WHEN WORDS DON’T COME EASY
PRECILLA C. CHICO
Learning to read is an essential part of basic education. Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols to derive meaning. It is a form of language processing. It is also a complex interaction between the text and the reader.
According to American Academy of Pediatrics, most children learn to read by 6 or 7 years of age while some learn at 4 or 5 years of age. They also discussed that most children learn to read without any major problems. They also added that there are also cases when you might be seeing signs that a child is having trouble in reading.
Lapkin (2014) in her article ?Understanding Your Child?s Trouble with Reading? mentioned that reading issues can look different from child to child, at various ages. These signs according to her may also differ depending on what?s causing them. There are reading troubles in preschool or kindergarten, in grade School, and even in high school. Having trouble with reading can be very frustrating for individuals in any level.
These reading issues must be taken into considerations for they may be symptoms of a more serious reading disorder. Reading disorders occur when a person has trouble with any part of the reading process. Reading and language-based learning disabilities are commonly called dyslexia. This disorder is present from a young age and usually result from specific differences in the way the brain processes l an gu age.
In an article posted in National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Shriver (2016) wrote that there are many different symptoms and types of reading disorders, and not everyone with a reading disorder has every symptom. She also mentioned that people with reading disorders may have problems recognizing words that they already know and may also be poor spellers. She also enumerated other symptoms may include the following: trouble with handwriting, difficulty reading quickly, problems reading with correct expression, and problems understanding the written word.
“Reading disorders are not a type of intellectual and development disorder, and they are not a sign of lower intelligence or unwillingness to learn” (Shriver, 2016). She even added that people with reading disorders may have other learning disabilities, too, including problems with writing or numbers.
Teachers have a big role in developing higher order skills and functional literacy. If a child most often than not have poor reading skills and experiencing reading disorders, his chances of success in school is far lagging behind. When words don?t come easy to a learner it is a job for the teacher to assess and give reading diagnostic test to help these learners. If the teacher fails to do so, and interventions are not administered, it could affect the academic, social, and psychological development of a child.
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The author is Secondary School Teacher III at Balucuc High School