Doc: Why the glum face?
Parent: My kid hates reading.
Doc: Oh, oh. Are you sure he’s really your kid?
Parent: I guess reading interest and ability aren’t inherited.
Doc: If ever there was a family where that would be the case, it would be yours … but no. there’s no such gene.
Parent: So why doesn’t he like to read? We’ve read to him since his inception.
Doc: Ha. Bet you read him Moby Dick while he was floating in amniotic fluid.
Parent: By this age, his brother and sister were reading bedtime stories to us.
Doc: Maybe reading is hard for him.
Parent: The other kids just started reading along with us during story time.
Doc: Were they decoding new words or remembering familiar ones?
Parent: What do you mean, decoding?
Doc: Decoding means sounding out words. It’s knowing what sound each letter can make and then combining them.
Parent: You mean like c – a – t?
Doc: Exactly.
Parent: I don’t remember the older kids doing that. They seemed to recognize familiar words.
Doc: Some kids can do that, but the best way to learn to read is to combine decoding with a good spoken vocabulary.
Parent: Spoken vocabulary? As in knowing what peanut butter means before being able to read it?
Doc: Yep. When we teach kids to decode new words by sounding them out, they are able to match those written words with words they already know (verbally).
Parent: So, the teaching of reading is like teaching code breaking.
Doc: Exactly. And the code is called “phonics”.
Parent: So, if my son knows all the phonics sounds, he’ll be able to read good?
Doc: Well.
Parent: Well, what?
Doc: Kids who don’t get explicit instruction in all the phonics sounds, with practice in dividing words into syllables, can really struggle with reading.
Parent: How do I find out whether he’s learned that?
Doc: Give him some unfamiliar words and see if he attacks them by sounding them out, like va/ca/tion. He needs to learn that the letter “a” can be long or short, as in base and bat. There’s a set of decoding rules in addition to the basic sounds, like the “e” on the end of “base” making a long “a” sound. He also needs to learn that “tion” sounds like “shun”.
Parent: Sounds like there are a lot of sounds and a lot of rules.
Doc: As you know, English has lots of exceptions, but there are 44 basic sounds for the consonants and vowels and when he knows them, he’s on his way. The exceptions won’t slow him down that much.
Parent: So, what do I do? Go talk to his teacher about the need for Phonics?
Doc: I think if you want the best results in the shortest amount of time, you should do it yourself.
Parent: Do what?
Doc: Teach him phonics.
Parent: How would I learn to do that?
Doc: How do you learn to fix your dishwasher or replace a headlight?
Parent: I search for a video on You Tube.
Doc: That’s where I would start for phonics instruction.
Parent: How did anything get done before You Tube?
Doc: It was a struggle.
Parent: Is that where you learned to be a psychologist?
Doc: We’ll just let that be our little secret.
