by Dee Tadlock, Ph.D.

Each month we bring you a column by Read Right developer, Dee Tadlock, Ph.D. Read Right empowers kids with the philosophy that, if a child isn’t learning to read, it’s not because there’s something wrong with the child. Rather there’s something “wrong” with the way the child is being taught! Let’s show you what we mean.

Can you understand the meaning of the following sentence?

Aoccdrnig to rseerach, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are prseetend. The olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. Th rset cn be a toatl mses nd yu cn sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

You probably got the meaning even though you couldn’t have sounded out most of the words! Nor could you have recognized any of them by sight! Now try this:

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…1
 

You didn’t get the meaning, did you? Even though you “read” all the words the first time, you probably didn’t understand the author’s meaning. Now read it again and this time think: Christopher Columbus1.
 

The Read Right system was developed by a mom, Dr. Dee Tadlock, who was determined to help her son, a struggling reader. This required her to discover how the brain learns to read successfully. During her extensive research, she found that reading (whether early reading development or remediation) must be grounded in meaning, not decoding. Since 1991, Dr. Tadlock and Read Right Systems have helped thousands of children, teens, and adults in the United States, Canada, China, and Germany through school-based programs, telephone tutoring, and at-home programs.

Read Right’s premise that all children can learn to read, plus their phenomenal success rate, is why NSFM partners with Read Right. Reading empowers the lives of children and, together with Read Right, we are in the business of empowering kids.

1J. Dooling and R. Lachman, 1972, “Effects of Comprehension on Retention of Prose” Journal of Experimental Psychology, Volume 88, pages 216-222.
 

Through the years I’ve heard parent after parent tell me about conversations nearly identical to the one I used to have with my son that went like this:

Mom: “Kyle, do you want me to read you a story?”
 

Kyle: “Oh, yes. Can you read Marvin K Mooney?”

Mom: “We read that book three times yesterday. Don’t you want to hear this new book we got from the library?”
 

Kyle: “Okay. But after we read the new one can you read Marvin K Mooney?”
 

Why is it that at a certain stage children want to hear the same book read to them over and over and over and over? Parents get sick of reading it; they cajole and entice the child to try to get his attention on a different book, but to no avail. Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now wins out! Your child asks for the same book again and again because he is trying to figure out the reading process, and he can’t figure out how the printed symbol system assists and supports the process of understanding the author’s message unless he already knows what that message is. This reality is confirmed by an historical event.

By the fourth century, the ability to read Egyptian hieroglyphics had been lost. Modern-day archaeologists and linguists could not determine how the mysterious written symbol system worked to communicate meaning. In the late 1700s, however, during the construction of a fort in Egypt, one of Napoleon’s soldiers made a fateful discovery: a stone inscribed with three scripts. The first script was identified by linguists as Egyptian hieroglyphics, the second was  identified as a more common form of written Egyptian language (demotic script), and the third was identified as Greek. Linguists determined that the demotic and Greek scripts each communicated the same message, so they assumed that the third inscription on what soon came to be known as the Rosetta Stone probably said the same thing. Knowing the common message enabled linguists to finally figure out the lost language of hieroglyphics!

Linguists had tried for centuries to figure out hieroglyphics, but they couldn’t do it until they knew in advance what one particular message said. The same is true for your child. Your son or daughter needs to know in advance what a message of interest says in order to be able to figure out how printed language works. So no matter how often your child asks you to read the same book and no matter how much your child asks you to read the same book and no matter how much you may think, “If I have to read that book one more time, I’ll go stark raving mad!” just acknowledge your frustration, remember what an amazing creation your child is, and with a warm and inviting smile, read the same book again. On a subconscious level, your child may be using the familiar story to figure out the reading process.

Once children implicitly understand the relationship between spoken language and a printed message, they will be able to figure out how to use that knowledge and all relevant information stored in memory to anticipate and construct an author’s intended message—the essence of what we call comprehension.
 

It sounds complex. It is complex—but the human brain possesses the awesome capability to figure it all out, as evidenced by preschool-age children who do so every year. You can assist by helping your child become highly familiar with a select set of books. Follow his lead. Do not force him to listen to books he does not want to hear, but do take advantage of any opportunity to read the same book again and again.

A book you’ve read over and over becomes highly predictable to both you and your child, making it a perfect time to include him in the reading. Start by reading part of a sentence and then pause to let him finish it. If he doesn’t, ask him: “Can you finish reading it?” If he doesn’t immediately respond, you read it to him. The next time you read the book, pause at the same place in the sentence. Eventually, he will finish reading it. Once this happens, you can ask him to join in the reading on other pages.
 

Pick a very short sentence and ask him to read it. Again, if he hesitates, you read it to him, but keep sporadically inviting him to do so until he does. Once he knows most of the book, you can take turns reading pages to each other. And before long, he will be able to read the entire book to you! Then it will be time to ask him to read it to Dad, Grandma, the neighbor, all the siblings—anyone who is available to listen.
 

Remember to avoid calling your child’s attention to the words and, contrary to popular belief, don’t even think about asking him to ”sound out” anything. He is learning that the major strategy for reading is to anticipate the author’s message, a process that happens below the level of conscious awareness. This means that you can’t tell him how to anticipate the meaning, but that he must figure it out for himself! What you can do is construct an environment that will support and lead him to anticipate the author’s meaning by reading books together that have become highly predictable because you followed his lead in reading them again and again and again.

About the Author:
Dee Tadlock, Ph.D. is the primary author of the book Read Right! Coaching Your Child to Excellence in Reading. www.ReadRight.com

September 2007