A Checklist for Effective Reading Instruction

• My child is learning the sounds of language, and my child's teacher is helping my child practice with sounds that make up words.
  
  
• My child is learning to put sounds together to make up words and how to break words apart into separate sounds.
  
  
• My child is learning the letters of the alphabet.
  
  
• My child can recognize the names and shapes of letters.
  
  
• My child is learning and using new words.
  
  
• My child's teacher reads to the class, and talks about what the students are reading.
  
  
• My child is learning phonics — how sounds and letters are related — a process that should continue for about two years.
  
  
• My child is practicing phonics by reading easy books that include the letter-sound relationships he or she is learning.
  
  
• My child is practicing writing the letter-sound relationships in words, sentences, and stories.
  
  
• My child is being asked questions to help him or her think about the meaning of what he or she is reading.
  
  
• My child is learning the meaning of new words.
  
  
• My child is learning to expand his or her vocabulary by using the dictionary, using known words and word parts to figure out words, and using clues from the rest of a sentence to better understand the meaning of words.
  
  
• My child is being taught to think as he or she reads, and to make sense of what he or she is reading.
  
  
• My child's teacher is checking to see if my child understands what he or she is reading by asking questions about the story or the material.
  
  

These recommendations are from Sara Porter, in her chapter, "Team Up With Teachers," in Why Kids Can't Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education, by Phyllis Blaunstein and Reid Lyon. Porter taught elementary school for more than 40 years and is a long time advocate for a structured, explicit and systematic phonics-based program. She is the former chair of the Education committee of the Maryland branch of the International Dyslexia Association