Turns out, there’s a science to reading.
“Unfortunately, for the last 20 to 30 years, we haven't always used the science, we've used other curriculums so people are changing the way they're teaching,” said Nancy Eames, youth services coordinator at Toledo Lucas County Public Library.
The science of reading refers to scientific research that has been conducted for decades by scientists and literacy experts that reveals there is an actual science behind learning to read and that certain skills need to be taught, including phonics and comprehension, reported the State of Ohio.
A statewide effort to encourage improved literacy skills for all ages, including the implementation of curriculum aligned with the science of reading in kindergarten through high school, was announced last year by Gov. Mike DeWine.
This effort works to address and combat the Ohio Department of Education’s report that 40 percent of the state's third graders are not reading at grade level.
“One of the things that gets lost in the conversation is the fact that learning how to read is really hard work for many children,” director of the library, Jason Kucsma, said Tuesday at a roundtable discussion.
As helping children learn to read is one of its strategic goals, the Toledo Lucas County Public Library is on board to offer direct parental, caregiver and educator support to the effort of all children becoming strong readers.
“We support families with their work-around the science of reading, which has been mandated in the state of Ohio, and has been shown to be the most effective way to teach children to read,” Ms. Eames said.
With the understanding that reading is not a natural skill, but that it must be taught, the library developed a reading blueprint more than a year ago to help them figure out all the different ways to support the science of reading.
“The library has always done things to support readers, obviously, but we're not reading teachers,” Ms. Eames said. “We don't teach people to read, we provide things for you to read.”
Over the years when families sought help for a child struggling with reading, they advised them to “read to them more,” she recalled.
“Well, that is a great thing and there are many, many benefits to reading to children but for a child who's struggling to read, they need other kinds of support as well,” she said. “And among those are things like decodable books, which are geared just towards wherever they're at in learning that phonetic sequence.”
An important tool in the process includes decodable books which are simple books with text that young readers can sound out and combine sounds into words. This provides learners with the opportunity to use their developing segmenting and blending skills to recognize and read words quickly which helps to build confidence as children find success with reading.
“Decodable books are perfect for kids as they're just learning,” Ms. Eames said “They follow the sequence as they learn the different phonetic sounds.”
As part of the blueprint, reading specialists have been enlisted to meet with families in the community, offering a toolkit of ideas and things that families can do at home. This includes the basics of how children learn to read and ideas for helping a child have a growth mindset.
The library aims to be in alignment with educators so that when parents come in seeking reading materials, they are on the same page.
“All of our area's schools are using science of reading curriculums now, and we want to support what's going on in the community and in education,” Ms. Eames said. “And the library is a great partner to schools and to families as their children learn to read.”
Among the first to reach out for help from the library with the science of reading was Sylvania Schools. Melissa Romero, the district’s elementary director of teaching and learning, explained how the library has been instrumental in helping parents find the right books for their children's reading level.
“When the state mandates came out, we were trying to figure out how to help families and how to help the community,” Ms. Romero said. “The first step that families go to is the library.”
“What the library did was they started to look at how to purchase those decodable books in their libraries and then label them so that if parents came in and said, ‘I was notified by my child's teacher that they need help reading, where do I begin?’ that we can point them in the right direction and provide them with the evidence-based community resources that we have available to them,” she said.
While the instructional system on how reading is being taught has shifted and is new for everyone in the state, educators and parents alike will be able to utilize the library system as a much needed support throughout the transition.
“Whether you've been in the game 25 years or you just got here, this is a new way — based on evidence — of how to teach children, and how to build lifelong spellers and writers," Ms. Romero said. “I can't say enough, the library has been absolutely amazing to what they're creating.”
First Published April 18, 2024, 11:00 a.m.
