My first job after completing my Bachelor of Education was teaching Grade 1 French Immersion.

That September, I came to a surprising realization: I had no idea how to teach children to learn to read. 

How did children actually start to make meaning out of the arbitrary lines on a page we call letters? I was trying to build them a bridge with no blueprints or materials. 

Unfortunately, the bureaucratic institutions meant to ensure student success have often prescribed ineffective methodologies, leaving many children without the necessary skills to become proficient readers. 

Our attempts to put together an effective reading program can feel like scrambling to find all the pieces of a puzzle strewn around a Kindergarten classroom floor.

And while on our hands and knees, reaching below the sand table, we’re getting mixed messages about how the pieces fit together and which pieces are even necessary. 

Some students acquire the skills necessary to become good readers without much explicit instruction, but others do not; and without a solid program provided to teachers, too many children go through the primary years not gaining the tools necessary to read fluently. 

Decades of academic work have given us what is commonly referred to as The Science of Reading, a body of research providing educators with evidence-based methods we can use in our classrooms to accomplish the difficult and important task of teaching children to read. 

As Louisa Cook Moats has said, teaching reading is rocket science. Explicit, systematic teaching of many different competencies is necessary to effectively teach reading. Through combining instruction in phonemic awareness (the skills necessary to notice and work with the oral sounds of language), phonics (knowledge of how these sounds are encoded in writing with letters or a combination of letters), vocabulary, syntax and grammar, as well as opportunities to read decodable texts (texts composed of letter-sound links children have been taught which allow for accurate decoding instead guessing based on pictures or context), our students become fluent readers. 

To learn more about the I Can Read in French Phonics Program and Sound Wall, visit our store. For more information on Pratique phonémique, you can visit phonemique.ca.