Five Critical Questions to Ask Your Child's Teacher About Reading Instruction
As a parent, you are your child's first and most important advocate. You know his strengths, his personality, and his frustrations. When you have a gut feeling that something isn't quite right with his reading progress, you are often correct. But moving from a vague sense of worry to a productive conversation with his teacher can be challenging. How do you ask the right questions to get a clear picture of what's happening in the classroom?
At Eulexia Tutoring, we believe in empowering parents with knowledge. The goal is not confrontation, but a collaborative partnership with your child's teacher. Asking specific, informed questions about instructional methods can help you understand the approach being used and determine if it aligns with what we know about how children learn to read most effectively.
Here are five critical questions to help you start that conversation. For each question, we'll explain why it's important and what to listen for in the answer.
1. How do you teach phonics?
Why Ask This: Phonics—the knowledge of how letters and letter groups correspond to sounds—is the foundation of decoding. You want to know if phonics is being taught as a primary, structured part of the curriculum, or as an afterthought.
What to Listen For:
Green Flags (Effective Approach): Listen for words like "systematic," "sequential," "explicit," or "direct instruction." A strong answer would sound something like, "We use a structured phonics program that follows a specific sequence. We explicitly teach the letter-sound relationships, and the children practice those skills cumulatively."
Red Flags (Ineffective Approach): Be cautious if you hear answers like, "We do phonics 'mini-lessons' as issues come up," or "We use 'embedded phonics,' teaching them within the context of the stories we read." This often means phonics instruction is incidental and not systematic enough for many children to master the code.
2. What strategy do you encourage when a child comes to a word he doesn't know?
Why Ask This: This question gets to the heart of reading philosophy. Is your child being taught to be a decoder or a guesser? The answer reveals everything about the core strategy being taught.
What to Listen For:
Green Flags (Effective Approach): A strong answer focuses on the letters. "We prompt him to look at the word, tap out the sounds, and blend them together," or "We encourage him to use the phonics skills he has learned to sound it out."
Red Flags (Ineffective Approach): Be very concerned if the primary strategy involves looking away from the word. Answers like, "We tell him to look at the picture," "We ask, 'What word would make sense there?'," or "We have him skip the word and come back to it," are all components of the flawed three-cueing system, which trains the habits of poor readers.
3. How do you teach high-frequency irregular words (or "sight words")?
Why Ask This: Many common words in English have tricky, irregular parts (like said, was, of). Simply memorizing them by shape is highly inefficient and trains the student to not read. You want to know if these words are being taught in a way that helps the brain store them permanently.
What to Listen For:
Green Flags (Effective Approach): A strong answer will mention analysis. "We help the students analyze the word's sound structure. We call it 'heart word' mapping or orthographic mapping. We identify the parts of the word that follow the rules, and then we explicitly point out the 'tricky part' that they have to learn by heart."
Red Flags (Ineffective Approach): An answer centered on rote memorization is a cause for concern. "We use flashcards for daily drill and practice," or "We have them memorize a list of sight words each week." This approach relies on brute-force visual memory, which often fails.
4. What kind of books do the children use when they are first learning to read?
Why Ask This: The books used for early practice are a powerful indicator of the instructional approach. Are they designed to help a child practice decoding, or encourage him to guess?
What to Listen For:
Green Flags (Effective Approach): The ideal answer is "decodable readers" or "decodable text." This means the books contain only words with the letter-sound patterns the children have already been taught, forcing them to apply their phonics skills.
Red Flags (Ineffective Approach): Be cautious of a heavy reliance on "predictable" or "leveled readers" for initial instruction. These books often use repetitive sentence patterns and strong picture cues, which, as we discussed in a previous post, can encourage a guessing strategy over decoding.
5. How do you monitor reading progress and identify students who might be struggling?
Why Ask This: You want to know if the school is proactive or reactive. Early identification of at-risk students is crucial for preventing long-term reading failure.
What to Listen For:
Green Flags (Effective Approach): A strong answer will mention specific screeners. "We use universal screeners at the beginning of the year to check for phonemic awareness and basic phonics knowledge," or "We monitor progress on decoding skills frequently to identify children who need extra support early on."
Red Flags (Ineffective Approach): A reactive approach is a warning sign. Answers like, "We use running records to see how well they are using context to figure out words," or "We follow a 'wait and see' approach, hoping they will catch up on their own," suggest the school may not be identifying and addressing foundational skill gaps early enough.
Conclusion: Your Partner in Your Child's Success
Armed with these questions, you can have a clear, informed, and productive conversation with your child's teacher. The goal is always to build a partnership to ensure your child receives the most effective, evidence-based instruction possible. You know your child best, and by advocating for his needs with clarity and confidence, you can help set him on a lifelong path of reading success.