Dyslexia Research Recommends These Five Reading Skills

Reading is a complex skill which is important for a child’s well being. Reading is equated with success in our society thus reading failure does not merely remain an academic problem for your child but has much broader long term implications. If your child cannot read fluently he/she will be unable to realise their potential and under-perform in their chosen vocation which in turn would lead to self-esteem issues.

In order to fully understand how the reading process ideally works, you need to consider three fundamental questions:

• How does your child learn to read?

• What difficulties could prevent your child from reading fluently? 

• How can you help your child to read better?

Let’s begin by examining the process of reading comprehensively.

Reading is not a discrete process. In order to become a successful reader, your child needs to master five key pre-reading skills which are commonly referred to as ‘The Big Five’. They are:

• Print Awareness

• Letter Knowledge

• Listening Comprehension

• Motivation to Read and 

• Phonological Awareness

What is Print Awareness?

Dyslexia research suggests print awareness begins by understanding the alphabetic principle which is simply an understanding that all spoken sound units in a language are associated with a written symbol i.e. an alphabet or a combination of alphabets. For example the /b/ sound in the word ‘bed’ is represented by the letter ‘b’ and the /f/ sound in the word ‘tough’ is represented by the combination ‘-ough.’ The more print awareness your child has the easier it is for him/her to learn to read quickly. The fact that ‘ough’ corresponds to the  /f/ sound is something a dyslexic kid could really struggle to associate and relate to.

What is Letter Knowledge?

Letter knowledge refers to your child’s ability to recognise letters of the alphabet, knowledge of different letter names and the sounds associated with the letters. Your child’s letter knowledge increases in proportion to the amount of time he/she spends working with the letters of the alphabet, experimenting with various letter sounds and manipulating letter sounds in different ways. Early childhood is the time when your child loves to experiment with the different sounds they hear and the letters they see around them with the associated sounds they symbolise.

What is Listening Comprehension?

Listening comprehension develops from the time your child began to be aware of the adults speaking around him. The first words your child said aloud was a result of absorbing the sounds in his/her immediate environment and him/her imitating them. Listening comprehension develops easily because all human beings use listening and speaking to communicate with each other.

Your child’s listening comprehension can be enhanced by exposing him/her to an environment rich with sounds. You can do this by reading aloud to your child, discussing stories as well as their characters with him and introduce him to various songs, poems and nursery rhymes. Exposure to stories, books and poems enables your child to absorb diverse language patterns that are not usually part of day to day conversation. Your child will not only expand his listening comprehension skills but his vocabulary will expand too as a direct result of being exposed to a wide variety of experiences.

What is Motivation to Read?

Motivation to read, also called as print motivation, develops as a result of your child’s varied and diverse reading experiences. Exposing your child to interesting, engrossing books and stories will ensure that he/she gets the right message about reading i.e. reading a book is a lot of fun. Your child would be impatient to start reading independently and once he/she becomes an independent reader a world of possibilities will open up to him/her aiding his mental and emotional maturity.

What is Phonological Awareness?

Phonological awareness is your child’s ability to attend to sounds within words, being able to break them apart and put them together again to create different word possibilities. Strong phonological awareness boosts your child’s ability to become aware that sounds are an integral part of spoken language and once he/she is introduced to letters of the alphabet he/she finds it easier to associate sounds with printed letters making it easier for him/her to convert print to speech. Research also shows that strong phonological skills make your child’s early attempts at reading successful and gives your child a winning edge he can maintain throughout his future performance at school.

Experts involved in dyslexia research have found, developing your kid’s big five skills gives him a winning start at school.