As I explained in Teach the Skills of the Trivium, classical homeschooling begins with the following three skills: (1) learning the primary language, (2) learning to think critically, and (3) learning to communicate effectively. “Learning the primary language” is the topic of this series. In Learning the Language through Listening, I discussed three steps you can take to ensure that your kids are learning the language through hearing. In Reading Aloud: the Key to Language Development, I gave you 8 suggestions for raising kids who love to read. You might think that your child is translating the symbols on the paper into sounds in their head, but what he is really doing is translating the letters on the page into meaning. Comprehension is the subject of this post.

Understanding the Language

Do you remember those first board books that you used to read to your children? You’d hold your little one in your lap and point to the pictures and words as you read out loud. Perhaps you’d move your finger from left to right as the sentence progressed. Eventually your child began to point with you, and soon he excitedly “read” his favorite book to you! Why is learning to read so compelling? Because even the young child realizes that reading is not only fun, but reading is both useful and meaningful! The child learns that in the

“hodge-podge of black on white is a story, somewhat like the stories that Dad tells at bedtime, but steadier and simpler in its variation of words and nuances. In its many rereadings, the story will become part of the child’s world of imaginative experiences. And she will crave for ever more new ones.” (Seymour Itzkoff, Children Learning to Read)

Reading is not just sounding out letters in perfect articulation. Reading is comprehending, understanding, or making sense out of the printed text. The search for meaning should be the primary purpose of reading. Even a colorful board book has meaning that the child can comprehend.

One of Meredith’s favorite board books, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, is about a bunny who postpones bedtime by telling all the objects in the room “good night.” In this example, the cute little bunny represents the little child, and the mama bunny represents the child’s mother. Meredith may not have been able to verbalize her comprehension at the time, but she understood that, like the little bunny, she could try to stall bedtime, but eventually she would have to go to sleep. Likewise, the text of sophisticated books, newspaper articles, and instruction manuals all have one final purpose: to convey meaning.

Seeing the printed text is an opportunity for learning the language. There are certain universal concepts about the printed word which every child needs to learn:

* print contains an exact message

* print can be letters and words which have individual sounds

* print corresponds one-to-one with the spoken word

*print progresses from left to right across the page and from top to bottom (with some exceptions)

*print progresses from the front page to the back page of a book

Children are incredible problem-solvers. For the youngest children, pictures act as clues to the meaning. As the books get more difficult, the pictures become less important, and the child has to determine the meaning of the passage from the text. Encourage your child to build a meaningful story in his head as he reads. Emphasize that every book has a lesson to be learned, a story to be told, or an event to relate so that over time he realizes that his foremost task in reading is understanding. In fact, problem-solving skills start with reading comprehension, so when you teach your children to look for meaning, you are helping them develop Skill Set Number 2 of the Trivium, critical thinking!

How can you help your child understand the meaning of the text?

One of the hallmarks of a classical education is the use of Socratic Dialogue in which you ask the child what the text means instead of telling the child what the text means.

*Ask LOTS of questions before you begin the book (and have your teen do the same!) by looking at the cover, the title page, and back cover. Flip through the pages and try to predict what the story will be about by browsing the pictures.

*Ask LOTS of questions AS you are reading the story (or after each day’s chapter for a teen). Find a good stopping place, and ask whether your predictions were correct? What will happen next? How will it end? (An older child is ready for more difficult questions about character analysis, plot, or cause and effect.)

*After you’ve read the story, have your child narrate the story back to you. Make sure he can tell you the beginning, the middle, and the end. Teens should be able to identify the hero, villan, conflicts, climax, and moral or application to his own life. If you want to enrich their learning, occasionally have them write their understanding. I’ll cover this in more detail later.

Another hallmark of classical home schooling is inductive reasoning. Consider the steps: (1) observe, (2) interpret, and (3) apply. In the case of a book, your child observes the details of the story, interprets the meaning of the story, then (hopefully) applies the lesson learned. Back to my example of Meredith and Goodnight Moon, my toddler observed that on every page the little bunny said goodnight to the things in her room (observation.) Then she understood that all little bunnies (and little girls) had to go to sleep even if they didn’t want to (interpretation.) Finally, she applied the lesson learned by allowing me to turn out the bedside light and without a peep and tuck her in for a good night’s sleep (application.) When you teach your children to think inductively, you are on your way to critical thinkers.

Like critical thinking and effective communication, reading or literacy is a cumulative, ongoing process. Think of reading as a continuum of increasing competence. Classical scholars are lifelong learners who, once they have substantially mastered the tools of the Trivium, are able to learn anything! Understanding the language involves determining the purpose or meaning of the written text as well as deciphering the code of the written text. The next post in this series on “Learning the Language” will cover a controversial homeschooling issue: phonics instruction.

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Since I published the post on 3 Simple but Significant Steps to a Classical Education, I’ve received several emails from readers with questions. If you have a question about teaching your children the primary language, especially reading, please click on the “Contact” page, and ask away. I’ll answer through email, and I just might use your question in a future post because if you’re wondering, there are bound to be other readers who are wondering, too. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Tags: classical home school, classical homeschooling, classical scholar, communicate effectively, critical thinking, learning language, reading, teach your child to read, trivium