If you have a child who is somewhat behind in reading, you may have heard some of the following myths. Today's tip will present the facts to dispel these myths.
1. If you just keep reading aloud to your child, they will catch on. Reading out loud to your child will create a love of books and stories. It can also be used to teach comprehension skills. It does not however give your child the tools that are necessary to learn decoding. The National Reading Panel has stated that children must have systematic instruction in both phonemic awareness (the awareness of sounds), and phonics.
2. IQ and reading difficulties are closely related. This is simply not true! In fact, in order to have a diagnosis of dyslexia, your child must have an average to above average IQ. Many children who struggle with reading are extremely intelligent and thus are very frustrated when they cannot catch on to reading.
3. Practice always makes perfect. This is true if your child is practicing the correct skill. So often we have our children practicing on a skill that they are not ready for. For example, I see many parents and teachers working on fluency with a child who struggles with the more foundational skills of phonemic awareness and phonics. Fluency is the highest skill in the reading pyramid, and it is imperative that the more foundational skills are covered first.
4. One-size fits all. This is definitely a myth! While there are many great reading curriculums out there, it is imperative that we find the root cause of child's reading difficulty before we decide on the curriculum. If the child is struggling with phonemic awareness and phonics, we know that there is an auditory processing deficit. If they are skipping words on the page, inserting letters, and/or flipping letters while reading, we know that it is a visual processing difficulty. If a child struggles to remember what he/she has read, struggles with writing, and has difficulties with tests, we know that this is a language processing problem. Different curriculums and programs work on different brain functions. It is important to use the right curriculum that will intervene with the deficit at hand.
5. Your child will outgrow the reading difficulty. Children do not outgrow reading problems...they adjust to them. Small children will memorize text, older children will listen more intently so that they don't have to read. Some will laboriously push through their reading assignments, but it is long and tedious for them. It is very important to find the root cause of a reading difficulty and then treat it with the correct intervention.
Excel Achievement specializes in helping children to discover the genius within themselves by correctly identifying the root cause of a reading difficulty as well as helping them to find out their own unique learning style.
