SPEAK,
What Come Next After Speech?
Once the child can speak fluently, their next mode of communication will be print. So, our challenge is to determine what form of print we should help them with first — reading or writing? That is, what’s the best way — the safest way — to help them move from speech into print? For while some children do figure it out for themselves, with most, we need to intervene.
Here we can look at how a child who’s been immersed in a print-rich environment in their early years responds to the print they see around them. What does such a child do if left to their own devices?
What we find is that having been read to and watched others write, they will begin to see the connection between speech and print. And we see that in two ways. One is when they say the words in their story books — while turning the pages, as if actually reading, although they are saying words from memory, at this point.
In a print-rich environment, they also have access to pencil and paper. So, in an attempt to copy some of what they’ve seen others doing, they will start Scribbling and Drawing.
One day they make indiscernible marks on their paper, look up proudly and say something like, “See, this is our kitty, and here’s where it says ‘Fluffy.’”
With this they are showing us they now realize print is used to convey ideas/speech —and they want to do it themselves.
Scribbling is one of the most valuable clues the child gives us. For this tells us that —
As the child grows, they continue to strive to communicate what’s on their own mind. So, once they can speak, their next challenge is to translate their speech into print.
If we combine this with the realization that they most readily copy what has strong meaning for them, we can devise practical strategies for an approach that’s “natural” for the child — an approach based on what’s of most interest to the child — their own thoughts and feelings.
Doing that over the years, I have found that from infancy on, a child will safely progress through 5 increasingly complex stages toward reading books.
So, let’s look next at the child’s natural path.
The Child’s Natural Path Toward Full Communication
As this drawing illustrates, from birth forward, the child is intent on communicating what’s at their center — the feelings, thoughts, and “mind pictures.”
As an infant, they convey their feelings through crying, and other forms of Body Language. Before long, they begin to develop Speech.
Virtually all children make it this far.
If in a print-rich environment, they will begin to Scribble. And it’s here that we need to intervene. And we can do that by using a technique that’s similar to what we did with speech, as we model how their own speech is translated into print. That is, we modeland wait patiently while they absorb and copy what they see and hear us doing.
With this, the child continues ultimately working through the following 5 stages:
- Crying/Body language –>
- Speech –>
- Scribbling/Drawing –>
- Writing —>
- Reading Books
The child proceeds along this path propelled by their desire to communicate what’s on their mind. So, the last stage for the child is Reading Books written by someone else.
This, as professionally created books represent what’s on someone else’s mind — or perhaps what an author thinks might be on a child’s mind.
It’s important to note that distinction: The child’s natural path toward reading ends with reading books others have written. It does not begin there.
What If a Child Is Asked To Skip Writing?
Deciding to move a child from Speech directly into Reading Books, interrupts their natural process, making any child’s progress more difficult. How well a child manages to overcome this depends on how much experience they’ve had with print.
Here’s how skipping writing can affect children from different home/preschool environments:
Child from a print-rich environment:
These children have probably already reached the Scribbling/Drawing stage. But most have not yet moved into Writing — so here’s how the challenge looks for them:
1.Crying/body language –> 2.Speech –> 3.Scribbling/Drawing –> 4.Writing —> 5. Reading Books
When faced with a traditional reading program that skips writing — one which begins with basal readers or by focusing on phonics, then phonics books — some may struggle a bit, perhaps a great deal. Yet it’s likely they will ultimately leap over the gap and make it to Reading Books.
Child NOT from a print-rich environment:
These children have stopped at Speech. So by skipping Scribbling/Drawing and Writing, the challenge for them looks something like this:
1.Crying/body language –> 2.Speech –> 3.Scribbling/Drawing –> 4.Writing —>5. Reading Books
Too many of these children struggle, even completely fail to make the leap from speech to reading books. This negatively affects them in school and far beyond. And it is completely unnecessary.
A child who has not yet gone beyond Speech need not be at such a strong disadvantage. If we show them how their own words look in print, they quickly come to realize print is “talk written down” and move slowly, but steadily forward.
All children can be successful, as long as they have similar modeling from us. Some will just need a little more time. So we provide an individualized approach, using Key Words and The Steps.
Key Words and The Steps Mirror the Child’s Natural Process
We do not approach reading/writing in exactly the same way we help a child to speak. We are much more intentional about it. But we do use a very similar process.
We model using words the child says in describing something very interesting to them. Then we wait patiently, as the child absorbs and ultimately copies what they see us doing.
We use Key Words to do this, for these are the captions for a child’s “mind picture” about something with strong meaning for them.
To model, we emphasize the skills that go into writing their words. We make the sounds of the letters we use to write the words needed. And we show them how the letters are formed by having the child trace over them correctly, after we’ve written their Key Word.
Modeling in this way allows the child to experience the entire act of communicating through print — for we don’t pull the separate skills apart and teach them separately. They are always integrated into the act of communication. This mirrors how we help a child learn to speak.
Finally, to be certain the child will develop the skills needed to write and read independently, we use The Steps. These are a series of increasingly complex follow-up activities to Key Words. They allow the child to absorb and practice writing skills at their own pace.
So in sum, we are using the innate capabilities the child brings to the challenge. And we use Key Words & The Steps to do that.
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* The term “Reading Books” refers to the “cold” reading of professionally published books. But in fact, the child as been “reading” long before this. On their own, they have also learned to read people’s expressions, body language and intonation. They have been reading/recognizing labels and the pictures and writing on their cereal box, and so forth. See more about the complexity of reading.