Should I teach my 5-year-old to read?
I have a 5-year-old daughter and soon we will start teaching her to read. Should we even bother? I read a lot of books when I was younger but truth is I can’t even recall what they were actually about, not to mention what they were even titled. What was the point? While those are silly questions how we answer them are important.
In Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read he tells us, “Even as I read, I start to forget what I have read, and this process is unavoidable.”[1] Through all my years of reading in education, for my career, or free reading, I can only elicit a small fraction of what I have actually read. Bayard says, “It extends to the point where it’s as though I haven’t read the book at all, so that in effect I find myself rejoining the ranks of non-readers, where I should no doubt have remained in the first place.”[2] You have to admit there is some truth to what Bayard writes, yet it is not reading we should aspire to but thinking and understanding.
Watching my daughter start school it has been amazing to me the emphasis we place on reading while we spend little time highlighting how to understand, how to think, and why it is so important. While I can hardly remember most of the books I have read, it is those very books that have taught me to think.
I don’t know what age it is appropriate but I’d love to see us start teaching children not just how to read but how to think and understand. We should start teaching our kids that the goal isn’t to complete a book, but to understand the point the author is making, and to formulate their own ideas.
This same principle becomes even more important in regards to reading the Bible. Here in the Midwest, Christian culture is extremely prevalent. Most people I come in contact with own a bible, state they are a Christian, even quote many memory verses yet they don’t know how to articulate their faith. While it is the same point Bayard makes it plays out in the opposite. While many actually have read the bible they don’t know how to prayerfully think through what it says, and they don’t know how to talk about it.
As a pastor it is a good challenge for me to not just encourage people to find good bible reading plans but they need to be taught how to process what they are reading. The church should be a safe place for people to think. We need to create an atmosphere for people to ask questions, dialogue, and even feel comfortable talking about verses they have never read. For our faith to be active we need to not just read the bible, but also believe what we are reading.
The most influential things I have read are not things I memorized and can recite to you, but they are things that formed the way I think and live.
[1] Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read (New York, NY: Bloomsbury), 47
[2] Ibid., 47-48
About the Author
Nick Martineau
Nick is a pastor at Hope Community Church in Andover, KS, founder of ILoveOrphans.com, and part of the LGP5 cohort.22 responses to “Should I teach my 5-year-old to read?”
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Nick,
Through Bayard’s point about creating a collective library that comes through conversation from our inner library, I know that teaching my grandkids as I did with my daughter to read becomes much more about holding them close and sharing a common language – creating a community. Learning to read is different than actually proving that you know everything about what you read. It’s the start of connecting ideas with the world in which we live. I sent my daughter off to Japan today, a place she’s wanted to go since she read about Japan as a child. I think she started creating a community long ago without completely understanding what she read. As you teach your daughter, I think you’ll be amazed at what she discovers not only in the words and concepts but in her relationship with you.
Thanks Mary! What a great insight that not only does reading teach us to think but it can also draw us into community. You are absolutely correct because the times I read to my children are the times I feel most connected to them and they seem most at peace.
So Nick (and Mary), could it be said that reading can serve as glue at times? That it provides a central element around which relationships can be formed?
Insightful…
Jon
I wonder that myself, about the glue. In fact, this last weekend when I preached (something I don’t do often), I struggled with whether my words in the sermon were acting as a glue or if it would have been better to simply read scripture together, using a tool like Lectio Divina. Just thinking out loud.
Nick, you said “This same principle becomes even more important in regards to reading the Bible.” That struck a chord with me. One of the ministries that Tina and I have operated for 18 years is a Christian academy where a part of the students’ curriculum and spiritual formation is to memorize large passages of scripture. They can, by rote, reel off passage after passage… impressive right? But we realized last year that when we ask the kids to explain IN THEIR OWN WORDS (sorry for shouting…) what they have just recited, MOST of them have no clue. That was a sobering day. We were giving them text with no meaning. They could not process their memorizations into anything that would be transformative in their lives. We are adjusting our methods…
Thanks for the post.
Jon
Jon…You don’t need to go into great detail but I’d love to know what methods you are using to help these students understand meaning. This is the great challenge of teachers right?
Nick, we are emphasizing conversations, with actual give and take between adult mentors and students. We ask questions like “can you describe that in your own words?” and “how does that adjust your behavior (use a real example)?” This allows the kids the opportunity to think out loud, processing meaning into what has previously been empty words, regurgitated by rote.
We’re still working on it though, we’ve kind of turned a corner on a lot of fronts around here…
J
Thanks Jon. Good question asking is an art form. Great work with those kids!
Nick,
I’m from the midwest also… I totally get your comment…”Most people I come in contact with own a bible, state they are a Christian, even quote many memory verses yet they don’t know how to articulate their faith. While it is the same point Bayard makes it plays out in the opposite. While many actually have read the bible they don’t know how to prayerfully think through what it says, and they don’t know how to talk about it.”
We need to spend time in our Christian community to teach others how to think critically and to study God’s word. I have a son in high school and a daughter in college…and am thankful they gained critical thinking skills through their education. However, I think there is a huge disparity in the educational systems. There are too many people who graduate from high school without the ability to critically analyze information…and that is very dangerous in today’s culture. This leads people to believe false teachings, etc. They can’t appropriately assimilate the information using non-reading tactics, yet they don’t take the time to study the details either.
Dawnel. I strongly agree with your statement “We need to spend time in our Christian community to teach others how to think critically and to study God’s word.” If all we celebrate is the restating of data, with no critical reasoning applied to those words, we will have young adults ill-equipped to deal with an increasingly complex world. I find that using terms like “working definition” and “in your own words” is helpful in turning the conversation back onto the “student,” requiring them to demonstrate that they do or do not understand.
What are some methods that you have found to be helpful? Questions? Phrases?
J
Jon, I’ve learned that I can best teach or help someone to grasp more difficult concepts if I listen first and figure out where and how they are struggling. I don’t think that there is any one method that works for all. Rather, I think that you can best help someone to gain critical thinking skills by coming alongside of them and engaging them into deeper areas than they are accustomed to. Asking them probing questions and giving them assignments to help them see multiple views is also helpful. Also, I’ve learned not to give all the answers away too quickly! Sometimes we just need to let others figure things out on their own…although I must learn to be patient as everyone does this at their own pace.
Thanks Dawnel! No doubt your daughter and son are fortunate to have you as a mom. Developing critical thinking skills should be a fundamental part of education yet is all too often lacking.
Nick, I’m not sure my kids got all of their critical thinking skills from my husband and I…rather I am very thankful that the Lord has allowed them to attend great schools and to be exposed to lots of other leaders and teachers who helped to grow them into the young adults they are today. We are blessed that others have engaged with and invested in our children also.
Dawnel,
As I read your post it occurred to me that talking about something is a very different issue than simply reading, non-reading, or even writing. The ability to speak and articulate in public or private is a skill that needs to be developed. I know many Christians who know what they believe and why they believe it, but are unable to orally express those beliefs.
Nick, I can really relate to the reading of countless pages of books that after reading I can’t recall a thing I read. It is funny, I think the pressure to read every word of every page put such a pressure on my reading that it took the joy and even caused me to drift into the ozone layer while reading without permission to read faster and skim through what started as uninteresting sections and pages of the books.
Then, once I leave the ozone and come back to ground level, and realize I have covered a few pages with zero retention, I obsess over whether or not I missed anything really important…
Oh the angst!
J
Nick, I’ve got two daughters and they are both burn through books. They’ve caught that love for reading from their parents but they’ve taken it even further. My younger daughter is even writing her own fantasy novel at 13. I told her that my dissertation was supposed to be at least 40,000 words. “No problem dad, I’ve already written more then that”. Kids! What I appreciate about your post is the focus on understanding versus simply reading. If you can teach your daughter to dig for understanding there is no telling how far she’ll take it.
Dave, Sounds like you have a very bright daughter, and that she has had great encouragement from you. In our household, we also talk with and share our learning experiences with our children. Do you think that our kids will benefit and learn also as they go through the DMIN adventure with us? And, how much does this type of environment contribute to their ability to be good scholars as they complete their own education?
Nick,
I resonated with your statement “While I can hardly remember most of the books I have read, it is those very books that have taught me to think.” While skimming or simply knowing about a book can be useful as it contributes to the larger body of research in which we may be involved, it is not the same are really knowing a book. While it is true that not every good book is worth reading, there are key books that shape who we are and provide a context for understanding and processing other information. Books that challenge our core character, for instance, generally require an in-depth reading or even multiple readings. As time goes by, we may forget much of what is in the book, but the way that it helped to shape who we are continues to be a part of us.
God bless you Nick,
I think you are on the right track of teaching our kids to understand the main points when they read and not just focus on the fact that they read all of the book. Too many parents I know have actually made their children read a whole book over 500 pages. If they did not they were put on punishment. Now one student was the valedictorian of her school, I don’t know if it was due to that type of reading but I believe like you understanding a book and retaining knowledge from it is more important. As a pastor I now study for sermons in a non organized way. Its when I put my sermon together that I began my organization. This method of study has done exactly what you said, its afforded me the opportunity to understand all the bits and pieces of the text which is so important when it comes to interpretation. I think you are on to something with your congregation I am doing more of helping them to understand Bible by letting them come to me about what they are studying! Thanks brother!
I can’t imagine punishing my child for not reading a 500 page book…Just imagine transferring that mentality to our churches. We’d be creating legalistic pharisees! Unfortunately that’s all to often how we teach…we shame people into doing bible studies or we create self righteous members by elevating “doing.” There’s a beauty in learning just to learn. Not finishing a book just to complete it but to have the desire to actually understand the meaning. It is so much harder to teach that kind of learning.
Nick, well said!