How is reading taught?
While there is no formal academic curriculum until first grade, the fundamental building blocks of reading, and all the academic skills, are part of the earliest school experience, including nurturing self-esteem, which has been proven to be critical in the development of reading skills, as well as storytelling, songs, verses, and circle games. Waldorf education begins with the oral tradition, followed by writing. In first grade, a story is developed for each letter, and the children work with the shape of each letter in several media. Printed textbooks do not appear in the curriculum and children make their own lesson books. While the timing of the development of reading skills differs from that followed in other schools, it results in a high level of reading comprehension and a deep appreciation of reading.
While there is no formal academic curriculum until first grade, the fundamental building blocks of reading, and all the academic skills, are part of the earliest school experience, including nurturing self-esteem, which has been proven to be critical in the development of reading skills. Waldorf education begins with the oral tradition, followed by writing. A story is developed for each letter, and the children work with the shape of each letter in several media. Printed textbooks do not appear early in the curriculum and children make their own lesson books. While the timing of the development of reading skills differs from that followed in other schools, it results in a high-level reading comprehension and a deep appreciation of reading.
Since the days of Dick and Jane readers, teachers have believed that if they taught a chronological sequence of skills associated with reading, somehow children would be able to read and comprehend well regardless of whether those isolated skills related to “real” reading. An abundance of research (for a synthesis, see Dole and Pearson, 1987) suggests that if teachers focus their instruction on a few cognitive strategies (listed above) over a long period of time in a variety of different text genres, students will use those strategies independently and flexibly, will identify and pronounce unknown words and comprehend deeply. In other words, focusing on what matters most in authentic contexts is most likely to be successful. Of course, teaching a few strategies in depth as opposed to hundreds of skills in a fragmented way suggests a different way of teaching. Highly successful teachers teach toward independent mastery of those strategies (closely aligned with state and district content
