In this monologue, literacy educator Lois Letchford shares how she taught her son, Nicholas, to read by weaving poetry, imagination, and curiosity into their learning journey. She explains that poetry creates vivid mental pictures that give each word meaning, reducing stress and making decoding enjoyable. By asking open‑ended historical questions—such as who explored before Captain Cook or who flew across the Atlantic before Lindbergh—she sparked joint inquiry, allowing Nicholas’s questions to drive deeper research and broaden his thinking. This approach links knowledge to reading and writing, providing a meaningful "nest" for each decoded word, which enhances memory, lowers anxiety, and supports vulnerable learners. Letchford emphasizes the importance of a collaborative teacher‑student dynamic where the adult learns alongside the child, turning decoding into a positive, connected experience.
Chapters
Hello, I'm Lois Letchford, author of the book Reversed: A Memoir and literacy problem solver, talking about the pain to the passion and the secret ingredients of teaching reading. My son was my first student. I talked about the poetry. We talked about decreasing stress and using poetry to engage and have him enjoy learning. We talked about tapping into his curiosity and his imagination. Why did these things work? Because with the poetry, for me, the poetry started to explode. Poetry is based in language. It's based in language, but it requires a picture. So we're creating pictures all the time and connecting the pictures to the words. That's a critical ingredient. Language of poetry is not simple. Language of poetry is complex, but you're giving meaning to every word and allows you to discuss and to change words and to, to look at the complexity of the word meaning. That's number 2. The imagination and the curiosity was what really caused Nicholas's learning to steamroll. With the poetry of Cook, Captain Cook, the last of the great explorers. We saw this map that was different to the map that we have today. And we both together, we went on a learning journey of what happened and what knowledge did Captain Cook know when he left England in 1769. That simple question led to many more questions. And the interesting part to me was that we were on a joint journey. I was not the person full of knowledge. I knew little more than Nicholas, one step more. But it was his questions that drove me to get further answers. And I could see a boy who could think so much more clearly and so much more widely than he could when he was just learning to decode. And that was a critical component for him and for me, that he was excited to learn. And while we're learning about Captain Cook, he said, who came before Captain Cook? And I said, that's simple, that, that's an easy one. That's Christopher Columbus, would be the first one that the world knew of. There might have been others, but he was the one who— Documented it. He knew he had to go there, and he knew he had to come back, and therefore it's documented that he was the first one that the world knew about. And while we're doing this, my son, who had struggled so much with decoding, said, "And who came before Columbus?" Because I come in with a fixed mindset that this is the order of what things happen. My son blows my thinking. Out of the world by saying who came before it. And that sent us on another quest to say who did come before Columbus. And it was fascinating to see the journey on the knowledge that Columbus had and who came before him to start us with all of this knowledge. It didn't stop. With the simple one of Cook and Columbus. We then started to look at flying. Who was the first person to go fly across the Atlantic Ocean? And it was someone before Charles Lindbergh. So who came before Charles Lindbergh? It was Alcock and Brown. Who came before Alcock and Brown? And when you start asking these questions, a whole new world opens up. And then when you connect the world of knowledge with the world of writing. We're engaging children in reading, writing, and thinking. Then you get the decoding on top of that. You've given the decoding a nest. Every time, every word that you are decoding then becomes meaningful. When things are meaningful and they are important, it taps into a child's memory. There's no stress and the brain is able to take it in and make many more connections that allows them to start the learning process from a positive viewpoint. Thank you. It's Lois Letchford, Literacy Problem Solver, talking this week about the secret ingredient that is so critical if we are to help our most vulnerable students to read.
