If teaching your child to read was simple, Spencer Russell wouldn’t have more than 1 million followers on TikTok and 1.5 million on Instagram.
Russell, a former Houston kindergarten and first-grade teacher, founded Toddlers Can Read to help parents. He’s also a dad who wanted to give his son an early start and began teaching him to read at 18 months old.
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For parents like me, Russell’s social-media videos are the answers to a thousand late-night prayers. Many of us need a lifeline to help our kids read well.
“Your key to teaching any child to read is … understanding as the parent, as the caregiver, as the teacher, how learning works,” he says in one TikTok video with nearly 800,000 views.
Before I delve into his magic reading formula, I had been following Russell’s Instagram since last summer, but only recently started taking notes when I learned my daughter was struggling with sounding out words and blending sounds together.
EXCLUSIVE: Meet Toddlers Can Read founder Spencer Russell at our live virtual event. Register here.
Russell knows what it feels like to struggle with reading.
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He grew up in New England, where he was one of the worst readers in first grade and felt “dumb” when it came to reading. He eventually caught up and became passionate about teaching, never wanting another child to feel as he did. He moved to Texas with Teach for America and later worked as a kindergarten and first-grade teacher for six years at KIPP Legacy Preparatory Academy in Houston's North Forest neighborhood, one of the city's poorest areas.
In that first year of teaching, Russell said he made a lot of mistakes, as most first-year teachers do.
“Teaching is super technical, and I knew I was not managing the class, and kids were struggling. I think most teachers would like to redo those first years,” he said.
To improve his skills, Russell shadowed a physical education teacher who was skilled at managing a classroom. She taught him among many things, the importance of giving children clear directions, consistent praise and celebrating their achievements. He began to add dance parties and more interactive activities into his classrooms. He also started visiting students at their homes.
“I think people make a lot of assumptions about families, especially Black and brown families, about their participation without ever building a trusting relationship and without demonstrating that you are showing up for their child,” he said. “If I haven’t had dinner with a parent, looked them in the eyes and asked them about their dreams for their kid, I can’t make any assumptions about them.”
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His teaching methods not only won over students and parents, but also earned him prestigious teaching awards, including the Kinder Excellence in Teaching Award with a $20,000 prize. In March, Russell was the keynote speaker at the SXSW-EDU conference. His speech topic: “It’s Time to Stop Talking About the Literacy Crisis.”
According to the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics, 34% of fourth-graders are below basic reading level, and another 31% are rated below proficient. Fewer than half of students in Houston Independent School District meet or exceed grade-level reading standards.
After Russell and his wife had their son, Russell decided to leave the classroom for a higher-paying job at a nonprofit curriculum organization. It also gave him time at home to work with his son, who was reading by age 2.
His theory is reading is not hard if you are taught well.
Russell’s method is focused on phonics, the sounds of letters, as a foundation. Then he targets blending the sounds so that children can sound out words without picture clues or prompts. The goal in teaching your child to read, he said, is to teach them the skills so they can read any word instead of teaching them to memorize.
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At Russell’s studio in Houston where he films his TikTok videos, 4-year-old Essa Suleman sounds out two-letter sounds on flashcards, then reads short sentences. His tiny feet dance under the table like a child who is pleased with himself. Russell says Essa is reading at the first-grade level.
When you see a 4-year-old reading, you assume he’s a genius. Essa might be, but Russell said it doesn’t take a genius to learn to read. It takes parents or parental figures, he said.
Essa’s mother, Hiba Suleman, was living in Pakistan when she learned about Toddlers Can Read through a relative. She found his videos tremendously helpful in coaching her to teach Essa the basics. She now lives in Houston and is one of a handful of parents Russell features in his videos.
Before I became a parent, I thought learning to read was as natural as talking. I assumed that if you regularly read to your kids, your kids learned to read. But it’s not quite that easy. More parents need to find the right tools, in addition to having a partnership with teachers.
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“I’m trying to help parents understand that learning to read should not be based fundamentally on the school or teacher. Parents are the solution,” Russell said. “We are trying to give kids a chance. We aren’t trying to make geniuses.”
Just knowing that gives me comfort.
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