Former Kindergarten teacher and world traveler Launa Hall is back with us at Book Life to share part two in her special guest series “Learning to Read Around the World.”
Welcome to Crete!
Learning to Read in Greece by Launa Hall
In the tiny village of Elos, school children prepared to recite the poems they’d written for the occasion: the annual Chestnut Festival. After our long bus ride of hairpin turns along a tiny mountain road, we joined the crowd filling the village square, munching on roasted chestnuts and tipping back little paper cups of the local wine. Everyone was ready for a festive afternoon of speeches, music, and poetry in the majestic Crete mountains.
The children looked a little nervous. Their teachers gently lined them up and straightened their chestnut costumes made from brown construction paper. While the mayor spoke about the year’s chestnut bounty, the children looked around, searching for their parents’ faces. A mom next to me explained that the children had worked hard to compose their μαντινάδες (mantinades), an ancient form of rhyming couplets that remain deeply important to Cretan people. It was this and other traditions in spoken poetry and theatre that were part of the inspiration for the creation of the Greek alphabet; people wanted to capture that fleeting beauty and write it down.
Young poets and their teachers in Elos Village, Crete, Greece.
The original set of twenty-four Greek letters — genesis of so many alphabets spread across the globe including the modern Greek alphabet and the alphabet I’m writing in now –– was a fresh idea in the 8th century BCE. The Phoenicians had devised a consonant-only phonetic system about two centuries earlier; it worked for their language, but it was a mess for vowel-emphasizing Greek. So the Greeks repurposed some unneeded Phoenician consonant symbols as vowels, made some other changes, and the world’s first true alphabet –– expressing every phoneme –– was born.
This invention, “the perfect match between the spoken and written word,” according to information at the Epigraphic Museum in Athens, has rippled across the centuries. The museum goes on to describe the Greek alphabet as “one of the most significant contributions of the Greeks to the history of civilization.” That’s an astonishing claim, considering those contributions include democracy, astronomy, philosophy, modern mathematics and medicine…the list goes on.
With a setup like that, I couldn’t wait to hear what Greek school teachers told their little students about their letters.
I asked as soon as I gathered with a few teachers in Heraklion, Crete, while their students boisterously enjoyed a break in the school courtyard. Do Greek children know the rich history of the writing system they inherited? Do they know the Greek alphabet is the grandparent of alphabets worldwide? Are kids encouraged to take great pride in the Greek letters?
Possibly the earliest example of Attic Greek writing, from 8th century BCE, Epigraphic Museum, Athens, Greece.
“Sort of,” shrugged Emily, an expert teacher with more than twenty years of experience. Another teacher said she mentioned it to her students, but that it’s not a big deal — they just get on with the task of learning to read. “I would say we are not prideful about it,” she said, then reminded me, “We have to teach this group of children to read.”
Like neighboring Bulgaria, Greece has adopted a national reading curriculum, and every school in the country is expected to teach first graders to read with the approved textbook and accompanying writing workbook. When I asked the teachers their thoughts on the curriculum, they were generally approving. One teacher told me she supplements the curriculum with homework of short, simple stories that kids have learned to decode on their own. Others agreed that many students need a bit more practice than what the curriculum provides.
The teachers also spoke of reading books aloud to build vocabulary and comprehension and for the joy it adds to the school day. When I asked about the role of writing, the teachers said that daily writing is a crucial part of teaching children to read — both forming letters clearly in the complementary writing workbook, and writing sentences. Unsurprisingly, often the sentences are poems — “That’s what makes writing fun,” they said.
While the children continued to play in the courtyard, Emily guided me to a Kindergarten classroom. Kindergarteners in Greece build phonemic awareness and familiarity with the letters in preparation for starting the national reading curriculum the following year. I saw children’s crafts displayed across the room and ample books, both for the kids to browse on their own and for read-alouds. The teachers told me about their field trips to build critically important background knowledge, and to tie in with the books they were reading together. With this foundation, they would soon begin the phonics instruction that would enable them to fully decode their written language.
Key features of the Greek national reading curriculum
- Print is explicitly presented as the written form of spoken language. The first pages introduce the most common letters (α /a/, τ /t/, and π /p/) in simple words in characters’ speech bubbles. Just a few pages later appears the first of many readers’ theatre passages, a power fluency-building tool. Even the newest reader takes a part and reads out loud. Later, the text introduces traditional Greek myths, also meant to be read aloud.
- The text includes images of environmental print (commonly seen food wrappers, book covers, traffic signs, etc.) as the letters are introduced to decode them, reminding students of the practical uses for the skill they are building.
- The curriculum is clearly paced. For example, page 42 should be reached by October 28th for Ημέρα του όχι (“No Day”), the annual remembrance of the Greek refusal of Mussolini’s fascist ultimatum. Using words the children have been taught to decode, the text gives a brief, age-appropriate explanation of “The heroes of 1940.” Later pages drive pacing with mentions of other Greek national holidays.
In Elos, watching the first pair of pint-sized poets hold hands and walk bravely to the microphone, I thought of all the phonics work they had done to prepare for this moment. It is a big task requiring repeated practice for a child to learn to read and write, even in a language like Greek with a mostly straightforward spelling system. But now, witnessed by their whole community, a new generation was able to compose in a beloved ancient poetic form.
A page from the national reading curriculum that conveys an element of Greek culture — a shadow puppet theatre. Children take parts to practice decoding and build fluency.
A hush fell over the crowd. The mom next to me drew in her breath. First one child recited her original line of poetry, then the other child recited his rhyming line, creating together a chestnut-celebrating couplet. The next pair and then the next came to the microphone, smiling shyly but doing a good job of speaking up — just as their teachers, nodding encouragement nearby, no doubt taught them. The children’s clear voices carried into the mountains. It was easy to imagine that even their ancestors heard.
Takeaways from teaching reading in Greece
- Teach decoding anchored in meaning. Greek instruction uses pillars of Greek culture to remind new readers of the purpose of reading. Through poetry, theatre, and traditional myths, children connect reading to their long heritage of spoken language.
- Don’t rest on your laurels. Greeks may have been lauded as an enlightened, literate society and the creators of the world’s first true alphabet, yet the teachers I met are focused on results for the children in their classrooms today. When a country has a reputation for education achievement, it’s tempting to view high levels of literacy as inherent in its identity. But a nation is only as literate as the current generation.
- Decoding is democratic. The Greek national curriculum, clearly paced and mandated in all school settings, uses explicit phonics instruction anchored in engaging activities. These features help educators maintain instructional consistency and identify students who need additional help to decode the writing system. In the birthplace of democracy, there is serious, systematic effort to teach every child to read.
Additional posts from this series
Resources
About the Author
Publication Date
January 31, 2025