Necessities Of Being Able To Read (As A Toddler)

Picking and reading books independently before age 2

I think we can all agree that learning to read is a vitally important - perhaps even the most important - academic milestone in our children’s lives. Reading is literally the foundational keystone that leads to becoming an independent and efficient learner. Every other academic component from processing lab procedures, to understanding word problems, to analyzing historical texts requires a basic knowledge of literacy. This foundation goes on to serve us in adulthood as well. Seemingly simple, mundane tasks like driving to and from work, navigating an airport, ordering food at a restaurant, and a million other actions require the ability to read to be done well. Sure, there are other skills that might seem like necessities for independence. Take being able to walk for example. As a society, we look at someone who can walk as more independent than someone who has to use a wheelchair. But in reality, walking unassisted isn’t much different from getting around in a wheelchair; yes, we tend to stereotype those of us in wheelchairs as having a disability, but many times people in wheelchairs are just as savvy and intelligent as anyone else because they have knowledge and inspiration from literacy that fuels a passion and determination to be independent. So the true disability is being illiterate. Without reading, we wouldn’t be able to read recipes from our grandparents or old birthday cards from our mothers and fathers. Shakespeare, Shel Silverstein, and Stephen King? While those authors might provide reading for pleasure, the pleasure only exists because of the satisfaction that coincides with being able to read.

Since we all are on the same page that reading is a necessity for being able to stand on one’s own, then it only seems fair to also discuss why children should be taught this skill at a very early age. When do most children learn to read? Kindergarten, or maybe first grade? At what point do they become fluent readers? Middle school? High school? The first aspect I want you to notice about each of these answers is that they describe children as students enrolled in school. They are learning to read as students in a classroom full of peers who have a myriad of different needs and who span a varied cross-section of skill levels. In general, public and private schools alike face more day-to-day problems that range from overcrowded classrooms to lack of resources to wondering if teachers will be returning the following school year. Your child’s access to literacy is not written down near the top of any list of priorities, despite it being the gateway to all other learning. So, what if we could teach our children how to read BEFORE they start their formal education? What if we were able to prepare them BEFORE they were thrown into a potential world of academic chaos? This is when we can start. This is when we should start. We can teach our children to read before they are ever enrolled in any school, equipping them with the universal building blocks of education.

Most of us learned to read in school, so let’s go back to those experiences for a minute or two. I remember switching schools in the middle of second grade, and not just from one district to another, but from one state to another. I was placed in a group of students who were struggling with reading, as a sort of starting point for me and the school to assess my abilities. I looked around this group and noticed that the books I was choosing to read were not the same kind of books that everyone else was reading. The next day, I moved into a new group, where all of the other children were reading books like me. That was the first moment I realized that not everyone was “good” at school. So, here we are, seven years old, already being told who is a good reader and who isn’t - who is “good” at school and who is “bad” or “struggling”. Second grade should be about class pets and field trips and learning about multiplication - but instead, it can be turned into a space where these awesome parts of second grade are taken away because not everyone can read the permission slip that tells where our next field trip is going to be. Compounding the issue, the classroom that is meant to reinforce and support learning can also become a source of judgement that creates a negative relationships with learning. Why struggle in school if you don’t have to? We don’t think you or anyone should.

Teaching reading before school starts is ideal, but deciding exactly when to teach reading is a factor as well. Most toddlers can sing a round of the ABCs and maybe recognize a few letters from their name, and these are aspects of language that WE teach our children. As parents, many of our decisions are centered around keeping our kids happy, like when we play the same song on repeat for a three hour drive instead of listening to the music we want to hear. Along with a few staples like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Itsy Bitsy Spider, the ABCs make the toddler song list every time and we celebrate it because we know that our children are learning while they are being entertained with this music. It seems, though, that our teaching stops right here for a lot of us. We seem content sending our children off to preschool or kindergarten with just an ABC song in their literacy repertoire, hoping that their teachers will manifest these 26 letters into full-fledged reading. On the other end of the spectrum, some parents start teaching letter recognition and have their children practicing that recognition along with letter sounds, which most of the time ends poorly. Getting frustrated when your three or four year old isn’t getting it or isn’t sitting still, or worse, seems completely uninterested in learning to read is usually the norm. That can lead to a resistance to learning to read that will now have to be overcome by a teacher at school who already has a full plate. There’s a trick here to avoid all of these issues, and that is to teach reading before your child can make their own decisions.

We recommend teaching your child to read starting at 6 months. You read that correctly, 6 MONTHS. We really, really do! At 6 months, you most likely have started to figure out the whole “I have a baby” thing and are starting to set some routines. At 6 months, your baby does exactly what you want for the most part. I know, they cry and they need to sleep a lot, but crying is just communication and sleep means you get a break to rest too. They can’t walk or run away, they can’t talk back, and you can appease them with just about any food or toy. Babies are the perfect candidates for learning to read for exactly these reasons.

Reading “STOP” on a hike through Kapalua, Maui

Before you go saying exactly what you thinking, I will beat you to the punch - babies this young can’t even mumble “mama", so how on Earth can we start teaching them to read? Babies are SMART. Think about it. Think about how we progress as babies. Babies are learning an entire language from nothing, and they’re learning it because you’re using it with them EVERYDAY from the minute they’re born. Reading can be taught in much the same way. And just because a baby can’t talk doesn’t mean they can’t tell you what they know. If you ask your baby to touch their nose, they can do it, because you’ve taught them three things - how to point, where their nose is and the word nose. Now, do the same thing for reading - show them the word nose over and over again and ask them to point to the word they’ve been reading.

Here are a few more reasons to start teaching how to read at such an early age: by age 3, most children are enrolled in preschool. Preschool DOES NOT teach reading, nor should it, nor could it. Preschool teaches social skills, manners, and routines - which are all necessary to succeed later in school - but it does not help your child achieve more academically. Don’t misconstrue that statement; preschool teaches academic preparedness through socialization and school structures, and children that go to preschool have higher tendencies of having success in school once they enter kindergarten - but that is not because they are any better academic students than their classmates who didn’t attend preschool. Why not get the best of both worlds and have a student who is prepared physically and emotionally to accept the structure of school AND prepared academically by knowing how to read? Learning to read is vital and it can be done early enough for your children so that they have a great relationship with school and education for the rest of their lives.