by: David A. Sousa

The spoken language we hear as babies is the start of how we learn how to read. As we hear our parents speak and use ‘parentese’, the higher pitched, sing-song way that parents innately talk to their babies, we start to discern sounds and sound patterns that the alphabet represents. The more that babies and toddlers are spoken to and the more they hear, spoken between others, the larger their vocabulary becomes and more correct their grammar is before they learn to read. Reading any language is not an innate activity like speaking. Learning to read can be extremely challenging for many people. For those loved ones of struggling readers it is a heartbreaking experience. The sooner the challenge of reading is recognized and not discounted, the sooner it can be overcome with the explicit teaching of Evidenced Based Literacy Instruction. Explicit or direct teaching is the art of presenting and modeling the exact thing that is to be learned.