Many parents and teachers make the assumption that reading is natural to human beings and will emerge “whole cloth” like language when the child is ready. It is an invention, barely 6,000 years old. However, since the brain is highly adaptable with tremendous capacity, humans have been able to manage reading along with everything else we do.
With solid instruction, the brain is able to master the elaborate, the multi-ring ‘circus’ know as reading. In your mind, picture the following: three overlapping rings representing Vision, Language, and Cognition with two smaller rings right beside it representing Motor and affective function. The ‘ring master’ or EXECUTIVE CENTER oversees everything and handles Attention, Memory, Hypothesis generating, and Decision making.
Research findings and updated insights and tools allow schools to immediately determine which of Six Developmental Profiles describes an entering kindergarten student. Updated assessment batteries teachers to determine exactly what each child needs to become a proficient reader based on what have become six developmental profiles:
- One profile includes children who have difficulty with letters and sounds (due to little exposure to alphabet or English language) and will respond quickly if instruction targets these deficits. Children in this group who may have visual-based difficulties will need further testing.
- Three profiles are diagnoses with some form of reading disability or dyslexia.
But there is really a 7th developmental profile and are most likely boys who show no obvious areas of weakness but are simply not yet ready to learn to read. This group requires greater in-depth evaluation to ensure there are no underlying weaknesses and more reasonable expectations than typically the case. Some children are pushed too hard too soon before they are developmentally ready to read.
Based on the most recent research, children need systematic instruction on the basics of reading and early, deep immersion in stories, authentic literature, word meanings and creativity. Assessments allow teachers to see which rungs on the developmental reading ladder a child between ages 5 and 10 might be missing:
The Developmental Reading Ladder
- Phonemes and their connections to letters
- The meanings and functions of words and morphemes in sentences
- An immersion in stories that require sophisticated deep-reading processes
- Learning the meanings and grammatical uses of words in increasingly complex sentences
- Making basic functions so practiced and automatic that children can focus their attention on increasingly more sophisticated comprehension
- Expanding background knowledge
- Regularly eliciting children’s own thoughts and imagination in speaking and writing
Children must become fluent readers who use both their imagination and analytical capacities. A truly fluent reader not only knows how words work but also how they make us feel. Empathy and perspective taking are part of feelings and thoughts. Their presence promotes greater understanding.
Deep reading is always about connection: connecting what we know to what we read, what we read to what we feel, what we feel to what we think, and how we think to how we live out our lives in a connected word.
