But a young child is not ready to deal with content unrelated to their own life. Beyond that, it’s not the right time in their development for content to be their focus.  

For they’ve been working on communication since birth, and they’ve only gotten as far as speech.

So they’re not finished yet!

They still need to focus on all communication skills: Speaking, writing, listening, and reading. Then once they’ve reached a certain point, they’ll be ready to begin with the higher level thinking skills: Investigation, analysis, and reporting.  

To do that, it will help to work on things they are interested in and can fully understand. Then once armed with all those skills fully developed, they’ll be able to deal effectively with content and concepts farther out from their own life.

In the early years, Content is a vehicle for skill development

But that’s not to say the young child won’t be dealing with content at all. It’s just that the topics they explore need to be related to something they already know a bit about and are interested in. 

For interest is a strong motivator and thus a powerful magnet for skill development.

So for instance, we look for signs of interest in topics related to what they’re doing in their daily life. They’ll have ideas/questions related to gardening, cooking, shopping, pets, other animals, holidays, and more. Or we all know how a child can become fascinated with such things as cartoon characters and dinosaurs.

As you explain and elaborate on topics of interest to them, they use that information as they begin to translate their own speech into print. 

So early on, we use content not as an end in itself — but as a vehicle for skill development.  

It’s easier for the child to begin by seeing their own “talk” written down

We begin by gradually showing a child how we write the words they speak.  At first, we write their own words for them, being careful to show them what we’re doing. Then we gradually let them take over the process for themselves. 

Why start with their own words? Because it’s easier to attach new learning to something we already know.  

So we begin with what a child already knows — the words they use to tell us what’s on their mind. And we use those words to show them about writing. 

Reading skills are also being developed as they learn to write

Having them begin by reading books someone else has written is more difficult. For the experiences depicted and the words used may be much farther out from the center of the child and what’s of most interest to them.  

But while learning to write their own thoughts, the child is also developing the skills that go into reading. So reading spontaneously emerges from the child’s daily experience with writing.

In fact, some children taking this route will say they “just happened” to learn to read. Which, as you’ll see, is far from the case. 

A child’s natural path: Body Language –> Speech –> Writing –> Reading Books others have written

Virtually every child comes into the world with a strong urge to communicate what’s on their mind. They start with body language and crying.

But soon, with our modeling and their innate tendency to absorb and copy what we do, they begin to understand what we say and to speak for up themselves.

Once a child can speak, their next closest step is to learn how to translate their own speech into print. Montessori found the desire to write ripens around age four. I have found it to be even earlier. 

Some children give us clear evidence that they’re ready for writing. For instance, a child who’s been raised in a print-rich environment will spontaneously scribble on their drawings. 

These are children who have not only been read to often, but have also seen adults writing notes, letters, emails, etc.  One day they’ll bring us their drawing (probably just some lines and blobs on paper) and say something like, Look, here’s our puppy, and here’s where it says Bella. 

With this, they’re showing us they understand what print is for and they want to do it themselves. 

This can happen without our ever intentionally explaining to them what we’re doing as we write. Some children just figure this out on their own.

But if not — and even if a child is not from a print-rich environment — we can easily help them see that print is nothing more than “talk” written down. And then we can help them learn to do it for themselves.  

How can we help a child move along their natural path?

To see how to help them, we need only look back at how a child learns to speak and what we do to help them.

Acquiring speech is, of course, an incredibly complex accomplishment. Yet we help them do that with no pre-planned curriculum, no professionally designed materials. In fact, studies across various countries suggest we’re pre-programmed to know how to do it. 

In looking back, it’s easier to see what we don’t do. First thing we see is that we don’t directly teach speaking. We don’t break speaking down into its separate acts, sit the child down in front of us, and show them how it’s done. 

We don’t carefully demonstrate how they should put their lips and tongue in just the right place to make certain sounds — then have them practice doing that.

We don’t have them memorize when they should breathe lightly for some sounds and more intensely for others — then have them practice that separately for each of the sounds, and so on. 

Instead, we just spontaneously do something adults “just know” how to do:

We model speech while doing something of special interest to the child.  

They absorb, then practice what they saw and heard us do.

And while they’re practicing, we wait, and we trust the strategies they’re born with.

For they do most of their skill development in ways we cannot direct or even see.     

Then eventually one day, they delight us by using those same words correctly.

Teaching reading and writing vs Helping a child learn to read and write

We can use the way we help a child with speech as a guide for both writing and reading. We just need to be a little more intentional as we model with print. 

We’ll look at that in a minute. But first, let’s consider how it looks if we ignore what worked so well with speech. If instead of using speech as a template, we directly teach reading and writing.  

To teach writing directly, we would first need to break the act of writing down into its separate parts. Then we’d create activities to teach each skill separately.

We would create activities and practice for letter formation, activities and practice for phonics, activities and practice for spelling, and so forth. See more about how worksheets can be used. 

The same is true of reading. If we view our role as teaching reading, we’d teach phonics in isolation and have the child memorize sound/letter connections. We’d give them sight words to memorize and provide lists of word families to practice with, and so forth.

But think back again — directly teaching reading and writing in that way doesn’t look anything like how we so successfully help a child learn to speak.

But if we decide to take that approach anyway, what’s likely to happen?

First, what usually happens is that the child is first introduced to reading. And teaching them to write their own thoughts comes later.

So we’ll look here at what’s likely to happen if we directly teaching reading.

The consequences of directly teaching reading

Some children from a print-rich environment can learn to read without being taught at all. From being read to often, they just make the connections themselves.

Many others can learn with one of the traditional, direct teaching approaches. They may struggle more than necessary, but they can manage it. But still others may have more trouble. 

Yet even those who do learn to read well are still not able to write their own thoughts with ease. So it’s likely their struggle with that will come later — when they attempt to write their own thoughts. 

Aside from that, though — and what should be of great concern to all of us — is the effect on children not coming from a print-rich environment. For too many of them struggle, lose confidence, lag behind, even completely fail. And this has consequences not just for them, but for society in general.

Why then, when it comes to reading and writing, is it wise to ignore the strategies we use so successfully with speech?

It isn’t wise. In fact it can mean serious trouble.

So it’s far better for any child if we use the strategies they’ve come equipped with. That is, help them learn to write and read in much the same way we helped them learn to speak. 

And that’s actually easy to do.  Following is an example of how we can do that.  

How we can help a child learn to both write and read

 

 First, we show the child how their speech looks written down. 

We help them decide on a caption for the mind picture they’ve been describing — something they love, fear, want, or are fascinated with. This one-or-two word caption — Ice cream, ghost, Santa Claus, Mommy — becomes their Key Word for the day.

As we write their Key Word for them, we carefully model for them how it’s done —  emphasizing and modeling the skills as we’re using them. 

In the beginning stages, we emphasize the sounds of the letters we need and have the child trace over the letters we’ve written.

Then over time, we’ll begin asking them to dictate a sentence about their word. With this, we model capitalization, punctuation and more. In this way, all skills are integrated into the process of writing — not presented in isolation. 

With this daily exposure, the child absorbs, practices, and soon begins to take over the writing process themselves. And they do it at their own pace. 

Interest Provides motivation, The Steps provide structure

Why their own Key Words? Because the child is very interested in communicating what’s on their mind. And again, interest is a powerful magnet for skill development. 

So the child’s Key Words are the focal point — the content and the motivator.

Each day, the child asks for a new Key Word and carries out a follow-up activity with that word. As the child progresses, these activities become more complex. 

These follow up activities are referred to as The Steps. For they are the stepping stones along the child’s natural path — structure which ensures skill development. For more detail, see  Working Through The Steps With Key Words. And for younger children, also see Key Words With Preschoolers.

The child is writing their own pre-primers

Once they begin to write on their own, the child will write simple, three or four sentence “stories.” As they write, they will do what any writer does — repeatedly read back what they’ve written, in order to add to it. So at this stage (Step 5), they’re writing independently and “reading back” from memory.

Once finished with their brief story, they will illustrate it. They write and draw each day in their 5-page writing book.

Once their writing book is filled, they share with others — by “reading” it to them, partially from memory.  So in effect, they are writing their own pre-primers, full of the perfect vocabulary for them.

Repeatedly writing and reading back their own thoughts, they will have an impressive collection of sight words and connecting words they can easily both recognize and spell.

Figuring out how to spell the words they need has given them a solid foundation in phonics, so they’re also later able to “sound out” words they don’t immediately recognize in a book. So with all this, reading emerges naturally from the writing process. 

These books replace the traditional basal reader. Having written and practiced with their own books, they soon find they’re able to read simple children’s books. After practice with them, they can eventually enjoy reading a vast array of good children’s literature.

So having taking this path in a way that mirrors the way they learned to speak, the child can both read and write fluently.  

Key words and the steps are an example — not a recipe

While I describe Key Words and The Steps in detail in this website, they are simply an example of how this can be done — not a recipe.

In modifying this example or designing something completely different, we just need to keep in mind these critical strategies and features:

Model writing words of special interest to the child.

Point out how we choose and form the letters, use punctuation, and more.

Guide each child — over time — through a series

Of increasingly complex follow-up activities.

Allow the child plenty of time to absorb and copy what they see us doing.  

higher level thinking skills, through “Real life” Projects!

So it’s later, after a child has the process skills that curriculum is more heavily weighted toward content. Once there, state and local documents can provide guidance for content — at grade levels others deem appropriate.    

As always, we keep the child’s interest in mind, for our aim is to arm a child with all they need to establish a life-long habit and love of learning. 

The ultimate goal is that ALL children succeed

It’s my concern over children who struggle that keeps me working to show the benefits of taking a more natural approach. For I’ve seen children struggle and lose confidence — ultimately fail.

I’ve had to take 5th grade child into my K-2 classroom and help him start over. I’ve had to help other teachers do the same. And I know the statistics about where many not able to read end up in life.

I’ve also seen many children blossom using this approach — children from homes where no paper, pencils, magazines, newspapers existed, because their parents were illiterate.

So I know it’s completely unnecessary for any child to struggle and fail, just because they didn’t have the advantage of a print-rich environment. 

learn more about this approach

The best way to begin to learn more about the components of this approach is to follow the links on the page, Basics for Parents & Teachers.

You’ll also find more in other places in the general website, including ideas for classroom management:  How we view student and teacher roles and establish a supportive environment. And of course, you can read more about the author, and how the approach was developed.

Join our Facebook Group, Helping All children write to read

Also, for more information and to keep in touch, join the Facebook group that supports this website: Helping All Kids Write To Read. 

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*This discussion of teaching skills in isolation brings up two issues — 

1) The question of worksheets: The problem with them comes when the child works on them instead of using the skill involved as part of the complete process of writing their thoughts.

But they can be helpful to hone a skill a child is already using, especially in the case of letter formation. So worksheets might be a choice activity, separate from the regular writing session. But no child should be required to use them as a “make work” activity — or as a test.

2) Assumptions re science/brain studies: Some claim you cannot use learning to speak as a guide for helping a child learn to read. The idea is that the brain is just not wired to deal with print in the way it’s wired to learn to speak. So reading must be acquired through direct teaching, presenting phonics ahead of time, in isolation. That is, having the child memorize the sound/letter connections before they learn to read, using a book. 

This claim leaves unexplained how children not coming from a print-rich environment using the approach described here have managed to both read and write so fluently, and with such pleasure and ease. I don’t think any of us knows for certain exactly how we learn to speak or to read and write. For the human design is extremely complex. So I don’t do anything but explain in greater detail elsewhere what I’ve noticed about how and why mirroring the way we help a child learn to speak works so well.

next —> How and Why A Natural Approach Works