What Is the Writing Road to Reading?

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The Writing Road to Reading, developed by Romalda Spalding, is a unique approach to teaching children to read. This approach starts with the child writing the letters of groups of letters representing each sound in the English language. Children have already mastered the most complex learning task of their life by the time they are three - that of learning a language. They know the sounds and the words. Writing the letters to each sound is simply the most effective way for them to connect what they already know to these new symbols on paper.

I took a college course on using "The Writing Road to Reading" in 1989. My wife has used this method to teach many little ones to read, including all of our children. To us, it is simply intuitively the best way for a child to learn to read - to write their way into knowing the relationship between words and symbols.

You see, when a child writes, those words appearing as letters on the page belong to them. The letters are not something foreign and unknown. The child wrote them. As the child learns the connection between already familiar sounds and each new letter or groups of letters, their own words are soon able to find their way to the paper.

The best way to learn anything is to write it out yourself. At the same time, my writing ability increased over the years by my practice of regularly copying good writers. Writing places the outline of things more deeply into the mind than just reading.

Personally, I would not consider any other approach to teaching a child to read than first to write.

You can find a full explanation of "The Writing Road to Reading" and all materials needed to use it for your own children at https://www.spaldingeducation.org/ 

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Maybe you have a student at home and you want to know that they can write effectively both in entering college and for life. Or maybe you want to learn to write (and teach writing) well. Check out the Writing Course at The Writing Conservatory. Help yourself freely to anything you see.
 
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