By Dee Tadlock, Ph.D.
Jared graduated from kindergarten and could hardly wait to go to first grade so he could learn to read. Books had been an important part of his life forever—Mom and Dad read to him regularly and made reading to him part of his bedtime ritual. Jared looked at books on his own, and he frequently pretended to read to his little sister. He confidently asked his mother, “When I go to first grade, I will be able to really read books to Jennifer, won’t I?”
“Of course you will,” answered Mom.
Jared came home from his first day in first grade and excitedly told Mom and Dad all about his teacher, his classroom, and his old and new friends. “But,” he said with just a twinge of disappointment in his voice, “I didn’t learn to read yet.”
Unfortunately, many children like Jared don’t ever learn to read comfortably enough to enjoy reading or even to use it as a convenient tool to get information. Why? It has something to do with how we learn to read. All processes, including reading, operate and must be learned implicitly—below the level of conscious awareness—or, in other words, on a subconscious level. An easy example to help you understand what that means is the process of helping a child learn to ride a bicycle. Parents watch their child figure out how to ride a bike, but they cannot observe what the child’s brain is doing to enable the child to take off all alone. Likewise, parents can watch or listen to a child reading but they cannot observe what the child’s brain requires to read. It is simply not visible. This “hidden” process opens the door for mistaken assumptions about what the brain does to produce excellent reading. Common sense, based on watching someone read, might suggest that what reading is about is figuring out what the words are, and that is exactly the assumption that has guided early reading instruction for a hundred and fifty years. But what if the assumption is wrong? Could reading instruction based on those erroneous assumptions create reading problems? Yes, it certainly could.
Can you read this?
Aoccdrnig to rseerach, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are prseetend. Th olny iprmoatnt thing is taht frist nd lsat ltteers are at the rghit pclae. Th rset cn be a toatl mses nd yu cn sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
You did not decode or sound out any of the words, nor did you recognize them by sight, yet you read the passage easily and knew what you read when you finished. This is one example that shows that word identification is not the main event of reading, although it is a logical conclusion based upon watching someone read.
If reading isn’t primarily about word identification, then what could it be about? What if reading is primarily about anticipating the author’s message? To read excellently, the brain must figure out how to plan, coordinate, and integrate numerous complex neural systems to anticipate the author’s message. The following passage serves as a good example.
With hocked gems financing him Our hero bravely defied all scornful laughter
That tried to prevent his scheme Your eyes deceive he had said
An egg not a table correctly typifies this unexplored planet
Now three sturdy sisters sought proof
Forcing along sometimes through calm vastness
Yet more often over turbulent peaks and valleys
Days become weeks
As many doubters spread fearful rumors about the edge
At last from somewhere welcome winged creates appeared Signifying momentous success1
You didn’t get it, did you? Let me give you one piece of information that will help you anticipate the author’s message: Christopher Columbus. Now, read the verse again. Why were you able to understand it on the second read? Because you knew where to go in your brain to access the information that helped you anticipate the meaning. This provides the necessary link to the author’s message that makes comprehension possible. This activity shows us that the brain doesn’t read excellently by identifying the words (you successfully read the words in the paragraph above the first time through). It reads by anticipating meaning.
We do not know exactly how the brain accomplishes this. We do know that no one has access to or control over what the brain does to anticipate the author’s intended meaning. Therefore, we can’t “teach” our children how to anticipate meaning in reading any more than we can “teach” them how to balance while riding a bike. In both cases, the brain must figure it out for itself.
Reading problems are caused when well-meaning people systematically and explicitly teach children to use phonics to identify words. You can’t read if you don’t know phonics, but the brain doesn’t use phonics to identify words. Rather, the brain strategically samples the phonetic information as necessary to help anticipate the author’s intended meaning, which is why you could easily understand the mixed up passage you read earlier. Strategic sampling requires the presence of the phonetic information, but not in any particular order. The brain looks only for the phonetic information it needs to help anticipate the meaning.
Here’s an example:
The little boy lives in a ______.
Most people anticipate that the intended meaning is ‘house’ without accessing any phonetic information. But what if you couldn’t think of where little boys are likely to live? Your brain would ask your eyes to do some strategic sampling to help you out and, after a brief fixation on the word house, they would report back, “There’s an ‘h’.” That might be enough information to make the prediction. If not, the brain tells the eyes to keep sampling until the prediction can be made.
The brain also asks the eyes to strategically sample phonetic information when it is unsure about its initial prediction. It might initially anticipate that the little boy lives in a house, but then there may be uncertainty. The little boy could live in a tent. In this case, the brain would direct the eyes to see if there is an ‘h’ or a ‘t’. The brain needs only that very specific information to correctly predict the intended meaning.
We can’t explicitly teach the brain how to anticipate an author’s meaning nor how to strategically sample available phonetic information. You might wonder, then, how your child will learn to read excellently. Don’t worry—your child’s brain can figure out reading for itself. You can structure an environment so she can figure it out as soon as she is ready to do so. And if the child is not ready? Then she will have fun along the way. If the environment is right, failure is not possible.
Stay tuned to future columns for information about how to structure such an environment in your own home. In the meantime, enjoy the pre-reading period as much as you did the pre-speaking period, knowing that children are able to figure out reading just as they are able to figure out talking, walking, and riding bikes!?
About the Author:
Dee Tadlock, Ph.D. is the founder of Read Right Systems, in Shelton, WA and primary author of the book “Read Right! Coaching Your Child to Excellence in Reading.” www.readright.com
1 J. Dooling and R. Lachman, 1972, “Effects of Comprehension on Retention of Prose,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 88, Pages 216-222.
March 2007