Customer Reviews

Why Kids Can't Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Blaunstein and Reid clearly explain research demonstrating Why Kids Can't Read and present educational and political strategies for correcting this personal and national tragedy. They present evidence-based solutions to "unlock the doors to reading". Children need to be taught five essential elements to learn to read: phonemics awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary and strategies for reading comprehension. Reading programs need to introduce phonics as early as possible, teaching children about the sounds of spoken words; how to segment and blend these sounds; how to recognize the shapes of the letters; how letters sound; and how to use letter-sound knowledge to spell words.

The authors present numerous encouraging success stories for "Beating the Odds" and then "Changing the Odds" including media strategies, changing laws, and teaming up with teachers. Each chapter ends with invaluable and pragmatic Tips for Parents for turning around a reading failure in their child, school, state.

This book is an indispensable guide for for parents in dealing with reading failure in their kids and developing a comprehensive reading program that has been proven to work.

As the mother of a child with a learning disability,I found this book to be extremely helpful in giving me ideas about how to help my child. The step by step examples of how others worked the educations system to make change and the parent tips are now part of my repertoire. The book is well written and very accessible to parents.