When I was 3 or 4 years old, my parents purchased a phonograph to play records. Then, they purchased a record set, probably a lot like “Hooked on Phonics.
The phonics tutorials were fun as I recall, and to connect written words to learn how to pronounce words. It was extremely helpful to see the words as the record played, making it easy to learn all the exceptions to the rules, like silent letters, words influenced by foreign languages. Also, seeing letter combinations that can sound the same, like f and ph, made learning a breeze.
While my mom cooked, she multi-tasked by having me read books with lots of pictures. There was usually a large illustration on the page to attract me emotionally, and then below, there was a simple sentence. My mom could cook dinner and still monitor my verbal reading without missing a beat. To this day I’m so grateful that she made this ritual a common practice. Its probably why my verbal skills IQ test was in the 130s when I test tested in elementary school.
My mom, and occasionally, my dad, would read me books at bedtime. The genius of it was to expose me to a whole new world inside of a book. Great strategy!
Later, they would give me the same book and have me read it to them while I was in bed. If I struggled with a word, they’d help me though it.
In elementary school, I had friends that would read big books as if they were totally addicted to reading. I’d go to the library and thumbed through the books they’d already read, thinking, wow, that’s a lot to read. I’d start at page one and read the first paragraph and sound out the words in my mind. My friends became voracious avid readers, whereas, I just became very competent when I needed to read for school, but since I sounded out the words in my mind, I think my speed suffered. I was held back by the speed in which I’d read audibly, even though I was pronouncing the words in my mind.
In high school, I remember having good grades & was a member of the National Honor society. One weakness remained, I still found myself sounding out the words in my mind as I read books. I think that I missed the leap that avid readers had learned long ago, reading in clumps of words, rather than sounding it out in my mind.
I think I was reading around 600 to 700 words per minute in high school and I rarely read books. I just did the best I could to read enough to get good grades.
When I went to a university after high school, the reading requirements shot up exponentially. I remember taking 21 hours in a compressed summer school semester and one class required me to read over 20 plays in 6 weeks. I couldn’t keep up, so I winged it, relying on reading the teacher and giving them back what I thought they wanted. That worked, but still I never read all those plays and I’m sure I missed out on a lot of enrichment.
The one skill I regret not possessing as an adult is speed reading. Voracious reading is one of the best ways to expand your horizons. I read about 2 or 3 hours a day of news on the internet, which has probably helped me get up to about 1500 words per minute. When I find something that intrigues me, I share it on Twitter. I’ve made about 50,000 Tweets to date. I have to make my Tweets accurate, or followers immediately call me out, so I don’t just fly through the articles, I have to have precise comprehension, because who wants to be called out for creating fake news.
To this day, I don’t know the best way to go from learning how to read and pronounce words when you’re at the preschool age, to getting kids hooked on books. If anyone has a recommendation on how to get kids to go from reading the words slowly in their mind to empowering children to read groups of words with the leap to more of a speed reading style, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Someone with wisdom said, you’ll be the same person in 5 years as you are today except for the books you read and the people you associate with. After that is said, they usually say, “leaders are readers”.
These insightful admonitions remind me of the profound statement that Oliver Wendell Homes gave us:
“A mind, once expanded by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”
Special Needs Preschool Curriculum 