May marks Mental Health Awareness Month, a crucial time to recognize and address the importance of emotional and psychological well-being for individuals of all ages. While the focus often rests on adults, it’s essential to remember that students, from the earliest grades through adolescence, also navigate a complex landscape of social pressures, academic demands, and personal struggles that can significantly impact their mental health and overall well-being. Recognizing these challenges and providing appropriate support is paramount in fostering healthy development and empowering young learners to thrive.
The Link Between Reading and Mental Well-being
Learning to read is a fundamental developmental step, opening doors to academic achievement and a lifelong love of learning. However, for students who struggle to decode words – the basic skill of sounding them out – this process can be filled with frustration, worry, and a negative impact on how they see themselves. Research clearly shows a connection between reading difficulties and mental health challenges. Studies have indicated that early reading failure can contribute to feelings of sadness, loneliness, and difficulty with social interactions (Erskine et al., 2015). These students are also at a higher risk for both internalizing problems like anxiety and depression, and externalizing problems through behavioral issues. The negative experiences associated with reading difficulties can significantly lower self-esteem and negatively affect students’ overall mental well-being.
Debbie Meyer is the Director of Community Engagement and Recruitment and adjunct professor in Iona University’s Education Department and a former Columbia University Community Scholar. She is also a fierce advocate for dyslexics and their families. Debbie understands how reading challenges affect students’ mental health, both inside the school and out in the world.
“Those that don’t learn to read, read less and they learn less,” explains Debbie. “Then they end up having other conditions because they are not thriving in school. They get depressed and they get school anxiety. This can develop into real mental illness.”
Decodable Readers: Building Literacy and Confidence
This is where decodable readers can play an important role. They are carefully designed books that focus on consistent sound-spelling patterns, providing essential support for striving readers. While their main goal is to improve reading fluency and accuracy, the positive effects of well-designed decodable books go beyond just reading skills; they also significantly contribute to students’ mental health and overall well-being.
By enabling students to use their phonics knowledge to accurately sound out words, these books build a sense of accomplishment and boost their confidence. Each word read correctly, each sentence completed, becomes a small victory, gradually breaking down the negative self-image that can develop from reading struggles. This newfound ability can lead to greater involvement in reading, a stronger willingness to take learning risks, and a more positive overall attitude toward school. The simple reduction in reading-related stress can have a significant positive effect on a child’s mental well-being.
Integrating Mental Health Themes in Literacy
Furthermore, the potential of decodable readers to support mental health can be amplified by thoughtfully considering the themes within these books. Tumbleweed creates decodable books that subtly weave in student-friendly themes addressing mental health. Whether it’s exploring the importance of asking for help when needed, understanding how to be a supportive friend to others, or offering relatable scenarios for children navigating challenges like ADD/ADHD, these books aim to build decoding skills while gently introducing helpful concepts that can empower students to address mental health challenges.
For example, in Tumbleweed’s reader, The Sky is the Limit, students learn the phonics skill “Y as a long vowel.” They also learn about dyslexia, a common condition that can make reading and writing difficult. Many students who have dyslexia are self-conscious and try to hide their condition, which often leads to challenges like anxiety or depression.
By addressing this potential challenge in a positive way, however, young readers can come to realize that there are many strengths that dyslexics possess that separate them from those without the condition. They learn that dyslexia can be a strength.
The book also provides examples of people like movie director Steven Spielberg, astronaut Pete Conrad, and actor Selma Hayek, who have been very successful in their respective fields and are also dyslexic.
By presenting these important life skills within the context of accessible, decodable text, Tumbleweed’s books ensure that striving readers can engage with these helpful themes without the added barrier of vocabulary or sentence structures for which the students are not yet prepared. This allows students to not only build their reading abilities but also to absorb valuable social-emotional lessons in a way that feels safe and manageable.
The gentle inclusion of these themes can help normalize conversations around emotions and challenges, reduce stigma associated with seeking help or having differences, and provide relatable examples of positive coping mechanisms and supportive behaviors. This approach recognizes the interconnectedness of literacy and mental well-being, using the process of learning to read as an opportunity to also foster emotional growth and resilience.
In conclusion, while the main goal of decodable readers is to give students essential decoding skills, their ability to positively influence mental health is significant. Recognizing and using this connection can transform the reading experience for striving readers, turning something that caused stress into a source of pride, empowerment, and valuable life lessons.
Reference:
Erskine, J., Gregg, N., Charlton, T., & Snowling, M. J. (2015). Literacy and socioemotional adjustment in childhood: A prospective longitudinal study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 56(7), 759–767. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12358
