The Reading Hut®
"On a mission to inspire every child to read, learn, and find joy in books. To achieve this, we must stop making learning to read so difficult for so many."
Wiring Brains Early: Preventing Learning Difficulties and Unlocking Lifelong Reading for Pleasure
Pre-Order the Book in September
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My sister and I were both reading The Wishing Chair etc. by Enid Blyton before we even turned 3. My sister is a leading scientist in the UK, and I did well academically in spite of challenges relating to my AuADHD brain (not always a gift!) But self-teaching yourself to read is not really intelligence-driven; there are a number of factors that go into it.
Early readers are not ‘taught’ as such - toddler brains don’t really work that way. Most parents will tell you, ‘I’ve no idea how they learnt to read, really. We just read to them, have lots of books around.’
A huge factor is when the child finds fiction that grabs their interest. Enid Blyton did that for my sister and me. What you read to them matters.
There is so much misinformation around that confuses ‘learning to read’ with ‘reading instruction’ and that so many methods of ‘teaching reading’ are so traumatising to children that it is no wonder a whole section of society believes that ‘there is no rush, just let them play.’ Toddlers view 'mapping' as ‘play’.
“The most effective way to develop a coding system is to discover it rather than be told by a teacher.” – Jerome Bruner
Virtually all children are born with a powerful innate drive to acquire the language of their surroundings. The issue is that as babies and toddlers they tend to only hear the fully formed words (whole words) and see them ‘ready-constructed’. It’s like seeing a laptop. It’s ‘made’? But show that the laptop taken apart and all the bits put together… most brains love that 'coding', by design!
Because people couldn’t see how to connect spoken and written language visually and linguistically they made crude attempts with alphabet friezes and phonics ‘programmes’—a for Apple etc. That’s not the info baby brains need. Any more than they would speak if you restricted the words used.
Did you know that we can detect anomalies in babies as young as six months old -the deficit in distinguishing phonemes of spoken language that separates those who will develop dyslexia? And that we can change that outcome? We can prevent those difficulties - well before they start school? I have applied for grant funding to screening of those anomalies just before children in the UK turn 3. We can actually start ‘immunising children against illiteracy’ when they aren’t even born!
I’ve managed ‘outstanding’ nurseries and was appointed as an Ofsted Inspector. But my future work will be dedicated to ensuring that every child starts school as a 'self-teaching' reader. It’s far easier for brains to enter this ‘self-teaching’ phase under age 4 when given optimal learning conditions. To do that they need words deconstructed visually and linguistically. We need to focus on supporting brains to do what they do best so they can just get on with it!
Use the tech to SHOW the /t/ in 'adventures' and /ch/ in 'chair' are 'sound pics' for the same speech sounds: words are Code Mapped®.
Toddlers are doing this with words THEY choose and love it. My new book out soon!
MyWordz® Tech : Mapping Words to Support the Communication, Reading and Spelling of Neurodiverse Learners. Launching shortly, under a licensing model.
Includes
*MySpeekie
*Map and Drag
*Phonemies Screen
*Monster Mapping Lessons
Order the 'Code Mapping Tool' separately or as an add-on
