My daughter is onto me.

Can you help me?

And Ill keep reading.

I can tell that she almost gets it, but I can also tell that Im not much help.

You dont know what youre doing, Willingham says of parents in general.

Then the teacher has to try and overcome that first negative experience your child has had.

Heres what to do instead.

In raising readers, reckon it’s were doing it wrong.

Parents and teachers tend to think about the learning process in separate blocks.

When kids are very youngaround 4, 5 or 6we teach them how to decode words.

It isnt until the fourth or fifth grade that we move onto comprehension.

Thats too late, Willingham says.

Decoding and comprehension are not the same thing, he tells me.

In the later elementary school grades, as texts become much more complex, comprehension becomes much more difficult.

And therefore, children struggle.

Instead, we should think about our children as whole readers from the beginning.

In hisNYTpiece, Willingham writes that comprehension is intimately intertwined with knowledge.

He suggests that parents should leave the teaching up to teachers, and simply read with kids.

Traditionally, the texts in early elementary grades have been light in content, Willingham writes.

(Mac sat on a mat,etc.)

Read With Purpose

When parents play teacher, kids can tell.

They think, Why are you asking me to read this?

Youre obviously just testing me, Willingham says.

And they start to resent it.

He says that parents can help kids read by taking advantage of situations where reading has some utility.

Put away all your toys.

(UM, brilliant.)

Other ideas: Write shopping lists together.

Or read over your daily schedule.

Can you help me find it?

Or say, Lets see how many letter Ts we see around here.

He says that parents are doing many great things already, like reading books that play with speech sounds.

Dr. Seuss is absolutely full of them, Willingham says.

Its about adopting a curiosity mindset.

Ask kids questions, Willingham says.

But if youre asking questions, youre sending the message that speech is for learning about the world.

What kids will gain goes way beyond the ability to decipher words on a page.