parents reading with daughter on couch

Nosotros are proud to feature this guest mail service by Mary Field, head of academics of the International School of San Antonio, nigh the questions that parents should enquire near reading.

When San Antonio Lease Moms asked me to write about reading for their summertime blog series, I asked myself, "What can I say that will be useful to parents that has not already been said earlier?" And then it occurred to me, why don't I write about all the questions that I wish parents would enquire me most reading, and offering solutions that are also fun to do in the summertime.

Reading and Knowledge

Why practise you have a cognition-rich curriculum and what does that have to practice with reading?

Co-ordinate to cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, reading tests are really knowledge tests. Noesis is essential to making sense of new texts. When I was learning Chinese, I began to detect something about my progress. Eventually, it was clear that reading a text nigh a topic that I was familiar with was far easier than reading about something that I didn't know. Newspaper manufactures near American politics were far easier to understand than the advertisement nigh blood pressure medicine side by side to information technology. The enquiry bears this out, students who are "poor readers" tend to do amend when they read well-nigh topics that they already have prior knowledge nigh. "Expert readers," it turns out, know a lot of stuff.

Summer activities: Going to museums, the zoo, the botanical garden, etc.

Reading Is Phonics

Why don't you talk more virtually cultivating a beloved of reading in students?

At the International School of San Antonio, nearly of our students are young children. So when we are education them how to read, they are starting from the very beginning. Reading, at its most basic level, is a process of mapping sounds to their written representations. So for our youngest learners, synthetic phonics is the best way for them to become readers. Information technology is hard to love to read if the words are still opaque and the most basic task of reading is a struggle.

If you are worried about your kid's reading level, you might consider teaching your child using constructed phonics yourself. At that place is an commodity available on San Antonio Charter Moms to assistance you lot go started, based on a webinar with yours truly.

Summer activities: Find a constructed phonics program and exercise daily at abode.

Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction

"Counterbalanced literacy" sounds skilful, simply what is wrong with educational activity literacy that way?

The term balanced literacy sounds then appealing! It reminds us of a balanced diet, and what could exist wrong with that? In my degree plan, we learned to teach reading through balanced literacy. For our homework nosotros made word sorts, talked most reader's workshop, and evaluated online games for teaching literacy. Absolutely none of our assignments taught us how to put a three-letter word in forepart of young children and teach them how to read it. This is a existent problem if teachers are spending precious fourth dimension writing creative lesson plans but don't know how to help children in the nearly basic first steps of reading. I should know, I was 1 of them!

Summer activities: Phonics, once again.

Teens and Literature

Why do older kids accept to eat their vegetables when it comes to reading?

I know that summertime is the season of embankment reads, and that is fine, but it actually is important for older readers to keep challenging themselves with texts that brand them actually piece of work those reading muscles. I love a adept genre novel as much as the adjacent person, but students absolutely need to be prepared for challenging texts. Medical school textbooks, law school cases, enquiry papers are all oftentimes challenging reads and these are exactly what students need to be able to read in the later stages of their educations and for their careers.

Some might exist tempted to swap out the classics or the canon or whatever you want to phone call it for a couple of graphic novels or the Hunger Games. I am not a high schoolhouse English teacher, only I do know of a super star English teacher, Jasmine Lane, who explains why that is a bad idea on her blog. In short, non teaching literature to reluctant teenagers does not practise them any favors. It is denying them access to something incredibly valuable but because teaching it is hard.

Summer activities: Read a work of literature together.

Charter Moms Chats

Watch Mary Field discuss the questions about reading that she wishes parents would ask her in an interview with Inga Cotton fiber on Lease Moms Chats on Th, June 17, 2022 at iv:00 PM Fundamental on Facebook and YouTube.

Mary Field is the head of academics at the International School of San Antonio. She has taught Mandarin Chinese in San Antonio since 2015.

More Almost Reading

  • "Graphic Novels for Struggling and Reluctant Readers," Nicole Cubillas and Kristin Yourdon, San Antonio Charter Moms, Apr fifteen, 2021
  • "Can Reading Cure ADHD? It's More than Complicated Than That," Bekah McNeel,San Antonio Charter Moms, August 26, 2020
  • "How to Teach Your Kid to Read,"San Antonio Charter Moms, August 20, 2020
  • "Bear witness-Based Literacy Pedagogy," Bekah McNeel,San Antonio Charter Moms, August 13, 2020
  • "Audiobooks," Carly Friedman,San Antonio Charter Moms, July 13, 2020
  • "Learning a New Language," Mary Field,San Antonio Charter Moms, June 23, 2020
  • "Host a Book Bandy," Carly Friedman,San Antonio Charter Moms, June ix, 2020
  • "At a Loss for Words," Emily Hanford,APM Reports, Baronial 19, 2019
  • "San Antonio Summer Reading Programs," Amy Johnson,San Antonio Charter Moms, June 18, 2019