Literacy becomes the preschool 'graduation' standard

Thanks to early literacy, my child was able to read both English and Vietnamese when he was not yet two years old, has a rich vocabulary, and likes to read.

Thanks to early literacy, my child was able to read both English and Vietnamese at the age of two, has a rich vocabulary, and enjoys reading.

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As a Vietnamese mother raising children in the United States, I have stood at the edge of conflict over this issue in my parenting process. But maybe I'm lucky that she "guided" me. I love to read from the moment I know how to sit. I read picture books passionately. When I know that my baby likes to read, both mother and daughter often read books together by pointing to pictures and naming things and things. For example: dog, cat, flower, square, round, yellow, red, white. Among the many eye-catching picture books, there were text books to accompany them, as well as a series of books about the alphabet.

These word books also approach a principle like picture books which is visual thinking for children. If the baby looks at a round object and can say it is a ball, shadow, or moon, then there is no reason why you should not know that it could be an "O" anymore. Along with the books are rhymes, children's songs, picture posters that teach children the alphabet, numbers, pictures ... And just gently like that, my child already knows how to read both English and Vietnamese less than two years old, has a rich vocabulary, and enjoys reading.

Let's take a look at the American educational model, see how they started primary education and literacy to have a basis for assessment:

In the US, children officially enter the elementary program (Elementary Level) at 5 years old. It is Kindergarten (the equivalent of our Leaf Kindergarten). The general education program covers 13 years from Kindergarten to the end of 12th grade. Although Kindergarten, children are officially literate but like in us, if the family has both working parents, the child will go to kindergarten early 6 Months to 3-4 years old are also very popular.

In addition to most of the time in kindergarten, kindergarten and even Kindergarten is playing, children can read a lot. And read here is visual and interactive. For at this age, young minds are like sponges; and vivid visual thinking is the most accessible way children. The classrooms are always happily decorated with many different pictures, but they cannot lack alphabets, numbers, shapes ...

At the end of the Kindergarten year, they will have a very formal "graduation" ceremony to mark a big milestone in their life that they are ready to enter first grade. It varies from state to state, but in general, to be able to "graduate from kindergarten," children must meet psychophysical standards and have a sufficient foundation to be ready for first grade. In it, there are standards for alphabet recognition and common words, along with counting and writing numbers to 20 and recognizing basic shapes.

Looking at this "graduation standard", we can clearly see that, when a child enters first grade, he or she cannot be ignorant and can be integrated. In addition to essential integrated communication skills, a basic academic foundation in reading and counting has become indispensable for children to start students' lives.

The negative reaction to literacy before entering first grade is now tending to emerge with a "naturalist" movement. This movement also has a basic argument like the anti-vaccine trend. Because they think that let it be natural and then children will slowly know. Or that early teaching is more harmful than it is beneficial for children to be able to play and explore for themselves. In addition, if we define literacy in a narrow sense as "mound for words" or "struggling to spell" then that is really harmful.

So our problem is not whether to teach or not, but how to teach? Which approach is most suitable for children?

Forcing children to sit and spell words while they are still lisping and both rough and fine movements of their hands and fingers are incomplete plus short attention span, is counterproductive. The way we teach children is to help them recognize the letter faces and the magical transforming combinations of different letters to form words; in addition, the correlation between the symbols with the sound emitted when speaking and the images on the page. The ability to absorb and interest in each child is different, so depending on each child, we can flexibly begin to introduce these visual characters at a reasonable time and as quickly or as slowly as the baby. There are children when they start to learn to speak and recognize objects that they can recognize letters, but most of them are 3-4 years old and onwards that they can decode graphic characters representing letters.

From letter recognition to rhyme is a whole journey that it will take your child time to absorb. That's when first grade starts and kids speak better. So if you wait until first grade, your child can start learning about letters and the whole process of rhyme is very difficult and fast for children. As mentioned above, the brain of young children under four years old can absorb images most easily, so the methods of vivid visualization, combining learning and play are best. We can point to letters and numbers so that they can recognize them as you do about birds, flowers, tables, chairs ... before. Instead of writing 

word, you let your child "draw" letters and "draw" numbers. Let your baby touch pattern letters like they are playing with a ball or a car. How dear it is when the image of "O is round like a chicken egg, O is wearing a hat, O has a beard". Could it be that we can't draw with the baby like this?

In addition, we can read poems, rhymes, because in which words rhyme will help strengthen the relationship between syllables and writing. Every day, especially before going to bed, you can practice giving your baby time to read, you read them slowly and point at each word when reading. At first, your baby will not know, but gradually you will read and spell it, and she will recognize the relationship between those letters and the syllables you say. Once children reach that level they will be more excited because they know that the letters convey meaning and from there they want to know more and the motivation to read is stronger.

But the problem doesn't stop here. Children still need to be taught to read and write correctly until at least the end of primary school. In the early years, we could not force children to spell correctly, or write well. And the practice of beautiful words should not start with children under the age of 10 as we currently do. What we need here is first to untie the extreme idea of ​​"early literacy is wrong" and secondly that literacy should be approached as teaching pictures and sounds, not must be too high a thing from abstraction.

In 1955, reading expert Rudolf Flesch published "Why Johnny Can't Read", giving many reasons to suggest that the US education sector should reform teaching reading for children. He suggested how to teach children to read by pronouncing the syllable of words (phonics) instead of having to memorize the word by heart. And this is how kids are now taught to read in America. Children learn words that rhyme together like cat - hat - sat or car - far - jar or the same consonants like mom - map, pop - pup ...

In 1960, based on the above syllable principle, Dr Seuss wrote the famous American children's books. His easy-to-read witty books can be said to be bedside books for all families with children from birth to age. To encourage children's reading, the publisher gave him a list of 350 common basic words and asked to use only the words on that list in order to serve as young a target as possible. Dr Seuss wrote his bestseller "Green Eggs and Ham" using only 50 words on that list. Followed by "The Cat in the Hat" he used only 236 words from the list. Readers can easily find these books and find out for themselves why his books can teach children to read with such ease, witty and grace.

Dr. J. Richard Gentry in his book "Raising Confident Readers - How to Teach Your Child to Read and Write From Baby to Age 7" has made a lot of arguments about the long-term benefits of individuals, families and society. of children's literacy and literacy levels and general literacy. Many long-term studies have shown that the time frame when babbles learn to speak is the best time to practice language skills in which the ability to "read" with images and sounds is very effective. And the benefits of children who can read, be eager to read and be encouraged to read are probably not debatable.

In other advanced countries such as England, Australia, Germany, and Canada, young children officially entered the stage of general education from Kindergarten. There, in addition to playing, children are prepared with a basic psychology and literacy foundation to enter first grade. I have watched and pity when I read the articles of Vietnamese parents about the shortage of children when entering first grade bewilderedly without the psychological equipment and basics of basic knowledge. .

Looking back on our education, it is clear that when the first grade program has begun heavily with the assumption of "don't say but everyone knows" that a child needs to be literate before entering first grade, the need to prepare for child is understandable. Therefore, when it is not possible to popularize "zero grade" so that children can enter first grade, we think that we cannot prohibit teaching children to read and write before entering primary school.

The problem is how to approach and how to teach so that early literacy is the foundation for children, opens the horizons of knowledge, not inhibits children's thinking or inhibits creativity.

Pham Thien Ha