I recently had the good fortune and great pleasure in conversing with Dr. J. Richard Gentry, a prominent early literacy expert who recently authored “Raising Confident Readers: How to Teach Your Child to Read and Write–from Baby to Age 7” (amongst many other books on literacy that he’s written).
I was very pleased to find that not only does he agree that we should teach babies to read, he is also very supportive of using all the technology at our disposal to help in the process. He has been reviewing what we’re doing here and hopefully he will be able to also participate in discussions in the future!
I was also thrilled to read his latest blog article with Psychology Today, posted yesterday, in which he talked about the subject of babies reading and the use of technology:
How exciting! Bravo! It is nice to have a professional of his calibre, to support your efforts, and to reassure us as parents that we are helping our children; especially, with so many critics who claim otherwise.
I’ve read past the halfway mark now and it’s definitely worth reading - brings up some very interesting points, in particular, the importance of drawing/writing in learning to read.
That’s wonderful! Its finally nice to see something positive written about this topic after the recent unfair, biased press as of recently.
I see what they mean when it comes to drawing and writing being such an important part of the cycle. I really dropped the ball on this one with my 5 year old, because he wasn’t interested. I’m not sure what this books say exactly regarding the science of it, but I know from our experience that once we started including printing and drawing into his routine, his reading took off. I never thought about the connection before reading this tread. I’ll have to use my swag bucks and by this book from Amazon. I’ve also been told that cursive writing supports a more vision connection when it comes to phonics. We’re planning on starting cursive writing in the next few weeks.
Thank you for the book recommendation - I just ordered it!
It also brings to mind the Mauritanian’s traditional educational system in North Africa. They are renowned for their piety and memorization of Islamic classical texts, which includes writing:
"The method of learning utilizes the lawh, or wooden tablet, whereby
the text is written in charcoal ink on the tablet and then memorized
and studied under the watchful guidance of the shuyukh. Everything
that is studied is committed to memory, and this is one of the
reasons why the scholars of the Shanaaqeet made a distinguished
presence wherever they went. The children first memorize the
Qur’aan, starting at about seven years of age. After memorizing it,
they study the rasm, which is the science related to writing the
Qur’aan according to the ‘Uthmani script. Next, they study the
Qur’aan a second time, though this time they write it on their
tablets from memory. The first time they write it either having the
sheikh write it for them, dictate it to them, or by looking at a
mushaf (copy of the Qur’aan) although these are few and far between!
After that, they learn the dabt which is a science related to the
differences between the two narrations of Nafi’ (Warsh and Qaalun).
They then move on to pursue further studies in ‘aqeedah, nahw, fiqh
and hadeeth. "
This is great! Thanks for the link to the article and the heads up on a bit of the book content.
It would be interesting to track how people find the BrillKids site and how many come from this article in particular. I, personally, just stumbled upon it…but so glad I did - it’s changed my life and the course of my precious child’s!
Thank you so much KL for the link. Just today a librarian (we go to a story time) told us that we shouldn’t use workbooks untill the child goes to a kindergarden, as the child will burn out by the time he needs to go to school. All they need to know is how to use potty, how to ties their shoes and 13 letters and their sounds. Every time our librarian comes from a conference she tells us that small children unable to read and we shouldn’t teach them untill at least 4 years old. It sounded like I was commiting a crime by teaching my child.
I felt really bad that my 2.5 year old is now step 2 in reading English.
Thx, KL, for this wonderful website and thanks to everybody who is sharing info here. I don’t contribute much due to lack of time but I always give karma to everybody who shares here and keeps me going.
Thanks Ayesha! I am reading the book also. As a matter of fact, we did the monster spelling test this morning. I appreciate you sharing the blog. I didn’t realize there was one.
If you scroll down on his blog to September this is what is posted - other sites/blogs to read about his work:
"Over the last couple of months I have been posting on my new blog at PyschologyToday.com,
Raising Readers, Writers, and Spellers,
and not so much on this site. So in case you drop by here, check out my PT.com blog and my website, http://jrichardgentry.com ,
or my Facebook page, (apparently, there’s a video of a CBS interview posted here) http://www.facebook.com/J.Richard.Gentry,
or my Twitter page, https://twitter.com/RaiseReaders,
to get all the news and updates on what I am doing.
