How this ONE sneaky habit hinders children's reading progress.
During my career, I've had the opportunity to visit numerous classes and see different approaches to reading instruction. Over time, I started to notice a particular teaching practice that, at first glance, seemed completely harmless. However, when I reflected on what it truly takes to become a fluent reader, I realized that this practice could actually encourage long-term habits that will hinder reading skills in the long run.
Here is what I saw. The teacher would ask her students to read a word. She would begin by writing the word on the board and asked her students to read each letter as she revealed it to them.
Teacher: What sound does this letter make?
Students: /m/
Teacher: What sound does this letter make?
Students: /ě/
Teacher: What sound does this letter make?
Students: /t/
Teacher: What is this word?
Students: “met”
And there it is. Did you catch it? The challenge comes when we read words, letter by letter, from left to right. This method isolates each letter, overlooking the fact that neighboring letters can influence each other’s sound. Reading letters in isolation is not setting children up for reading success because English words are dependent on the relationships between letters within a word.
To better understand this point, let’s look at our classroom example again. When we read the word “met,” the sound the vowel makes changes based on whether there's a consonant right after it or not. Without a consonant, the vowel would have its long sound, resulting in "me." With the consonant, it takes on a short vowel sound, making it "met.” How can a child decide if a vowel has a long or short sound without seeing what comes after it?
It's important for children to have access to all the letters within a word so they can make informed decisions about the sounds that letters or combinations of letters make. When we cover parts of a word and ask children to read only the revealed letters, we’re not helping them understand the word as a complete unit. They need to see how the letters interact with each other in order to gain the crucial information they require to read a word correctly.
Switching to reveal the entire word at once instead of revealing the word letter by letter can help children develop the important habit of seeing letters within a word as a team working together. Thus, setting them up for future reading success with more complicated spelling patterns like igh light.
