Is It Too Soon for My Child to Learn to Read?

Although it may seem quite automatic to us as adults, reading English requires a high degree of coordination among several, independent skills. Once these skills are learned and then practiced repeatedly, we can perform them without our being consciously aware of it. At that time, cognitive scientists say that we can perform them automatically.

What are the necessary skills that anyone (child or adult) attempting to learn to read (or write) English must have?

1. The student must be able to recognize each letter of the alphabet as a unique graphic. Not only is it necessary that the student be able to tell the difference between the letter a and the letter z, the student must be able to know that the letters b, d, g, and p are different objects, even though they can be formed by rotating or obtaining the mirror image of another.
2. The student must be able to state confidently the name of every letter. For example, that the letter b has a name that we pronounce be, and the name of the letter I is pronounced as if it were spelled eye.
3. Another prerequisite is that the student must understand that each letter can be represented as a lowercase character and an uppercase character (for example, A and a represent the same letter). In addition, the student must appreciate the fact that for some letters, the uppercase and lowercase forms have similar shapes (for example, M and m, O and o) but for other letters the uppercase and lowercase forms appear wholly unrelated. Examples include A and a, G and g, H and h, R and r.
4. Further, it is essential that the student be able to pronounce the sound associated with each consonant letter (that is, the letter B is pronounced as if it were spelled Buh). The pronunciation of consonants in English is simplified by the fact that most (but not all) consonants are pronounced in only one way.
5. In addition, the student needs to comprehend that some letters are designated consonants and others are vowels, and the student must know to which category each letter falls.
6. Finally, it is essential that the student know to pronounce the six most common two-letter blends before starting a reading program (or learns soon after starting one). These blends are ch, ph, qu, sh, th, wh.

When young children have mastered the basic skills to the point that they can perform them confidently and errorlessly, they are read to learn to read. Their chronological age simply does not matter.

Parents and teachers often find it difficult to be totally objective in judging a specific child’s readiness to read, perhaps saying to themselves that Susie or Johnny probably know these essentials “well enough” without having done any real testing. Reading Buddy 2.0 provides a component, the Reading Readiness Assessment, that evaluates students' proficiency levels for each of the critical pre-requisites for success in any learning to read instructional program.