5 Reasons Why Your Child Cannot Read And What You Can Do About It!

My Findings In 4 Years Teaching Of How To Read

This whole Reasons Why Your Child Can’t Read! idea came to me when I offered to help pupils in preschool and my own child at age 3 years old who is now in grade 3, as well as a group of grade 6 pupils with their reading.

When I began to work with pupils four years ago, some of them where put back into sixth grade because they were unable to read and couldn’t possibly keep up with the work in junior high. So I began to look for a way to teach reading that was altogether different from what they do in schools or in remedial reading courses or anywhere else.

Apostle Amoah Nyame Kwaning (CEO) of Soteria Phonics and Books. Explaining the concept of Soteria Phonics to heads of school at Miklin Hotel-Accra.

Myself and my team have spoken in reading workshops, in-service training, head of school conferences and have facilitated long vacation reading programs in churches and schools. What I found is absolutely fantastic. The teaching of reading — all over, in all the schools, in all the textbooks — is totally wrong and flies in the face of all logic and common sense.

Most of the grade 1 – 6 pupils couldn’t read until 4 years ago for the simple reason that;

Nobody ever showed them how. and
Those who tried to teaching reading — all over, in all the schools taught it wrongly
All the textbooks and wall chat — is totally wrong and flies in the face of all logic and common sense.
They were unfortunately exposed to an ordinary Ghanaian school system.
Lack of pre-reading skills such as letter sound knowledge and word decoding strategies.

This has made so many parents and teachers to see pupils in preschool up to grade 1 – 3 who do not know how to read as a thing that is bound to happen. And they say it is normal when they grow they will know. What they these parent and teachers do not know is that, there is a lot in pupils that has never come to the surface because of this reading trouble.

Apostle Amoah Nyame Kwaning (CEO) of Soteria Phonics and Books (1st from your left). Explaining the concept of Soteria Phonics to heads of school at Miklin Hotel-Accra.

Do you know that there are no remedial reading cases in Austrian schools? Do you know that there are no remedial reading cases in Germany, in France, in Italy, in Norway, and in Spain?

This sounds incredible, but it is true. One of the articles on reading that I found was by a Dr. Ralph C. Preston, of the University of Pennsylvania, who reported on his experiences on a trip through Western Germany in the April, 1953, Elementary School Journal. Dr. Preston visited a number of classrooms in Hamburg and Munich. “After the experience of hearing these German children read aloud,” he says, “I began to attach some credence to a generally expressed opinion of German teachers that before the end of Grade 2 almost any child can read orally (without regard to degree of comprehension) almost anything in print!” Of course, Dr. Preston, being an American educator, didn’t draw the obvious conclusion from what he saw. The explanation is simply that the method used over there works, and the method used in our schools does not. We too could have perfect readers in all schools at the end of second grade if we taught our children by the system used in Germany.

Now let us analyze the Ghana 2016 National Education Assessment Report of Findings Ministry of Education Ghana Education Service National Education Assessment Unit.

Executive Summary

This report presents the findings from the 2016 administration of the Ghana National Education Assessment (NEA), carried out by the National Education Assessment Unit (NEAU) within the Ghana Education Service (GES). The NEA is a biennial nationally and regionally representative measure of pupil competency in mathematics and English in primary classes 4 and 6 (P4 and P6). In 2016, the NEA was revised to assess P4 rather than P3 pupils to better align with Ghana’s current language-of-instruction policy. The 2016 edition was the sixth application of the NEA, and it covered all 10 regions of Ghana, sampling 550 schools and testing 35,996 pupils over the course of three days in July 2016. The sample size was designed to be representative at the national and regional levels, but not at the district level. The 2016 NEA was a classroom-based multiple-choice written test whose content was based on the national curricula. The P4 test contained 40 items each for mathematics and for English, and the P6 test contained 45 items for each subject. Test items covered skills and knowledge across the following domains: English Mathematics Listening Comprehension Grammar Reading Operations Numbers Measurement Shape and Space Data and Chance For the past three administrations (2011, 2013, and 2016),

Performance According to Subject Domains

Analyses of pupil performance across the various subject domains within English and mathematics revealed some noteworthy patterns. In English, the Reading domain presented the greatest challenge to pupils, in both P4 (44% correct, on average) and P6 (43% correct, on average). The highest score was in the P4 Listening Comprehension domain, where pupils scored 70% on average. In mathematics, both P4 and P6 pupils had difficulty with the higher-order cognitive tasks involving Measurement (34% and 29% correct, on average, in P4 and P6 respectively) and Shapes and Space (38% and 39% correct). The highest score was in the P6 Data and Chance domain, where pupils scored 53% on average.

I am not amazed of the P4 and P6 difficulty with the higher-order cognitive tasks involving Measurement that they scored (34% and 29% correct, on average.) WHY? Because, If a child does not know how to read, he cannot read to learn other subjects. Reading is the master key to unlock all treasures in the filled of education.

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” – Victor Hugo

Recommendations

The results from the 2016 NEA are similar to the 2013 NEA findings. There has been no significant or substantive change in pupil performance since the 2013 NEA.

Large numbers of pupils are struggling to master the P4 and P6 curricular content. This finding is not surprising given that both the 2013 and 2015 National Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Assessments (EGRA and EGMA) indicated that the majority of children in P2 lacked the foundational skills that they would need to succeed at the P4 and P6 level.

In order for pupils to perform in the upper primary classes, P4 to P6, they must develop and apply the critical foundational concepts and skills taught in the early primary curriculum. Specifically, pupils need to learn basic mathematics concepts and skills, and apply this knowledge to solve mathematical problems of a more conceptual nature. Similarly, it is critical that pupils develop important pre-reading skills such as letter sound knowledge and word decoding strategies in order to read new words.

In order to perform in P4 English and beyond, pupils must learn to read with fluency and comprehension. Thus it is recommended that the focus in Ghana primary education now and in the years to come be enhancing instruction in the early primary grades to ensure that these pupils have the foundational skills needed to succeed in school.

Key Findings and Conclusions

Key Findings

The results of the 2016 NEA showed clearly that the performance of P4 and P6 pupils was generally low. There has been no significant or substantive change in pupil performance since the 2013 NEA. Although the scores were low for both English and mathematics, mathematics seemed to present a greater challenge to Ghanaian pupils, in both public and private schools. Delayed development of pre-reading and reading skills in the early grades is also likely to be impacting performance in later-grade English and mathematics. If pupils are not able to read when they take the NEA, both English and mathematics performance will be negatively impacted. The NEA is a paper-and-pencil task conducted in a group setting. Literacy is required on most of the NEA tests, including on the mathematics forms, for which many of the test items require some reading.

What Parents and Teachers Can Do About This Reading Struggle Among Our Children.

In conclusion, it is clear that a concerted effort needs to be made to ensure that when pupils reach P4, they have the foundational skills they need to complete the more advanced tasks of mid- and upper primary English and mathematics. In the early grades, pupils need to adequate reading instruction to become thriving readers to read and learn basic mathematics concepts and apply them as they attempt more complex operations and problem-solving tasks. The development of pre-reading skills that lead to reading with comprehension is required for pupils to independently perform well on the P4 and P6.

English and mathematics tests that constitute the NEA. The 2015 National EGRA and EGMA findings revealed that most pupils across Ghana’s public schools were finishing P2 without even basic literacy skills, let alone the ability to read with fluency and comprehension.

These findings in the early grades combined with the NEA findings in P4 and P6 convey a need for better instruction in literacy and mathematics. The Ministry of Education and GES recognize the disparities in the quality of education in rural versus urban settings and in particular the most deprived districts and the three northern regions of Ghana.

The 2015 EGRA and EGMA findings also revealed significant lack of resources (reading and mathematics textbooks and exercise books), especially in these areas. Continued and more effective efforts to reduce these disparities are needed, with an aim to ensure that the foundational skills of the early primary grades are acquired by all pupils – pupils attending schools in the most rural and remote regions of the country, as well as pupils attending schools in urban locations.

Reading is a fundamental skill for children and adults alike. Like speech itself, it is the key to knowledge and opens up worlds.

Dear parent, what you know about reading is not enough to take your child out of this reading disabilities among your children. Researchers have studied reading intensively for many years— some groundbreaking research dates back to the 1980s and earlier. The problem is not “what do we know?” It is “what do we do?” Parents are often reminded that reading to their children is important, but they are seldom told why. What does a bedtime story teach a child? Why is reading to a child important after the child reaches kindergarten? We need to understand the many steps that go into learning to read. Parents of struggling readers are sometimes told to “wait and see.” But research clearly shows that early intervention is far more effective than remediation in later grades. Children who struggle to read can fall further and further behind their peers, jeopardizing their chances for success in school and beyond.

Few children learn to read books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way.

—Orville Prescott, A Father Reads to His Children

Click the link below to get Soteria Phonics and Books to help your child read in a very short time. This package comes with Soteria Phonics Books and free online class to help parents and teachers teach their children how to read.

That is why I have gathered all my proven techniques which is over 10years of experience in teaching how to read. This is call Soteria Phonics and Books. Soteria Phonics and Books has a nice package for all parents and teachers. The package comes with 5 Soteria Phonics Books and a free online class for parents and teachers to get adequate phonetics reading instruction to lure children into the wonderful world of the written word. Someone has to show them the way.

This video is some of our proofs in schools that have Soteria Phonics Books and have enrolled in our online class for parents and teachers.

The video below is some of the results of the proven Soteria Phonics Books.

Click the link below for copies and get your free online phonetics class to help your child read. https://divinedigitalads.com/soteriaphonicsandbooks

I hope this guide will help you understand the processes and issues that surround learning to read. Every child deserves to read well. Together, parents and schools can make that happen.

Source:

Reading: Breaking Through the Barriers A Discussion Guide By Catherine Abraham and Joyce Gram
Ghana 2016 National Education Assessment Report of Findings Ministry of Education Ghana Education Service National Education Assessment Unit

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