If you had the chance to learn to read again, would you take it? Well, I leaped at the opportunity. I was so excited! I expected to gain all sorts of new insights into the reading process, which I’d then be able to use to better understand how to best support beginning readers. I also expected to be really good at it. Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve been a fluent reader for more than 50 years. I hold advanced degrees in reading. I’ve taught hundreds of children to read. When I was in first grade, I was in the “bluebird group.” Of course, I’d be good at learning to read “again”—except that I’m not.
I am learning to read Hebrew. Hebrew is a wonderful language through which to re-create the experience of learning to read. It uses a different alphabet. I had to learn my ABCs, or rather my aleph-bet, all over again. Hebrew is read from right to left, so I even had to relearn directionality. Since I wasn’t immersed in an environment filled with Hebrew print and didn’t have the experience of being spoken to or read to in Hebrew before I started to learn to read, I was in some ways like a child who came from a print-deprived home. Even though I’ve been at it for five years now, I’m still “learning to read.”
I am not yet reading War and Peace
Confession 1: Size Matters!
Ever wonder why texts for beginning reading are often written in larger font sizes? More than ever, I now understand that the larger sizes make it much easier to see the (sometimes very slight) differences between the letters. In most (if not all) languages, several letters look similar. Think of /b/ and /d/ in English. In Hebrew, I had to deal with these groups of letters:
I found it much easier to see the differences between these letters when they were larger.
Lessons learned: Give beginning readers books with larger-size fonts. Some leveled books repeatedly feature large-size print on a plain white page and an illustration on the opposite page. The beginning reader doesn’t have to distinguish the print from the “visual noise.” All the better! If you are giving a beginning reader a document that you have created, consider ramping up the font to 24 point to make it more accessible.
Confession 2: Fonts Also Matter
Would you believe that these symbols are all the same letter in different fonts?
Actually, this should be easy to believe when you think of the following font differences in the English alphabet:
Sometimes I would encounter a Hebrew text that was just impossible for me to read because of the font. The fonts that worked best for me were the clear, san serif fonts: no curlicues or flourishes. A beginning reader for whom the letters are not yet automatic can easily start to wonder whether that extra flourish on a letter might make it a different letter.
Lessons learned: Give beginning readers text written with clear, plain fonts. When you create documents, use a font like this one:
Avoid those cutesy fonts that are all the rage on teacher blogs, such as this one:
One classroom that I visited used these letters for the word wall words:
I had to look twice to read the words. I can just imagine how difficult it was for the first graders.
Avoid posting confusing print in your classroom. Have the print go from left to right rather than vertically or diagonally. Use dark print on a light background. Make all of the letters the same color. Everything in the literacy environment should be as accessible as possible. The classroom walls are “the second teacher.” Make your walls an easy-to-understand teacher.
Confession 3: Shared Reading Is a Powerful Strategy with Many Benefits
Of the many things that I did to become a Hebrew reader, the most beneficial was shared reading. The Hebrew language is a phonetically regular language—which is both a blessing and a curse. Since it was so easy to decode words after I had learned the sound-symbol connections, I consistently approached text through sound analysis. As a result, I found it hard to acquire sight words (I was always sounding it out!), my fluency progressed at a snail’s pace, and my comprehension was nonexistent.
Shared reading did wonders for my fluency and sight word acquisition. Keeping up with the fluent reader did not allow time for sound analysis. When I started to look at words as whole units—rather than as sequences of individual letters—the high-frequency words jumped out at me.
Lessons learned: Shared reading is a must for kindergarten and first-grade classrooms. In some schools, second graders will benefit from it, too. Although guided reading and reading workshop are certainly valuable practices, we can’t let them squeeze out shared reading.
Confession 4: Learning to Read Is Hard!
Louise Moats once wrote, “Reading is rocket science.” How true! Like everything that is worthwhile, learning to read takes work and practice. Be extra patient with those five- and six-year-olds sitting at your reading tables. They are taking on one of the most difficult tasks that they will ever encounter. Give them wonderful books that will make the hard work worth the effort. Give them lots of time. Put independent reading time in your literacy block. Send home books at their independent reading level for homework instead of worksheets. Put book bins on their tables or desks, so a book will always be available during a lull. Read aloud engaging books, so that they know what they have to look forward to.
I’m grateful I had the chance to walk in the shoes of a struggling reader. I learned to read Hebrew, but I also learned much more than that every step of the way.
