Effective Reading Indicators

From the desk of Alice…

People often ask me if their child is on track with reading and confess in a whisper, “I don’t know what to look for.”  It can be overwhelming for a parent who now has access to more “data” about their child than ever, but really are not sure if the child is on track.

At ERG, we tend to look at everything as a developmental spectrum.  In our reading world, we have stages that we go by to determine where the student falls and we look at the reading behaviors not the age or the grade level as the indicators.

If you are a parent and wondering what to look for, you can use the Effective Reader Indicators as a guide.  The stages include emergent, early, transitional, and independent.  These stages typically take years to move through and hopefully the reader is being supported by instruction and texts that match the particular stage.

At ERG, we don’t expect everyone to be reading specialists.  However, we are huge proponents of educating parents so they can support their child as they move through the stages.

A few general tips:

• Children in the early stage may not know all their letters and sounds but should still be allowed to hold books, pretend read, and story tell.
• Children in the early stage begin to read and retell the basic story.   They begin to think of themselves as readers.
• Children in the transitional stage are able to think a little more deeply about the text and enjoy longer amounts of time while reading.
• Children in the independent stage are not done.  They are skilled readers, but like any skill, they need to read often and widely as a way to stay sharp.  A wide variety of texts are encouraged at this stage to help broaden their view.

It is important to remember the reader should not be rushed through these stages.  We encourage babies to crawl before they walk and this is no different.  The path to independence requires perseverance in addition to lots of support and patience!