Do you want your child to learn how to read? Ditch the masks!

Literacy advocate Karen Vaites in a few tweets explains quite well why young children should not be masked during class.  She performed a service with these tweets.

Do you want the children to learn how to read? Enough damage has been done because of ignorant politicians.

Education should NEVER be partisan. Children and their welfare should NEVER e partisan.

I'd like to take a minute to talk about how reading is taught in the early years, because I think it explains the risks for K–3's created by COVID era instructional changes.

Let's look into a kindergarten to see how kids learn the code of the English language.

(thread) pic.twitter.com/rb92mfyreJ

— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) July 31, 2021

The English language has 26 letters, but they combine to make 44 sounds.

For example, S and H combine to make the /sh/ sound.

By teaching kids the ways that letters and letter combinations correspond to sounds, we empower them to decode new words they haven’t seen before. pic.twitter.com/n7wmupz180

— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) July 31, 2021

When you go into Kindergarten & 1st grade classrooms, you see lots of instruction to teach kids those sounds and how they correspond to letters / letter combinations.

Here are kinders sounding out words.

‘Trash’ has 5 letters & 4 sounds.

Students practice new sounds each day. pic.twitter.com/90Ja9NHLe2

— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) July 31, 2021

In the class I was observing, students were learning about /th/, which makes two different sounds:

The soft sound in “Seth” and the hard sound in “that.” pic.twitter.com/xRqIFwwBJs

— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) July 31, 2021

Notice the attention the teacher gives to her articulation. Her mouth models the sound, and kids follow.

The class explores the vibration of their vocal cords and which sounds push air out of the mouth.

“Moth. No vibrating, just the air pushing out.” pic.twitter.com/XW6DrN2ZnP

— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) July 31, 2021

Often, you’ll see teachers reference or model tongue positioning, like you see in tis video (skip to 1:50), especially with kits who are struggling with pronunciation.https://t.co/kxYzRsBddE

— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) July 31, 2021

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