Each fall we are reminded of the wonderful potential of each child as schools across Maine re-open. Unfortunately that potential may not be realized, as schools struggle to meet the educational needs of Maine children. The American Federation of Teachers acknowledges that “teaching students to read by third grade is the single most important task assigned to elementary schools.”

Recent Maine Department of Education test results report a three-point increase in math scores but reading scores continue to be unchanged for the last five years. It’s sobering to hear the remarks of Bill Gates, at the National Governors’ Summit on Education, that “American high schools are obsolete,” and “half of all students starting high school today are unlikely to get a job that allows them to support a family. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations.”

Our children will remain very much at risk until school districts begin to whole-heartedly embrace educational change in sound, evidence-based instructional practices, particularly in early reading development.

Parents may be surprised to learn that in Maine, only 52 percent of fourth-grade, 43 percent of eighth-grade and 43 percent of 11th-grade students meet standards in reading competency. Less than 20 percent of 11th-grade students meet standards in math and science. (source: http://www.maine.gov/ education/mea/index.htm)

While it is true that Maine routinely scores in the top 10 nationally, our school achievement still falls short. School districts may blame poor school performance on the test itself and say, “We’re doing as well as other districts.” This type of response is just not good enough.

Dr. Grover Whitehurst, U.S. Department of Education, reminds us that more than any other subject or skill, a child’s future is all but determined by how well they learn to read. Poor reading skills consign children to failure in school and consign adults to the lowest strata of job and life opportunities.

Of the children who enter kindergarten this year with poor language and literacy preparation, fully 75 percent will never become competent readers. For children in the early elementary grades, 90 percent of those who are poor readers at third grade will never achieve reading competency.

Poor school performance is not inevitable. The evidence is known about what it takes to improve educational achievement. Instructional practices that have failed for 40 years must be replaced with the techniques that are proven to work.

Changes in Maine school performance can come from individual parents, taxpayers and legislators who understand that no year-to-year improvement in the educational test scores in Maine is unacceptable.

G. Reid Lyon, Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health, notes that of children identified with reading-learning disabilities, less than 10 percent truly have a disability. Most identified students are instructionally handicapped due to poor teaching techniques or haven’t acquired pre-requisite language and word knowledge skills due to lack of experience.

For young preschool and early elementary children, there is much that can be done to provide them with the foundational, emergent literacy skills that will lead to conventional reading.

To be able to read and be successful in school, preschool children need knowledge of the alphabet and print, knowledge of the speech sound system, including the ability to rhyme words and to understand word syllables (te-le-phone/telephone) and rich vocabulary learning experiences.

Parents can greatly influence children’s literacy knowledge by simply modifying the manner in which the books are read. Typically, books are read to children with a focus on the pictures. Unfortunately, there is little literacy learning opportunity for the children with this approach. A better approach when reading to your child includes focusing attention on words and print.

Here are ways parents can support reading readiness in young children.

Ask your child to find where the words are in a book. Point out words that are written in different type sizes. Ask your child how to find where the story goes next and help your child know to say, “Turn the page.”

When reading, use your finger to follow along with the text. Encourage your child to do the same as you read. Engage in plenty of rhyming and sound-playing books. Be sure to use the words such as “rhyme” and “doesn’t rhyme” and encourage your child to also use those words.

Utilize books that have a predictable pattern. Encourage children to use their own language to predict how the next sentence will “read”. Ask your child to predict what might happen next in the story. Point out the structure of stories and talk about the setting of the story and problems encountered by the characters. Use words like “problem”, “solution” and “setting” to help your child learn those words and learn about how stories are made.

When reading with your child, try to have your child actively engaged as you share a book. Let your child make frequent comments when book sharing. Avoid constraining questions such as “Can you say?” or “What is that?”

In daily activities, leave the cereal box on the table and point out the words and letters on the box. In the grocery store encourage children to find their favorite box of cereal. In the produce section ask the child to “read” what the word says under the display of different fruit.

When reading a book that contains interesting words of several syllables, encourage children to first say the word (dinosaur) then clap out the word with one clap for each syllable (di-no-saur) and then repeat the word again.

Finally, support pre-school and early childhood settings for your child that stress scientifically proven approaches. Early childhood settings utilizing direct literacy instruction with a good developmental curriculum are typically most successful in assuring reading readiness.

Maine children can do much better if given the right opportunity. Our schools certainly can be doing much better.

The full potential of Maine children will only be realized when Maine parents, taxpayers and legislators display the will to demand real change in our schools, reject the soft bigotry of low expectations and adopt high-quality evidence-based instruction for all Maine children.

Michael Towey, CCC-SLP is a speech language pathologist and immediate past president of the Maine Speech Language Hearing Association, Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast.