If you want to see what children can do, you must stop giving them things.
Norman Douglas
Tag Archive for: children
"The majority of reading problems faced by today's adolescents and adults could have been avoided or resolved in the early years of childhood."
--National Research Council (1998)
As a parent of a young child, you are probably more concerned about your child's progress in reading than in any other subject taught in school. To achieve in math, science, English, history, geography, or any other subject, your child must have reading skills that are developed to the point that most of them are automatic. He can't be struggling to recognize words in a school textbook when he is trying to read quickly to grasp the meaning of the text. In other words, children must learn to read before they can read to learn.
Why Should Parents Encourage Children To Read?
Many parents recognize the value and enjoyment of reading to their young children but perhaps are not clear about how they can help their children become better readers. Because reading is so important to children's success in school, parents can and should help their children become interested in reading and encourage growth in their reading skills. "Learning to read is a lengthy and difficult process for many children, and success in learning to read is based in large part on developing language and literacy-related skills very early in life" (Lyon, 1997). Young children develop a more positive attitude toward reading if they experience warm and close contact with their parents while reading.
What Are Some Ways To Encourage Young Readers?
The most important thing to remember is that reading should be an enjoyable experience. The following activities can help you stimulate your child's interest in reading.
Wondering how to help your child get ready for school? Good habits are best formed when kids are young. In the primary years, kids sit on the floor to hear stories read by the teacher from a story book. In the middle and upper primary years, kids are expected to read independently and quietly to themselves as well. Preparing the foundations for good reading habits can begin as soon as your baby can sit up, from six months onwards.
Even before then, propping your baby on your lap with a book often, helps baby to associate holding books with being in a fun, safe environment. After your child is asleep in her cot, leave one or two picture books within reach so that she sees them when she wakes up. This can delay her crying out for you.
She learns very early that books are a fun, interesting companion, especially if one of them squeaks or is tactile made from various materials, or has shiny pictures and shapes that glitter from different angles. The best environment for reading is away from distractions like TV or computer screens. This can be on a designated 'reading couch' or bean bag, on a mat or on a bed.
If parents (or carer) are consistently relaxed and unhurried when reading together, kids are likely to follow suit, and remain calm and engaged with their book. Carers reading to kids often - even if only for short periods - prepares kids from a young age to enjoy listening to stories. It helps get them ready to engage with story-time at school.
Encouraging young kids to 'read' aloud as well - i.e. tell a story with book in hand while turning the pages - lays fabulous foundations to enjoy quiet reading in the future when they reach middle and upper primary school.
Author, Karen S. Thomas say she "is currently writing a fictional story in my blog, http://tommyswritingblog.wordpress.com. I am writing as I go without really knowing what the characters will do next. Check it out! Read it out aloud to your kids or to kids you know. Tell me what you think and where you want the story to go."
Recently, book publishers got some good news. Researchers gave 852 disadvantaged students 12 books (of their own choosing) to take home at the end of the school year. They did this for three successive years.
Then the researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee, looked at those students’ test scores. They found that the students who brought the books home had significantly higher reading scores than other students. These students were less affected by the “summer slide” — the decline that especially afflicts lower-income students during the vacation months. In fact, just having those 12 books seemed to have as much positive effect as attending summer school.
The future of books ...Margaret Noble’s 12th-grade class at High Tech High Media Arts in San Diego.
Noble assigned her class to create interactive artworks around the theme of children’s books of the future,
and the results are amazing
When it comes to your children, the books in your house matter more than your education or income
A study recently published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility found that just having books around the house (the more, the better) is correlated with how many years of schooling a child will complete.
Tif at Tif talks books is celebrating all things literacy with Share-a-Story, Shape-a-Future!!
She has answered the questions
What is the book from your childhood you can't wait to share with a child and why?
Who is the person who influenced you most as a reader?
Do you have any special reading-time rituals for reading aloud with kids?
and it makes a great post - beautiful!
<blockquote>Great readers have many skills to help them decode unfamiliar words. The ability to identify rhyming words can help students read more easily and efficiently. Rhyming picture books are a great resource for second language instruction. The easy rhyming text makes it easy to teach reading. Using picture books to teach words that rhyme help students improve their reading.</blockquote>
<a href="http://bit.ly/9dxj3X">Read more ...</a>
<blockquote>Great readers have many skills to help them decode unfamiliar words. The ability to identify rhyming words can help students read more easily and efficiently. Rhyming picture books are a great resource for second language instruction. The easy rhyming text makes it easy to teach reading. Using picture books to teach words that rhyme help students improve their reading.</blockquote>
<a href="http://bit.ly/9dxj3X">Read more ...</a>
What makes for effective reading instruction? A new study indicates that an important contributor is integrating material from other subjects into reading instruction.
An important international comparison test for reading is the PIRLS, administered to ten-year-olds. Hong Kong ranked 14th among 35 participating countries in the 2001 administration of the test. In 2006, Hong Kong students ranked second among 44 nations. This improvement coincided with significant changes to the reading curriculum instituted by the Curriculum Development Council of the Hong Kong government. These two changes spurred a group of researchers at the University of Hong Kong to analyze the data from the 2006 PIRLS to determine which instructional factors were associated with student reading achievement. >>>
