The end of school is in sight, and this means that parents are asking themselves the big question: “Is my child ready for the next grade?” For parents of struggling readers, this question is critical.
Teaching kids to read is like throwing wet noodles against the wall. The teacher is the chef, with a big pot of pasta. In her kettle are spaghetti noodles, rigatoni, wagon wheels and macaroni. After she drains the water she tosses the entire pot at the kitchen wall.
The first-grader is the wall, arms outstretched, wanting to wiggle but trying to stay still. If the pasta is cooked just right, it sticks to the wall.
Day after day the teacher throws pasta. Sometimes, she sweats standing there at the hot stove, but she keeps cooking. Boil the water, set the timer, drain the water, throw! She’s a pasta-cooking expert.
In April she looks at the wall and it’s plastered with pasta. The kid is so glutenized that he’s a strong, sticky tangle of firing neurons, ready to read “Frog and Toad,” “Arthur” and “Bob Books.”
But for some kids the standard method of pasta throwing doesn’t work.
This doesn’t mean that the teacher isn’t cooking pasta properly. It’s not because the child isn’t standing up straight and holding his arms out wide. For some reason, the spaghetti, wagon wheels and macaroni won’t stick. It’s like part of the kid’s wall is slathered in olive oil and the pasta slides right off.
When I was a first-grade teacher who saw this happen to a couple of my students, I went to my school administrators and expressed concern. I was told that all children develop at different rates and that I shouldn’t worry. “Wait until third grade,” the special-ed teacher said. “Then we’ll see.”
Now that I’m a parent, this rationalization makes me boiling mad.
Unfortunately, our schools are set up with a “wait and see approach” for reading disorders like dyslexia. Eight-year-olds who are two grade levels behind set off warning bells. Six-year-olds who repeatedly sound out “the” do not.
When your child is the one trying hard but failing to collect pasta, you need to determine what type of pasta sticks as early as possible. If rigatoni sticks, don’t waste time and money with spaghetti. Don’t make your child feel like a failure because he can’t absorb macaroni. Don’t torture him with wagon wheels.
If the dyslexic child had received all rigatoni, all the time, starting back in kindergarten, then he could be as glutenized as every other child in his first-grade class, ready to glom on to any book that came his way. That’s called early intervention, and it’s imperative.
Rigatoni kids are smart too and they don’t deserve all the crap that gets thrown at them.
So if you’re the parent of a first- or second-grade child who struggles, please don’t let anyone tell you to wait until third grade for reading to stick. Demand an evaluation right away. Your child deserves to learn.
Jennifer Bardsley lives in Edmonds. Her book “Genesis Girl” comes out June 14. Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, Twitter @jennbardsley
or at teachingmybabytoread.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
