3 Literacy Challenges and How You Can Help Your Child Overcome Them
Few skills are as essential for a child’s development and success as literacy. Learning to read and write is one of the foundational building blocks of the modern education system, and students who fall behind in literacy are almost guaranteed to fall behind in most of their other subjects as well. After all, without reading and writing skills, how can children master subjects like history, geography, and social studies, which require strong reading comprehension and the ability to communicate one’s thoughts through writing?
While most parents would consider literacy to be one of the most essential aspects of a primary school education, however, evidence shows that in Canada, literacy is declining.
In 2017, the OECD international surveys of adult skills reported that despite having one of the largest working-age populations with tertiary education in the world, Canada’s literacy rate is dropping. This decline in practical reading and writing abilities among Canadians is a major concern, and speaks to a disconnection between levels of formal education and actual mastery of basic skills.
If you are worried about declining literacy rates and want to ensure that your child has the tools they need to become competent readers and writers, Prep Academy Tutors is here for you — we have extensive experience teaching a wide range of subjects, and will be happy to connect you with a tutor who can meet your child where they are and help them meet their learning objectives.
The good news is that, while learning to read and write is an area that many children struggle with, with these three tips for improving literacy skills and the help of a skilled tutor, it is one that is well within reach of everyone.
1. Ground Literacy in Everyday Tasks
Learning to read and write effectively involves developing a lot of distinct skills, and it is common for educators in the early stages to focus on discrete building blocks of literacy like phonics and the alphabet.
But this focus on formal aspects of language acquisition should be supplemented with exposure to the practical dimension of language-use. Literacy is about more than just knowledge: it is about a capacity to accomplish language-related tasks, and this requires an approach that roots reading and writing in everyday experiences.
One of the things you can do to help your child improve their literacy skills at home is by integrating practical reading and writing skills into the daily routine. For example, having younger children help with practical tasks like making shopping lists and reading recipe directions helps children engage with reading and writing in a way that is directly related to the world around them, and helps to instil a sense of the value of literacy.
2. Provide Personalized Help
As with any skill, on the path the literacy children are likely to meet regular plateaus. In situations like this, it can be important for them to have access to personalized, one-on-one help to overcome the obstacles they are facing. Unfortunately, this kind of individual attention is often not available in the classroom, which is why children may need extra help at home.
This can be difficult to do as a parent, and one reason you might want to find a tutor near you is because a tutor can provide the kind of targeted literacy support children who are struggling to get to the next level in their reading and writing.
3. Make Reading a Part of Life
Like all skills, literacy is something that can only be developed through practice. If a child is struggling with reading comprehension, the most effective way to help them improve is by encouraging them to read more. Unfortunately, according to the latest statistics from First Book Canada, an organization that works with educators and other partners to remove barriers to learning by creating equal access to education for children in need, a staggering twenty-five percent of Canadian households don’t have a single book.
This means that at least one in every four children are trying to develop reading and writing skills without having the basic tool needed to do so — books. And even parents who do read often struggle to pass the habit on to their children.
With so many entertainment options available, from Netflix shows to YouTube to video games to sports and other extracurricular activities, it can be hard to convince children that reading can be an equally rewarding activity, especially if they find reading difficult and uninteresting.
While there are no sure-fire ways to get kids to start reading more, here are a few things parents can do to help encourage children to make reading a regular activity:
Read to Your Child
One of the best ways to normalize reading when your children are young is by reading to them. This will not only help get them interested in stories, but it will also help establish reading as a worthwhile activity.
Follow their Interests
What a child is reading is less important than the fact that they are reading, so let your child follow their interests when picking reading materials. For example, if they are interested in sports, a biography of an athlete that is appropriate for their reading level may be a good way to get them engaged.
Go to the Library
If your child doesn’t seem interested in any of the reading materials you have recommended, taking them to a library and telling them to pick out five books is a creative way to delegate the exploration to them.
Get them Interested in a Series or Author
plenty of non-readers have been turned on to literature because they fell in love with Harry Potter or The Hunger Games. If your children like these films, use that as a springboard to get them interested in the books.
Ask their Teacher or Tutor for Tips
Teachers and tutors have a lot of experience helping children learn, so asking for their advice on what you can do to encourage literacy in the home is always a good idea.
Reading and writing are skills that most children will struggle with at one point or another. Indeed, many people will continue to develop as readers and writers throughout their lives, adding new words to their vocabularies and becoming more proficient written communicators.
The most important thing to instil young learners with is an appreciation for the importance of the written word, and the habit of reading for information and pleasure. It might not be possible to turn your child into a voracious reader overnight, but by grounding literacy in everyday tasks, providing personalized help, and encouraging a love of reading to take root, you can prepare your child for a life of continuous learning.
5 Practical Strategies for Literacy Development
Proficiency in literacy is more important for the well-being of Canadians now than ever before. Some statistics cite over 50% of the population over 16 years of age lack the reading skills necessary for living and working in a modern society [1]. So how can we go about improving this? The strategies below offer a practical approach for parents and teachers alike to promote the growth of literacy in young people.
1) Build Your Understanding of What Effective Literacy Instruction Looks Like:
This is the most important place to start if your goals are to help raise the literacy skills of your child or students. By educating yourself on what literacy means and what it looks like in today’s world, you set yourself up to be able to design and implement effective practices within your classroom or home that have a positive impact on literacy development over time [2]. What this might include is having knowledge and understanding of the curriculum at the level your child is operating at, a basic understanding of childhood development, and some idea of where to find resources that will support your programming. Effective literacy instruction requires you to support connections that are made between things like reading, writing and speaking [2]. You need to be able to respond to the diverse learning styles and readiness of your students and provide fair and measured feedback. If you really want to help your students or children improve their literacy skills, becoming a more educated and capable teacher yourself is the first place to start.
2) Design a Responsive Literacy Learning Environment:
Once you’ve researched and begun to raise your own understanding of what effective literacy instruction looks like you can start to move forward in designing an environment that encourages and responds to the improvement of literacy skills. Ask yourself these questions. What does an ideal environment for the growth of literacy skills look like? How might this change depending on the age and stage of the learner? How can an environment that stimulates inquiry, reflection, dialogue, reading and writing be developed? Again, there is no magic formula for creating this; so much of learning depends on the individual — their needs, interests, and learning styles. With that in mind, there are some things to strive for. An environment where literacy learning thrives will work to foster positive attitudes about learning and literacy development. It allows and encourages the learner to raise questions, express opinions, take risks and explore ideas. And it ensures that their are ample opportunities for reflection, conversation and collaboration to deepen understanding [2]. Think hard about how this would look in your home or classroom and then begin to cultivate that space.
3) Use a Comprehensive Approach to Reading Instruction:
The key elements included in a comprehensive approach to reading instruction include dedicated time for reading each and every day and the use of strategies that look to build oral language, fluency, comprehension and motivation [1]. Reading and language instruction in children go hand in hand. Language is the link to family, cultural background, and personal experience so modelling proper use of language will help children make connections between what they’re reading and their own lives. In younger children, use a program or mode of instruction that emphasizes phonological processing, or the process of using letter sounds to decode a word they’re reading or spelling [1]. Frequent practice in this regard helps to make reading automatic. Ask your student or child to make connections during reading activities [1]. Summarize, draw inferences, ask about the importance or role of certain characters. Strategies like these will help ensure that reading comprehension is being practiced. Finally, one of the most important factors involved in reading instruction is having motivated learners. Part of building that motivation from a young age involves having them reading a little every day and having resources available to match the age and stage of the reader. By constant reading practice, a child will come to see themselves as a good reader and be more likely to pursue reading on their own [1]. A comprehensive approach to reading will teach young learners to think about reading, monitor their understanding, and help them figure out what they know and need to know to make sense of different texts [1].
4) Model A Strong Literacy Environment:
This is a key factor in raising children who value reading, writing and literacy development. Make sure you engage in activities with young learners such as joint reading, drawing, singing, story telling and role-playing. Set aside time for yourself to read so that young learners see it as something which adults do regularly. Have discussions with them about what they’re reading and ask questions to have them explain and retell in their own words [3]. With older children, play word games, talk about word meanings, make inferences from pictures and have plenty of age-appropriate reading material ready to go. With older students, hold conversations about current events, model healthy internet consumption and talk to them about what that might look like and why. A big part of motivating learners to value literacy development comes from modelling that environment yourself by setting aside time to read and making a point to hold conversations about these ideas.
5) Try These Proven Literacy Strategies:
As students progress through grade levels, the level of reading and writing at which they are expected to perform becomes increasingly more difficult. Successful students are often able to draw upon numerous strategies to help them deal with this. For those who are struggling, one of the common reasons is that they don’t know how or when to effectively apply some of these strategies. Reading and writing strategies are numerous so I’ll only list some of my personal favourites here — the links to these resources are found below. While engaging with a piece of text, have students establish the most and least important information. Give them time to read and re-read the piece and supply them with a “t-chart” (i.e. most important information on the left and least important information on the right). Have the student write down the most and least important information and then discuss why they made these choices [4]. Another one of my personal favourites is the “rapid writing” strategy. This is particularly useful when generating ideas for a longer piece of writing or for responding to a short prompt. Have students write non-stop, as fast as they can on a particular topic for a prescribed amount of time (usually 2-3 minutes). Have them read their piece aloud and see what they’ve gotten down. Discuss how this strategy can be used to begin writing a longer, more polished piece. Alternatively, you can have students use organizers to classify or categorize their writing [5]. Lastly, a reading challenge is a great strategy to engage students and motivate them to practice their reading. One challenge in particular asks students in grades 9 and 10 to complete 16 classic novels by age 16; of course, this can be adopted to suit your students at the age and stage they may be in [6].
There you have it. Five strategies which you can implement to help create a learning environment that is geared towards improving literacy skills in young learners. If you have any strategies which you feel are particularly effective, please feel free to share them below.
Written By Nick Mehring, Owner and Education Director of Prep Academy Tutors of Kitchener-Waterloo
Notes:
[1] Canadian Education Statistics Council, Key Factors to Support Literacy Success in School-Aged Populations, 2009.
[2] Government of Ontario, Paying Attention to Literacy, 2013.
[3] Supporting Your Child’s Literacy Development at Home, National Center on Improving Literacy, Accessed February 14, 2019, https://improvingliteracy.org/brief/supporting-your-childs-literacy-development-home
[4] Government of Ontario, Think Literacy Reading Strategies, 2011, http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/studentsuccess/thinkliteracy/files/reading.pdf.
[5] Government of Ontario, Think Literacy Writing Strategies, 2011, http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/studentsuccess/thinkliteracy/files/writing.pdf.
[6] Holly Welham, “Ten Ways to Improve Student Literacy,” The Guardian, May 8, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/may/08/ten-ways-improve-student-literacy.