Open Letter to Teachers of Young Children

Dr. Diane Stephens

June 23, 2023

I have become increasingly concerned about states (and, in the past, the federal government) making decisions/passing laws about the practices associated with teaching reading and writing. I believe that teachers should step up and assert their right to be treated as professionals. To accomplish this, teachers need to

• make a life-long commitment to broadening and deepening their knowledge base so their curricular decisions are consistently based on current peer-reviewed research which appears in top-tier reading journals, their own experiences, and their knowledge of each child in their classroom 
• keep track of legislative bills and laws that attempt to curtail their curricular decision-making and 
• take action (write, call, protest) so that their rights as teachers as not dictated by legislation.

In so doing, we will honor our responsibility to ensure that, in turn, children have rights as readers and writer. We are the only ones who can do this.

We need to stand up and demand that decision-makers at the local, state and national level resist what has been a long-established practice of telling one professional group, teachers, what to do while honoring the right of every other profession to establish their own standards and scientifically based practices.  

Below I have drafted a list of the rights of children as readers and writers. If you have classroom footage to go with #2, #3, #4, #5, and/or #11 and consent from parents to use that footage for educational purposes, please send the videos and copy of the consent forms and I will select one for each of those rights. Also please weigh in on your thoughts about books to name for #10. You can contact me at stephens.diane@gmail.com.

The Rights of Children as Readers and Writers 

in Pre-K, K and 1^st grade Classrooms

1.  Children have the right to fall in love with books (if they haven’t already) and know that books make sense, so teachers read books to and with children (this is called an Interactive Read-Aloud).  The teacher chooses books that are easy for the children to understand. This is referred to as their Listening Comprehension.  Via Read Aloud, children also learn that Reading is a Meaning-Making Process. To see an Interactive Read Aloud in Brooke Bridges’ Kindergarten classroom, see Additional Video #2: Interactive Read-Alouds https://www.scholastic.com/content/educators/en/pro/readingrevealed.html#additionalvideos.  The password is learners.

2. Children have the right to understand how books work so teachers read large-sized versions of books which allow every child see the pages clearly and then teachers read the books to them, pointing to words as they read. This is called Interactive Shared Reading. This helps children learn that books in English are read top to bottom and right to left. This is referred to as Book Knowledge. It also helps the children understand that there is a relationship between what the teacher “says” and what is written on the page. This is often referred to as Print-to-Speech Matching.  

3.  Children have the right to understand that oral and written language can be segmented and blended so teachers teach them songs, rhymes, and word games – oral and written. This is referred to as Phonemic Awareness. 

4.  Children have the right to understand how language works e.g., that some sound/symbol relationships are constant. Teachers help young children learn this through alphabet cards with pictures of objects the children have brought in and pictures of each other under the first letter of their names, through songs and rhymes and large group discussion of Morning Message, and via word hunts for words that contain consistent patterns, e.g., /an/, /am/, /at/ and also for words in which two letters make the one sound like /th/, /sh/, /ch/. Children also learn about this by reading and writing. This particularly understanding is referred to as Phonics.  

5. Children have the right to understand that written language is as predictable as the oral language they hear around them, so teachers read and provide access to books that sound like the language they know. This reinforces the idea that Reading is a Meaning-Making Process and it helps children develop Fluency – the ability to read smoothly and meaningfully, in thought units. 

6. Children have the right to understand that writing (and therefore reading) are ways of communicating, so teachers encourage children to use their emergent understanding of sound/symbol relationships to write labels, letters, and books. This allows students to understand that Writing is a Meaning-Making Process. To see kindergarten teacher Brooke Bridges introduce and carry out book-making early in the third month of school, see Additional Video #9 – Creating Books with Children https://www.scholastic.com/content/educators/en/pro/readingrevealed.html#additionalvideos. The password is learners.

7. Children have the right to believe in their ability to make sense of text, so teachers provide books with which they will be successful and, as children’s skills and strategies develop, teachers ensure that those books are matched to children’s evolving strengths. This helps children develop Agency – a belief that they are capable of making sense of print.  Children without a sense of agency often stop trying and claim they do not “like” reading. These students all too often eventually drop out of school. To see kindergartners reading together in Resi Suehiro’s Kindergarten classroom, see Additional Video #1 – Buddy Reading in Kindergarten https://www.scholastic.com/content/educators/en/pro/readingrevealed.html#additionalvideos. The password is learners.

8.  Children have the right to choose books during an independent reading time.  This increases their interest in books and in their Motivation to read.  To see how Nicole Bishop helps her first graders choose books, see Additional Video #5 – Look, Think, Pass https://www.scholastic.com/content/educators/en/pro/readingrevealed.html#additionalvideos. The password is learners.

9.  Children have the right to have ample time to read because volume of reading is directly related to Reading Achievement. To see Independent Reading in Brooke Bridges’ Kindergarten classroom, see Additional Video #18 – Independent Reading in Kindergarten https://www.scholastic.com/content/educators/en/pro/readingrevealed.html#additionalvideos. Password is learners.

10.  Children have the right to have their uniqueness recognized, so their teachers provide whole group support based on the strengths and needs of the whole group, flexible small group support for children with similar strengths and one-on-one support. This means not subjecting children to one-size-fits-all instruction. This insures Authenticity of Instructional Support to each child as opposed to fidelity to a program that may help only a few children.

To get an idea of the diversity of one kindergarten classroom in which there seems to be little ethnic diversity, listen to this intro by Brooke Bridges about the characteristics of her students during academic year 2018-2019:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FyZpkm4tAg8glex7khLzPnK5U_VYY8Rs/view?usp=sharing.

To see how Ms. Bridges responses to children vary (a) during independent reading, see Additional Video #18 – Independent Reading in Kindergarten https://www.scholastic.com/content/educators/en/pro/readingrevealed.html#additionalvideos and (b) during independent writing,  see Additional Video #9 – Creating Books with Children https://www.scholastic.com/content/educators/en/pro/readingrevealed.html#additionalvideos. 

Both of these videos show how she supports children based on her knowledge of them. 

The password for the last two videos is learners.

11. Children have the right to learn problem-solving skills and strategies to figure out unfamiliar words, see, for example, Scanlon and Anderson’s (2010) Interactive Strategies List (below).  This fosters Reading Independence. 

    Interactive Strategies:

• Check the pictures
• Think about the sounds in the word 
• Think of words that might make sense 
• Look for word families or other parts you know 
• Read past the puzzling word
• Go back to the beginning of the sentence and start again
• Try different pronunciations of some of the letters, particularly the vowels. 
• Break the word into smaller parts 

It would be great if legislators (and some publishers of reading materials for pre-K to 3), already understood that they should be stepping back from mandating or selling curriculum to teachers – that they should instead be encouraging teachers to make their own informed curricular decisions and to choose materials based on their knowledge of the broad field of research on reading and writing and on their knowledge of children in their classrooms. 

But that’s not going to happen spontaneously. It is only going to happen if informed teachers get themselves involved in the decision-making process by writing letters, making phone calls, and scheduling appointments with decision-makers.

I realize that taking political action is not comfortable. If it helps just think of it as having a conversation (through the mail, on the phone, in an office) with someone who does not yet know enough about teaching reading and writing. 

Think of legislators as learners who need our help.

It is our responsibility to ensure that children have the at least the eleven rights outlined in this letter. If a law limiting these rights has already been passed in your state, learn the process for submitting amendments and propose them. If a bill is in process (see, for example South Carolina Senate Bill 518), write, call, visit your legislator and the members of the House and Senate Education Committees. And be sure to be in contact with the legislative aide for both Committees. Those individuals are lawyers who put pen to paper. And, in my experience, they really listen. 

Please, step up for your rights as professionals and for the rights of the children you serve.  If enough of us stand up, there is no limit to how much we can improve our own lives and the lives of children.

Thanks.

Diane Stephens, Ph.D. 

Distinguished Professor Emerita

John E. Swearingen, Sr. Professor Emerita in Education

University of South Carolina                      

Reference

D.M. Scanlon and K.L. Anderson (2010). “Using the Interactive Strategies Approach to Prevent Reading Difficulties in an RTI Context” (p. 49). In M.Y. Lipson and K.K. Wixson (Eds.), Successful Approaches to RTI: Collaborative Practices for Improving K–12 Literacy, Newark, DE: International Reading Association.