I have a very vivid memory from my childhood, which comes back to me repeatedly. My mother and I were sitting at a table in our tiny basement studio apartment, going over a piece of paper. It was my reading assignment for homework and I was in the second grade.
“We’ve been at it for 3 hours.” My mom sounded very exasperated. Yes, it was a single piece of paper with a bunch of large printed words on it. My homework was to read all the words on the paper. I remember most of my classmates simply reading it right away in class and declaring it done. I remember staring down at the sheet and not being able to spell out anything.
This was the first time that I could recall where I actually questioned if I was stupid. After all, I was already in the second grade, and I couldn’t make it through a single page of words (words, not sentences) in under three hours.
Now, as an adult, I can put this experience into perspective. I realize now that there were a few factors that were working against me:
I was trying to read in my second language German. My parents were international students from China living in Germany. Up to that point in my life, I only used Mandarin Chinese at home and German at school. My parents did not read german stories to me and I had limited exposure to the language.
Nobody had taught me phonics. One of my major frustrations with reading was letter names and letter sounds. I remember memorizing the alphabet and being told that the letter Y, in german, was pronounced “ypsilon”. With my limited understanding of language, I knew that a single letter shouldn’t have more than a single syllabic sound, so I kept asking everyone in my life how to spell “ypsilon”. They always came back with the letter Y, to which I always asked, “yes, but how do you spell it?”.
Using letter names to learn reading was painful and made me a resentful reader for a long time.
In fact, I didn’t start reading voraciously until a summer reading program from my local library motivated me with some pretty exceptional prizes.
But I was already in middle school by then.
Based on this experience, I want to present to you my…
Top 5 Ramifications of Not Learning Phonics
Making a young child question their intelligence
I graduated with a Master’s degree and have a full-time professional career in the finance sector. I graduated high school with a 93% average and I had taken all academic courses (3 sciences & 3 maths). The top 5% of my program at University received a Fellowship award (scholarship + research/teaching opportunities). I was one of those recipients.
As an adult, I realize I’m not dumb. But I didn’t come to that realization until my teens. I struggled a lot in elementary school and for the most part, it was because I couldn’t read. I didn’t learn to read until well into the second and third grade! Because of all this, my self-esteem suffered.
I wish someone had taken the time and effort to teach me phonics. I didn’t have to spend the first five years of my formal education believing that I was stupid.
Delayed reading prevented me from learning about the world
For a long time, I lived in my bubble. I hate to admit it, but I went into college as a bigoted, self-centered, and entitled young person. I had no ideas of others’ struggles and I am embarrassed today of some beliefs that I had held as a late teen. As I got older and had more exposure of the world, it made me a better person.
It was funny, because I feel it doesn’t matter what you read, as long as what you read exposes you to new things. Just the fact of putting yourself in others shoes on a deeper level that only books can will help. The imaginative world of science fiction and fantasy, for example, will allow you to experience life from the perspective of alien races of various diverse upbringings. It allowed me to question my premise and my own world views.
Delayed my critical thinking skills
I firmly believe that there is no better way to learn critical thinking skills than through reading and reading varied content. I was a gullible child who believed anything anyone told me without question.
When I was about eight years old, a jokester friend of my Dad’s told me that putting a spoon in my water cup (yup, a stainless steel spoon) is how I could get iron into my body. This is embarrassing to admit, but did you know I drank water from a cup with a spoon in it well into high school?
Seriously. Don’t let your kid be like me. Get them reading.
Created a hatred and anxiety towards reading and learning
My early reading experience was so bad, that I didn’t read for a long time. I remember only starting to enjoy reading books on my own until about the fifth grade. By then, my friends were devouring books and series, but I was still just content to watch anime all afternoon.
Hey, I’m a long time anime fan, and that won’t change anytime soon, but I really wish I had started reading sooner. I’m sure I would have if I didn’t hate it so much.
Delayed my decoding skills
Because Chinese was my first language, I first learned characters instead of spelling. Chinese characters are learned through rote memorization and does not require decoding skills, only memory. There are some decoding elements once you have the first 1000 or so characters under your belt, but as an elementary school child, it’s all about memorization.
When my parents moved to Germany, I took these “reading skills” with me and tried to learn German the same way. Not learning phonics meant that I had to suffer through years of rote memorization. My spelling was impeccable for words I memorized, and non-existent for words I didn’t know.
So overall, I really wish I had read sooner, and I hope I can provide to my children an environment that fosters reading and learning.