help me understand how you are using this screening information to meet my child’s reading needs?”
3. What reading opportunities are there for reading different types of text with a range of text levels? Listen to see if your child is being exposed to texts across subject areas; not just narrative text. Read-alouds should be used to expose students to concepts, discussion, vocabulary, and text structure that is above what they can read independently. Students should be given opportunities to practice reading and writing spelling patterns that are being taught in class.
4. What can I do at home? If you are interested in providing support at home, ask the teacher for mini-lessons you can do at home to provide extra practice with the specific skills being taught at school

If you are at all questioning your child’s literacy development, reach out to us at Redwood Literacy. We are here to provide you with more information, support, and access to literacy remediation services.