What is the Best Way to Teach Children to Read?

The National Reading Panel said that for children to learn to read, they need to learn how to take words apart by letter sound and then put the letter sounds back together and pronounce the word, not memorize rules or word lists. This is the idea behind vowel clustering, which is the method that I use in my reading clinics.

Vowel clustering teaches all of the sounds for letter a at the same time; therefore, students can see from the first day that the letter a is not just a long and short sound. Even my first graders go to the vowel board and work with letter sounds so that they can learn how words are pronounced and spelled at the same time. This picture shows 4 sounds for letter a.

Yet many people cling to false assumptions about teaching children to read. Here are some of the most common myths.

◊ False Assumption: Some people believe that if we read stories to children that children will learn to read.

◊ Fact: We learn to speak by listening to others, but we cannot learn to read by simply listening to someone read. Reading a child a story should be a daily activity and is one of the most wonderful ways that you can

spend time with a child, but it will not teach a child to read. It’s like handing you a book in French. If you cannot read French, then the pages of the book are filled with meaningless letters and words. The same is true for children who have not been taught how to break down or decode letter sounds.

◊ False Assumption: Some people believe that, if children memorize sight words, learn a certain number of new words each day, or preview sight words before trying to read, children will learn to read.

◊ Fact: The National Reading Panel conducted a review of over 2000 studies and stated that for children to learn to read effectively they must have “phonemic awareness.” Phonemic awareness means understanding letter sounds—not rules or a weekly list of words. Research also shows that even children who start off reading in the early elementary grades often begin to struggle around third grade because it is impossible to memorize every single word.

◊ False Assumption: Some people believe that if we just expose children to books or give them free books that this will teach children to read.

◊ Fact: A book is probably the best gift you can ever give to a child, but it will not teach children to read. The truth is that children cannot learn to read until they understand that every letter represents at least one sound and many letters represent several

sounds. The letter a, for example, can use seven different sounds, which doesn’t seem too difficult until you realize that there are at least 22 different vowel and consonant combinations that can be used to make these seven sounds for just the letter a.

We need to stop relying on false assumptions. Every student can be taught to read. At my reading clinics, we have had students who walked in the door in September failing in reading (some students 3 and 4 grade levels behind). By spring, those same students had moved up 4 grade levels in reading. How? Vowel clustering. For more information about using vowel clustering, see: https://www.groupcentered.com/reading-blog/ tutoring-hint-10-how-can-we-best-use-scientificresearch-when-teaching-reading-part-1-the-orallanguage-system

Preview from page 160. This is the vowel board for the long a sound. The entire vowel board and step-by-step instructions on how to use the vowel board when tutoring are included in my new book, Why Can’t We Teach Children to Read: Oh, but Wait We Can.

If you have questions about vowel clustering or the book, contact me at clantonharpine@hotmail.com

I am always happy to help.

Elaine Clanton Harpine, Ph. D.