About a month ago we shared a fascinating article with you about how teachers are not being trained to teach reading!
The article rightly points out that all the brain research that has been done regarding reading too often does not match up to how teachers are taught to teach reading and how they actually teach children to read. Administrators in the US who make the decisions on how reading is taught and what programs to use are unaware of the research and therefore can't take it into consideration. Fantastic change and progress have indeed been achieved when both teacher and administrators receive this information and appropriate training.
Similarly in Israel, many books for teaching reading are not based on this research. They are MOE approved and standardized. The bottom line is to grab children's attention or have books with meaningful content. This is simply not enough! It doesn’t help if the book is interesting if the students can't manage to read them!
Read more about the why, the how and how to drill phonics in previous Dear Gaila columns.
Gaila has over 40 year of experience teaching and runs A.H.A.V.A., a non-profit to promote English literacy. Would you like to ask Gaila a question? Email us at ahava.org@gmail.com or send us a message. Look out for more Dear Gaila columns!