Ep #97: Is Your Child REALLY Learning to Read at School? A Conversation with Dr. Irene Daria

A five-year-old came up to his mother and said, “Mom, my school isn’t teaching me how to read.” His mother was a journalist who was studying to become a psychologist, and her son was attending one of the top public schools in New York City. And so she didn’t believe him. And she said, “Your school’s gonna do this. It’s gonna teach you how to read.”

And the story she came on to share on the podcast today was what happened next. It even got to the point where the school diagnosed him with a reading disability. But that wasn’t enough for this mom. She thought there was more and so she started doing the research to figure out what was actually happening. Her research led her to write an amazing book called I Didn’t Believe Him.

It’s a story that is way too common about children that have fallen behind in reading that did not learn how to read correctly because sadly, we weren’t giving teachers the right tools, the right methods to teach children how to read. She talks about the journey, what she’s learned about reading, the history of reading, and then what kids need to learn to read successfully. And then she tells you the very happy ending about her son and where he is now.

My guest today is Dr. Irene Daria. She is a developmental psychologist specializing in teaching children how to read. This was a fascinating conversation and is helpful to any parent with a child who has not learned to read yet or who has struggled with reading. You’re going to want to listen to this one. It’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast, where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow, and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves, because, you know what? We all really need and deserve that, too. I am your host, Amy Nielson, let’s get ready to start the show.

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Amy Nielson: Dr. Irene Daria, welcome to the show.

Irene Daria: Thank you. So happy to be here, Amy.

Amy: I am so excited about this conversation today, and I was fascinated by your story. And sadly, it’s very common. And so I think we should start there because you are a psychologist that helps children with reading, which is kind of an interesting thing. So can you share your story with us about how this happened?

Irene: Sure. So I became a psychologist who specializes in teaching children how to read after what I write about. So I’ve written a book that has just come out. It’s called I Didn’t Believe Him. And it tells the story of what I’m about to tell you. So what happened was my son, when he was five years old, came home from school and said, “Mommy, my school isn’t teaching me how to read. They tell us to look at the pictures and guess what the words are, and that’s not reading, mommy. How do you read?”

So at the time, I was “just a mom.” I was working as a journalist at the time and I was going for my degree in psychology. I was not yet a psychologist. I had, like most parents out there, I had absolutely no idea how children learn to read. None. I was a writer. I’d published three previous books with major publishing houses. There were books all over our home, read to our son all the time. He loved books, loved stories. He couldn’t wait, you know, to learn how to read.

And I told him to trust his school because his school was one of the most highly regarded public schools in New York City. You had to apply to get into that school. It was known for being academically rigorous and because it had such a great reputation, I figured they knew what they were doing. Even though I had gone to a workshop that gave for parents on how they taught reading and it made no sense to me. None. Zero. They covered up words with Post-Its. Do not teach your kids how to sound out words when you read with them at home, they told us.

So what I now know that I did not know then, having done my dissertation on how kids learn to read and having gone through this whole process is they were using a method that is so common in schools. Now, it’s astonishing that this was and I think continues to still be the prevalent way of teaching reading, even though, and we can talk about this later, for sure, lots of positive change is happening, for sure.

This method of teaching believes that learning how to read is as natural as learning how to speak. And if you just surround children with books and read to them, they will basically pick it up on their own.

And phonics was considered, you know, important, but it was sprinkled in, you know, as needed. When you got to a silent E word like cane, the kids learned the rule that E makes the A make the long sound. That was it. And parents would be going to the teacher and saying, “My child does not know this rule.” And the teacher’s response would be, “Well, your child was absent the day we did that lesson.” So phonics lessons were very cursory. So that’s the beginning of our story. So I just…

Amy: It’s so hard though, because I think this is such a common thing. And it hurts my heart in several ways, right? Because parents, we’re not taught, kids don’t come with a manual that’s like, here’s how you teach your child to read. We’re not educated in how to do that. And what’s interesting is now I work with a lot of teachers and helping them start their own reading coaching businesses, they tell me, I got my degree in this.

I’ve been teaching for 10, 15, 20 years. I never actually learned how to teach kids to read, which is astounding to me. Then we talk about this method. I try to always come from a place of, I think we’re all doing the best that we can with what we have. It’s just hard because we haven’t had the right tools and the people that are suffering for that are our kids.

I’m so grateful for this movement that we have back to phonics, the science that’s coming out, the neuroscience that’s coming out, right? All the stuff that’s showing us how kids actually learn to read and the better information we have. And I’m like, spread the word, everybody. Tell everyone. So I was so thrilled about your book and bringing this message to even more people so that we know what to say when our kid is saying, I don’t know how to read or I hate reading or things like that.

Because to me, I hate reading is very similar to I don’t know how to read yet. I’m afraid of making mistakes and being ashamed of not knowing how to do it well. And so all of those things that are coming out of a child’s mouth really boil down to, I don’t know how to read and I need help. And then we can do something about that now because we have better information.

Irene: Absolutely. And that’s one of the reasons that I wrote this book. So the book is the story of what happened to my son. It weaves in the story of what happened to my son with the history of reading instruction for the past 100 years. And people say that the book reads like a thriller, like even though it’s on this series, no for real, even though it’s on this serious subject, that it’s a page turner and like a beach read because you’re like, oh really that happened? And then oh my god this is why schools are doing this? And then really his teacher said that?

And do you know what is so wonderful? So many teachers are embracing this book. I was afraid, like you’re saying, teachers are saying they were not taught how to read, right? And teachers are seeing themselves in my son’s teacher and saying, oh my God, I can so relate. And oh my God, I’m glad I know better now. But so many teachers don’t know better yet.

10 states have actually outlawed this method of teaching reading. If you can imagine, it’s against the law. This method is known as three-queuing, where kids use, you know, three cues to learn to read. And four states are mandating that the science of reading be taught in teacher prep programs, but that’s only four states. That means all those schools are still churning out teachers who are not properly trained to teach reading.

And just so going back to the reason I wrote this book is one, I really, I hope it helps prevent what happened to my son from happening to other kids. And that two, life can be hard and busy and it’s an enjoyable read, right? So people will enjoy reading it. Also to get the message across how kids suffer when they’re not taught to read.

So bringing it back to what you were saying and that’s so right on point what you said, you know, the words that they say and the message behind those words is I don’t know how to do it. And there are all sorts of cues to look for. Like in kindergarten, my son began having terrible nightmares, like screaming and waking up dreaming he was drowning. He was drowning in school. That’s how he felt, right? He had no idea how to read and that affects everything.

He moved, his personality changed in the classroom. He was a real chatterbox and became one. And by the way, there’s a happy ending to the story. I have to put that in there. There’s a happy ending. We triumphed in the end, But what a road, oh my God, to get there.

Started saying he hated school, moved to the back of the room and sat there in silence bowing his head so that the teacher wouldn’t notice him. Just such a change. And the way he finally got through to me was in first grade. That’s a whole year later. There’s a little bit, there’s actually a substantial amount of guilt here. I let a whole year pass. He brought home great grades in reading.

Amy: Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that interesting? Yep.

Irene: And the reason he brought home great grades in reading links to how he finally got through to me. So what he did in first grade, this was a kid who was determined to learn how to read. And I have to say, if he didn’t do this next thing, I would have continued trusting his school. And I would have, in the end, thought there was something wrong with my son and not with the teaching methods.

Because his school, I’m jumping a little bit ahead of the story, but I began teaching him how to read at home using phonics and at home he made great progress. In school he wasn’t making progress because they were using those leveled books with the big words in them that kids can’t possibly read, right?

Amy: Yes.

Irene: And the more I asked the school to teach phonics, the more they began saying, there’s something wrong with your son, he should be evaluated. And I felt like I was against the speeding train trying to teach him how to read so they wouldn’t evaluate him. Because at this point, I no longer trusted his school. And I was afraid that they would sort of find something.

Because if you do enough tests you could almost find something wrong you know conceivably with anyone I thought at the time but what he did was he took one of the little books he he said mama you want to see how I read? I’ll show you how I read. He put the book behind his back and turning the pages, right?

Can you imagine a six year old, the thought that went into this, into how can I get across to my mommy? What’s wrong? He couldn’t articulate it. He didn’t know the words three cueing. I don’t think he even had the word memorized yet, but he held the book behind his back and turning the pages at exactly the right time, read, “A house is a home,” turn the page.

“A teepee is a home,” turn the page. “An apartment building is a home,” turn the page. And that’s how I realized, wow, the reason his school thought he was reading was because he had memorized every single one of those little stories that his teacher had previously read to him, and he had no idea how to read.

Amy: And yet that is how we were teaching kids to read for a while, right? For a decade. For way too long, right? And I love that you brought up the reading wars, like your book and talking about this story because it’s literally called the reading wars. When I heard that, I’m like, really? It’s that dramatic? That sounds a little dramatic, right? But then the more I’ve learned about it, oh my goodness, there is a history behind this.

But yeah, we were teaching kids to read this way for so long. And here’s the thing. I think so many times when I look at this, I’m like, someone was trying to solve a problem, right? Phonics can be very repetitive and it can take time and work, right? To build those pathways in the brain, it can take some time. And I think people were looking for a shortcut to make it easier. And it does, I feel like, initially look like they’re reading faster because they are mostly memorizing.

So they like memorize a couple of words. They look at the picture and it looks like they’re reading. And the problem is, is you get out of first, second grade and into where words get a little bigger and they’re at a complete loss. They don’t know any of the rules or they learned one here and there like the silent E if they were in class that day. It’s devastating because then we start to see this really difficult decline and this challenge that these kids are having.

And then we have these kids that are now getting further and further behind. And I saw a statistic recently, it was like 25% of our 12th graders are below grade level in reading or something like that. It’s just really heartbreaking.

Irene: Yeah, it’s heartbreaking. And I think it’s important to say this is a very big country with a lot of schools and some schools are doing it perfectly. This is not to say that every school out there is doing it wrong, but reading in many, many, many schools has been done incorrectly since the 1920s, believe it or not.

So this all happens, it was a time called the progressive era, which was a time of change, And that’s when phonics was booted out of school. So it was changed for women’s rights, you know, women, workers, children. And as part of that whole movement, they wanted to make, as you said, school more enjoyable for children. And by the way, kids love phonics. Kids love phonics.

Amy: It’s actually really fun.

Irene: It’s the teacher.

Amy: It’s realy, really fun.

Irene: And including me. So I’m not, I’m not like blaming or saying something bad about teachers. Like sometimes, you know, I would be teaching my son and I’d be like, oh my God, okay, enough already, you know, but he loved it because he saw each step, he knew what he learned, he could feel himself, he could see himself getting better with each step and never a complaint out of him.

So I think it was more the teachers who were maybe, you know, bored with it, But phonics got booted out in the 1920s. And this is really some unbelievable story. I almost called my book unbelievable. And it has all these little tidbits in it.

But Dr. Samuel Orton is the co-creator of a method called Orton-Gillingham that I’m sure you’re familiar with. It’s the gold standard now for teaching dyslexic children how to read, but really for teaching anybody how to read. Dr. Orton in the 1920s was working in public schools in the Midwest, and he saw what started happening when kids all of a sudden were being told to memorize whole words instead of sound them out. All of a sudden, kids were struggling with learning how to read. This had never happened before in our country. The letters that soldiers wrote home in the Civil War, they’re considered among the most literate ever.

So he saw that this method was creating struggling readers and actually wrote an article that he published in a journal called the sight word method as a source of reading disability. So already in the 1920s it was a question of is it dyslexia or dysteachia? And he was ignored.

This is a long story that’s actually fascinating, but just to jump to the main plot points, this method of teaching was in schools until the 1950s. Then a book called Why Johnny Can’t Read came out and that was revolutionary. Parents started arguing for phonics, parents argue, argue, argue for phonics as much as you can. Parents started arguing for phonics and it came back and then this method called whole language came to be.

And the way this came to be was a professor named Ken Goodman observed readers. Now, this is such an important thing for everyone to know. And I’m telling you this story because sometimes people hear this story and they’re like, “No, this can’t be true. This cannot be true.” This is really true. And this is how it came to be true.

So this professor believed, and back then it was all about belief, right? Not research, not facts, not proof. He believed that reading, and many other people, believed that reading was as natural as learning how to speak. And other people believed in phonics, right? That’s when the reading wars happened. The reading wars really flared after the 1950s.

He observed children reading. And he noticed these were kids who were reading passages that were hard for them. And he saw they did three things. They used the pictures to guess what the words were. They used context to try to figure out what the words were. And they used only the first letter of the word to try to figure out the word. They didn’t sound out the word.

Now, really, really important, Amy, this guy, I’m going to call him this guy because it’s like I just, you know, I can’t call him Dr. Goodman because it’s just unbelievable, like the lack of common sense, didn’t think to himself, “I am watching struggling readers read. I am watching children who learned with this method that had them memorize words that Dr. Orton had identified as causing dyslexia. I’m watching these kinds of, I don’t say these kinds of children, these children who were trained in these kinds of methods read. I’m watching struggling readers read.”

No, he said he watched readers read and this is how we all read and this is why we should use this method and the reason phonics should not be taught is because they made the most mistakes when they used just the first letter of the word to guess what the word was. But that’s because these kids had never learned how to sound out words. But he never stopped to think about that important point, and neither did the zillions of people. And that’s how this method came to be in our schools today.

Amy: It’s hard to listen to, you know? And I remember when I was learning about this for the first time and how hard it was to hear. You’re like, oh, what we’d like, why did we? Why? But my goodness, we can’t go back and try to have a better past.

But what we can do is learn and try to become more aware and try to understand maybe what some of the ideas were and the goals and how we got to where we were, but then also to recognize the value in what we have now. I just think it’s so incredibly amazing that the science and the ability we have now to really go and do imaging and watch what’s actually happening in children’s brains.

And we can do it with struggling readers, and we can do it with really expert readers, and we can see the differences, what part of their brain’s lighting up, and what method they were taught to read with, and how that impacts what part of their brain is lighting up and how successful they are. And so it’s just so sad to hear and also so encouraging that we have something we can do about it now. We have better information now.

And I think that’s the hope that I want people to feel in this. Maybe feeling a little bit of the, I don’t know, being appropriately upset when something is wrong, I think can be healthy because it drives us to do something different and to change. And so feel that, but then also there’s hope because there is so much better information now and we can do something. Because it was there, I think, all along, but it wasn’t always being listened to. But now we’ve got really good science behind it.

Irene: It was there from the 1970s and then it was really there from the year 2000, when Congress convened the National Reading Panel and summarized all the research. But I agree with you. My goal, I don’t want to make anyone feel bad about what happened. Because actually, recently on Twitter, someone posted a graphic describing how she felt and she shared it. It’s been shared over and over by teachers.

She equated how she feels now that she knows how to teach reading correctly with the stages of grief and what she went through, you know, first denial and anger and that’s deep. That’s, you know, teachers are feeling so guilty over what they did to children.

But what I really hope people do, the reason I’m trying to get this message through to parents is there are kids out there who are in second, third, fourth, and fifth grade and in high school who are struggling for this reason. You know, the wonderful news is out there for preschoolers and kindergartners now and kids who were little in the schools that now know how to teach reading correctly. But there are so many.

I actually, I’m consulting at a public school in New York, and I’m working with a third grade classroom and in that classroom more than 75% of the children are reading at a kindergarten or first grade level. And one of them can’t sound out her short vowel words and she’s my mission. I’m rolling up my sleeves and I am taking this girl and I am saving her academic life.

So you know I don’t want people to be like mad about what happened because what happened it’s what people believed. Maybe there should have been a little bit more common sense. Teachers were tutoring phonics after school while teaching this method in the classroom. Maybe there should have been a little bit more of a connection, but there wasn’t. And people are human, and I’m one of those people who didn’t make the connection.

Do you know what I mean? Like I trusted the school, and it’s easy for me now to say, oh my God, where was my common sense, right? So I’m not like pointing fingers at people. I’m one of those people. It’s important for parents to know this could be the reason their child might be struggling with reading. I now own a tutoring company in New York City and I have high schoolers come to me who are struggling with sounding out words and we’re working to remediate them. And it can be remediated.

Amy: So beautiful. I love that piece of this because that to me is the hope in all of this, right? That with good information and the right techniques and all of that, regardless of what’s happened in the past, there’s something we can do from wherever you are.

I was recently talking to a principal, she owns a school, and she’s in Trinidad and Tobago. And she was talking about how she was working with a 14-year-old and trying to help teach him how to read. And she was telling me, Amy, I have all these teachers and I have a license for them to teach kids to read, but none of my teachers know how to teach kids to read. And so I was helping her through that so she could go then and teach her teachers how to teach kids to read. And yeah, they’re working with high school kids.

And what I think is so beautiful is that the word is getting out and being more widely accepted and that transformation is starting to happen. But wherever you are, that’s my message, wherever you are, if you have a kid that’s early, then yes, we want to start them off right.

But if you have a kid that maybe is struggling, yes, it might be this. They might’ve missed this piece. They might have missed the phonemic awareness or the phonics, right? And we can start from wherever they are and help them make that progress, which is just so encouraging and hopeful because it’s so impactful.

I mean, talk to us. How much impact does it have? When you were talking earlier about your son—and I remember thinking this, and then we were talking about other things—but you were talking about him moving to the back of the class and saying he hated school and not talking anymore.

When I work with teachers and teach them about teaching kids to read, we all have the visual in our heads of the kids that come in with the slumped shoulders and their heads down and just they know they can’t read and they feel like less than. They feel like they’re not enough. They feel like a failure. It is so heartbreaking to watch.

And then when you can help them start to like, learn these basic skills that build on top of each other to be able to look at a word and decode it and figure it out. And then just how it changes their posture, how it changes their confidence. It is remarkable the difference in something, all these things going on in the child that literally have nothing to do with reading a word. It’s what they believe about themselves when they learn how to read correctly.

So this is moving in states and we’re getting more states. I love that these old methods are literally being outlawed in some places. That’s good stuff. How old is your kiddo now?

Irene: This took place in the year 2007. It took me time to process it and then life went on and I started the tutoring company and I wrote the book because his story is still happening today. Do you know what I mean? But where he is now, he’s in a fabulous place. And I just have to interject. So a little bit back to his story, and then I’ll tell you where he is now.

His school, we actually let his school evaluate him. My husband said we’re probably among some of the few people who wanted a school or let a school evaluate him so that we could prove there was nothing wrong with him. But then he came home and he did something called mirror writing. He wrote backwards, which at the time I didn’t know was perfectly normal for that age. That’s actually why we let them evaluate him, because if there was something wrong, I wanted to know about it and I wanted to help him, right?

So they evaluated him. I’m telling you this so you can compare to where he is now and what would have happened if I hadn’t stepped in and taught him how to read. They evaluated him. On every single subtest, he scored either high average or superior. So perfect evaluation, right? In phonemic awareness and like, you name it, he was great at it. Yet his school labeled him learning disabled because his reading level did not match his high IQ.

So that’s the definition in some states for a learning disability. If an ability in school doesn’t match the IQ. Now why was his reading level low? Hello? Because his school didn’t teach him to read for an entire year. And that’s something else I want parents to know is that one of the joyful, and I love how you are looking for joy in this message and there is joy in this message.

The reviews of the book have been glowing everywhere and one teacher on Amazon posted, your review made me rethink the IEP, Individualized Education Plan, of every child in my school. And another psychologist wrote, I have been evaluating children for many, many years and screening them for phonemic awareness and phonics, and never ever did I imagine that they didn’t know it because they weren’t taught it. And it made her reevaluate how she was screening people. So the difference that is happening and the awareness, but like parents should look at why a level might be low.

Okay, so you have this child who was labeled learning disabled. That label was removed the following year because I kept on teaching him and he made progress, but you can imagine how heartbreaking that was to hear and go through and where he is now. He went on beginning in third grade, he soared academically. He graduated his elementary school with all sorts of honors. He was accepted to the Johns Hopkins Talented Youth Program when he was really young. He was salutatorian of his really rigorous high school.

He was hired by Apple when he was just 17 years old in college. He went up to them, they were recruiting on his campus. He was only a freshman and he wasn’t supposed to be there, it was for upperclassmen. But I’ll tell you a silver lining from what he went through. He learned to question adults, not in a disrespectful way, but he learned people are human and you can speak up for yourself and advocate for yourself and just ask. It doesn’t hurt to ask, right?

So he went up to these people who were recruiting on his campus. He pitched them an idea right then and there. The guy said, that is a great idea. They flew him out to Cupertino that summer, paid for his flight, paid for his housing, paid him. And he began the development of an idea that now is on the Apple iOS system. It’s called Live Text. 17 years old.

And now he has a fantastic career in San Francisco as a computer software engineer, working on autonomous vehicles, just loving what he’s doing, feeling confident and great about himself. He has volunteered at schools in Harlem to help kids learn to read. He’s developed apps for kids to use for reading. So his story really had a happy ending.

I kept much of this from him when he was young. He had no idea he was being evaluated for a learning issue. He had no idea he was labeled learning disabled until he was maybe 16 or older. So he had no idea of the trauma that I was going through. But imagine if I hadn’t taught him how to read. Imagine.

I’m not saying everyone has to be a computer scientist. Not everyone has to go to college. Not everyone has to have a profession. People are very happy doing all sorts of different things. But for him, he’s such a bright boy that not having had the opportunity to use his mind on a daily basis in his work would have made him unhappy. So I’m glad that for him, he was able to pursue the path that he wanted to pursue.

Amy: That is such a beautiful and hopeful story. And I am so excited to read this book. So this is, we have to be done. It’s been so good. I’m like, oh my goodness, we can keep talking about this all day.

But I want you to tell us where the name of your book again and where to get it. And of course, we’ll drop the link in the show notes, but I want you to let us know where you can get it because I know I want to read it. And I’m guessing some of our listeners are going to want to as well. So Can you tell us where to get this book?

Irene: Of course. Oh, and I really, I think you’ll really enjoy reading it. It’s called, I Didn’t Believe Him. The subtitle is very long. You don’t need to know the subtitle, but the subtitle was, My Son Told Me His School Wasn’t Teaching Him to Read, I Told Him to Trust His Teacher. This Is the Story of What Happened Next. So I didn’t believe him. It’s available on Amazon. You can ask your local bookstore if they have it. If they don’t, they could order it, but you can definitely get it on Amazon.

Amy: And we will drop that link for you, our listeners, in the show notes. So thank you so much for coming and sharing your story. And this is such an important message to get out and to give people the options and the awareness of what’s happening so that they know how to respond when their kid comes and talks to them or when they see their child struggling, that there’s options and there’s questions to be asked. And I think that’s such a powerful thing for parents to have, and a good thing for teachers as well.

Irene: And thank you, and I love your message of hope. I think it’s a wonderful message.

Amy: Thank you so much.

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