Which comes first, reading or speaking? Speaking, of course. A one-year-old can say a few words, but hardly any one-year-old can read. Most two-year-olds can say hundreds of words and can form tiny sentences, but hardly any two-year-olds can read.
Which comes first, recognizing sounds or recognizing letters? Recognizing sounds, of course. A one-year-old can recognize and repeat the sounds of many words, but few one-year-olds can recognize letters. A two-year-old knows hundreds of words, but hardly any two-year-olds recognize more than a handful of letters.
So if sounds and speaking come before recognizing letters and reading, why do some teachers teach the ABC’s first—recognizing visual “pictures” of sounds—rather than teaching the sounds of our language first?
Are we teaching reading backwards?
What if instead of teaching children to read “cat” using ABC’s, we taught children to read “cat” orally, with no ABC’s? What if we taught children how to recognize the separate sounds that form words like “cat”? What if we said “c-a-t” slowly, emphasizing the “c,” “a,” and “t” sounds without ever naming those sounds with letter names? What if we asked preschoolers to break down little words like “cat” into their beginning, middle and ending sounds without ever naming those sounds with letter names?
This would be a radically different approach to teaching reading. But this approach would align with what researchers are learning about how our brains learn to read.
The foundation of reading is not ABC’s. The foundation of reading is sounds, sounds listened to by a child and sounds repeated aloud by a child.
How would that work in practice?
- You, the teacher, would say, one-at-a-time, the 40-plus sounds of the English language. Your student would repeat those sounds, one at a time. If some sounds were hard for the student to say, you would repeat those sounds and ask the child to repeat those sounds until you were sure the child could hear and pronounce those sounds correctly.
- Next, one-at-a-time, you would say some tiny words and ask the child to say each word and to say the sounds in the word. You would model how to do this with many words until the child knew what was expected. You would make it a game, looking around and saying the name of an object nearby like “bat.” You would sound out the word slowly—“b,” “a,” “t”—and ask the child to do the same. At first this might be hard for the child, but once she figures out what is expected, she would sound out words quickly.
- With practice, the child would understand that individual sounds, when combined, form words. Only then would you introduce ABC’s.
Pronunciation of words is an important aspect of learning to read. Our brains store the sounds of words just like they store the meaning and the look of words. In your mind, right now, as you are reading these words, you are saying the words, right? And you are remembering the meaning of those words, though at this stage of your life, that might be so automatic that you are unaware of it. Long ago when you were learning to read, it was the sound of the words which came first to you, long before you knew what the words meant or before you could decipher the letter patterns of words. Sounds come first.
For more information, read the research of Linnea Ehri (2002).
comicphonics for early readers 