Online literacy session offers crucial support for parents

By BRENDAN MILLER on November 15, 2024.

bmiller@medicinehatnews.com

The Medicine Hat Public School Division has partnered with the Public Library to promote reading and writing in young children with an hour-long online session presented by Marnie Heintz, a division instructional coach who discusses the importance of early literacy education.

The session is targeted for parents of young children who are learning to read and spell, and older children who are having difficulties, and provides practical tips to support literacy development.

Heintz emphasized how significant parental involvement is during a child’s early development by simply reading stories out loud regularly.

“When we’re reading to children, they’re getting access to vocabulary that they wouldn’t hear in an oral everyday language, it builds their background knowledge, which is so important, they can learn so many things from books,” says Heintz, who points out that a normal adult uses approximately 10,000 words a day, but “in books, there’s almost a million words used, different words.”

Throughout her 18-year experience teaching literacy, Heintz has encouraged parents to read with their children as it boosts their early literacy skills, increases their fluency, nurtures a love of reading and promotes social emotional development.

“The simple act of parents reading to their children regularly holds immense potential for improving reading outcomes.”

Throughout the session Heintz cites an infographic created by Nancy Young in 2012 called ‘The Ladder of Reading & Writing’ and updated in 2023, that includes five pillars to help ease children to learn how to read and write.

The pillars include phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and phonemic awareness, and uses a structured approach to support learning. Heintz points out the structured framework is able to support approximately 60 per cent of children who are struggling with spelling and reading.

“Almost half our population requires this to be successful with reading and writing,” she explains. “We call this a structured literacy approach that’s likely essential for them to be successful.”

Along with an extensive overview of each step of the Ladder of Reading and Writing, Heintz offers comprehensive strategies and tips for parents.

“Bring that oral language back,” she says. “That’s so good for young children to hear us talking, now that we’re not talking on the phone so much, our kids are hearing less language.”

Heintz says it’s important to limit screen time to provide more opportunities to read and write as repetition leads to positive outcomes.

“Be patient with the process, remember that ladder of reading might be a difficult thing for your child who might need repeated exposures, lots of practice.”

Heintz suggests gently correcting errors with children and not letting them skip over words. Personally she has made reading a routine with her children at bedtime and says it’s important to keep children engaged.

“Just whatever works in your house to try and make it as routine as you can, and get them talking and writing as much as possible. Building those fine motor skills for writing is so important right now when there are so many screens and technology that are competing for our children’s time.

“Get them gripping that pencil, colouring, drawing, writing, trying to write letter formations … all of those things can add up and really help out.”

The full online session is available on the public school division’s website under its ‘Division News’ tab.

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