Many parents wonder if they should teach their children to read. Although children would not really be obliged to read until they were six years old in kindergartens, familiarization with letters, writing and reading begins at an earlier age.
The reading level of the Spanish student
I have an ambiguous position on this. Really, if we study the data on reading competence of Spanish teenagers or we have taught, the ability to make comprehensive reading of students is not what should be expected, of course, the desirable and expected of an organized system. The latest results of the PISA Report are mediocre if not bad.
Of course, the failure is not of the school as such, although possibly it is of some pedagogical methods that are maintained or of organizations that do not arrive, for multiple reasons, to attend to the real diversity of the rhythms of each student and your specific needs. In large classrooms, addressing the intrinsic difference of each child is a complicated task.
If we add that reading becomes the pillar of primary education with excessive pressure sometimes, the obligatory reading of works that children themselves do not decide according to their interests and the lack of reading habits in some environments, the result is getting poorer.
The initiation to reading
The little ones, when they start to discover the reading, are not always prepared or interested. If from that moment there is pressure and obligation, the pleasure of reading is clouded and perhaps damaged in the long term. For them it would be necessary, in my opinion, for teachers and parents to relax. By learning to read before you don't learn to read better far from reading habits are achieved.
For those who go faster, those children who with three or four years would like to discover the whole world that hides in the letters, it would also be necessary to act in a personalized way, encouraging, showing, never, nor in their case, pressing.
There are children who are able to learn to read almost alone, asking curiously about the lyrics and their sounds. To these yes, you have to give them all the help they need.
Others, who do not develop this ability so autonomously, may also want to read. In this case, if the school follows a program that does not allow them to be treated individually, parents can help them. I don't think you have to fear that the child gets bored in class for knowing how to read when others are learning, but to coordinate with their tutors formulas so they can help their classmates or adapt the curriculum to their needs.
Like I don't think a child should be forced to learn to read And much less in Infantil, I also believe that those who want to read must be given all the opportunities to do so.
Reading methods
So, parents wonder if they will know how to do it or if it will be counterproductive not to follow the same method as that of the school. I think not, that a child who begins to read, either freely or with more traditional syllabic methods, that is, even with bits of Doman type information, will enjoy the advantage that this entails, not by attaining this ability before other children of his age, but for the enormous pleasure of learning something that you are interested in being able to handle and for the world full of imagination that self-motivated reading will put in your hands.
Children and adults have learned to read with different methods throughout history and have reached their goal, so to determine for sure which method is better would be subjective. There are methods that use phonetics, letters, syllables, referential images, generating words and even a psychogenetic method that, although it seems magic, I have seen it work.
Parents can teaching reading to our kids. The choice of method is personal. I used, personally, the syllabic, because it is the one I feel comfortable with and my son knew spontaneously the letters and their sounds, finding a lot of fun in recognizing the syllables that formed the letters I recognized. In fact, he spelled words without reading them very easily and the method adapted very well to him.
Other parents seek other approaches. I sincerely believe that, in addition to offering story reading and answering children's questions, making letters available and letting them experiment without correcting their beginnings, each family will better use the method they know best and with which parents feel safe. , seeking, of course, also adapt to the one to which your child responds best.
Learn to read with pleasure
However, to do forced learning before the child has acquired the necessary maturity and the desire to do so is, of course, the worst of the ways. And if, on the contrary, we surround the learning of the reading of a motivating environment, with example and reading of stories, with a stimulating environment in which the letters are an integral part of the daily and not only part of a concrete work, the Success and pleasure are more likely to be achieved.
Therefore, yes, let's teach children to read They want it and do not force those who show signs of not being prepared or interested. Everything will come, sure. For some before, for others later, but only from respecting the freedom of the student and their personal rhythms will we ensure that we arrive and arrive in good condition.
