Why is Reading So Challenging

Jenny Killion led us through a workshop exploring reading at home from children in younger grades through to middle school and beyond.

Jenny began by exploring the complex nature of reading and why reading is so challenging because it’s not something that is natural for our brains.

How Do Our Brains Learn to Read
Jenny shared the simple view of reading and how brain research has supported our understanding of how our brains develop skills in reading.

Simple View of Reading, Gough and Tumner, 1986

Next, Jenny explored in more detail the skills of word recognition, and how parents can support word recognition and pronunciation by sliding throught the word by breaking the word into into component sounds.

We went on to explore the most skills embedded in comprehension as shown in the image below.

A fourth grade text about an Octopus was used to help explore the idea that background knowledge and vocabulary are so helpful in understanding.  We went on to explore how we might build background knowledge by using an online video about the Octopus or using an image of the octopus to support vocabulary.

Supporting Emerging and Developing Readers
Jenny went on to unpack a series of recommendations for supporting reading before, during and after reading.

How Can We Encourage Reading at Home
At the end of the session Jenny shared some key recommendations for reading at home:

• Strengthen home language
• Build background knowledge
• Read to them
• Create spaces to read
• Let them see you read
• Build family book clubs
• Listen to audio texts
• Go to the library
• Have a variety of texts around the house
• Display books so they stand out
• Let the books be “easy”
• Grow “stacks” of books 

Access Jenny's Presentation | 22.8MB 

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