Can your child read in English?

Can your child read in English?

Aulia Rachmat, Contributor, Jakarta

Many parents think that their children have possessed the
adequate reading skills after spending a number of years
attending international curriculum schools, particularly those
that started in elementary school. How are the reading skills of
their children?

Despite the fact that there are international and national
plus schools here using English as the language instruction, many
students continue to struggle in terms of reading comprehension.
Reading is not an automatic skill. It is something that needs to
be learned.

Today many teachers actually deter children from reading when
they pressure students to study books too closely by making them
look up vocabulary words and making them stop after each chapter
to determine what the author is trying to say. Good teachers must
not focus on the child's memory during learning process.

Unfortunately, many children find reading difficult because
they are trying to memorize so many words. Intelligent children
with good memories may fail to learn to read because they are
employing their memories as the only access in the reading-
learning process.

Memory-based approaches start with the visual representation
of the symbols in order to remember letters (a, b, c,.d, f, h, o,
z and so on) and words (dog, house, magazine, etc.). so the
teachers will show the children the letters of the alphabet and
the child will have to remember the names of the letters.

So, when the letter is shown to the child he/she has to recall
the name from his/her memory bank. This unfortunate child is
taught to look at the letter while the teacher says a word like,
"car", which has, for example a different sound for the "a" than
the sound of the "a" in the alphabet. Thus, it creates an
ambiguity for the child in terms of sounds (phonemes).

Most native English-language speaking children are expected to
start to learn to read an alphabetic text after about three years
of oral experience. Such oral experience will enable them to
grasp the nature of English words that consist of sequences of
sounds (phonemes). Words can be broken down into component sounds
like the words "fast" and "phone", while phonemic awareness
develops the awareness that these words start with the same
sound. There are only 26 letters in an English alphabet, while
the single phonemes, differ from another sound. Hence, the only
difference in words "bad" and "bed" is a single sound. Besides,
English-as-a-first language children have an innate awareness of
the sounds of their mother tongue.

In terms of these children, there are a number of opinions
among reading experts that phonics can be an efficient way to
teach reading. Tony Earnshaw and Annabel Seargeant, Educational
Psychologists from Australia, after 20 years research, have
identified phonics to be a key prerequisite before reading skills
can develop properly. However, phonics do not teach a child to
read. It is a method to teach children to pronounce words by
learning the phonetic value of letters, sounds and syllables.
Later, after the children become aware of the sounds, they should
be able to eliminate the ambiguities and confusion arising from
variations of letter combinations, that will lead to the future
reading challenges.

Grammar and spelling play a significant role in the language,
particularly in reading. However, many teachers impede children's
reading development by placing too much emphasis on spelling and
grammatical skills. During this stage, many primary students fail
to comprehend the grammar and spelling parts due to a memory-
driven approach. Instead, teachers should start to apply grammar
as well as spelling, which can be implemented directly in
stories. In other words, comprehension should be emphasized
before teaching grammar.

Giving books as presents to your child will encourage him/her
to love reading. At first, he/she may not be interested in
reading these books. However, it will psychologically motivate
your child to love reading as it may gradually get him/her used
to being around the books.