learning to versus reading to.

Reading is just reading… right? In a way, yes; but let me drill down a little further. This might bolster any shaky tolerance toward those strange books brought home from school. You know the ones? A dog. A log. A bog. Thrilling stuff.

There is solid research for those thrilling tomes, believe me. ‘Learning to Read’ typically starts around the same time formal eduction begins. It requires specialised books which are published in a planned sequence of letter/sound introduction. They support gradual development of things like singing the alphabet to matching printed letters to a corresponding sound (aka phonemic awareness —> phonetic awareness). ‘Learning to Read’ is needed before independent ‘Reading to Learn’.

Naturally, there are a multitude of ways to learn! But if one wants to hold/scroll a page to digest information, then the ‘how-to’ is essential. Hence ‘Reading to Learn’ is followed by ‘Learning to Read’. Both of these stages include a very many sub-skills. Typically, you hear skills like comprehension and summarising at this later ‘Reading to’ stage. It’s a swing back to the very early days of reading aloud to a three-nager and asking questions like ‘where is Spot?’, or ‘tell Nanny what happened in the story’.

An interesting shift happens along the reading journey. Babies and toddlers are most commonly read to, unless they fit in the niche group of exceptionally young readers. Their grown-ups model the simplest of ‘Reading to Learn’ skills, before entering school to begin ‘Learning to Read’. Then one day, before you know it, they are ‘Reading to Learn’ the inner most secrets as they sneakily pour over those high school diaries you thought were packed away in the garage.

Thrilling stuff.