“Reading is the ultimate weapon – destroying ignorance, poverty, and despair before they can destroy us. A nation that doesn’t read much doesn’t know much. And a nation that doesn’t know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box, and the voting booth. And those decisions ultimately affect an entire nation – the literate and the illiterate. The challenge therefore is to convince future generations of children that carrying books is more rewarding than carrying guns.”
Jim Trelease
The Read-aloud Handbook
The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.
Becoming a Nation of Readers
“In 1970, males outnumbered females in college enrollment by a ratio of 59 to 41. By 2000, that ratio had been reversed to 57 to 43 in favor of women. There’s been one significant change in the value system of the male culture. What entered the system between 1970 and 2000? Try ESPN and round-the-clock sports. By 2000, moms were taking their daughters to work, but dads were taking their sons to the stadium.”
“The boy who only sees his father focusing on athletics, who lives in a home or culture where it’s all sports all the time, will allot far less value and time to school than to athletics. The end result has been higher sports scores, lower school scores.”
Jim Trelease
The Read-aloud Handbook
FromClassroom Management by Carol Cummings
Dear Parents,
Thank you for taking the time to read with your child. Here are some hints for helping your child improve reading skills:
· Set aside 20 to 30 minutes a day for reading. Your child can read to you when you get home or read to you while you cook dinner. The more time your child spends reading or being read to is directly related to improvement. You may set a kitchen timer to keep track of the time. Try to make your appointment to read the same time every day to establish a tradition.
· Celebrate the number of minutes spent reading at the end of the week. For example, set up a chart to record the number of minutes read each day. Each time you reach 100 minutes, do something special together to celebrate.
· Read WITH your child:
- Take turns reading. You read one paragraph, your child reads the next.
- If the book is difficult, use echo reading. You read 2 lines, your child reads them back to you (your echo). This way you provide a model of how the words are read.
- Give your child a chopstick or a marker (any kind of pointer) to follow along in the book as you read.
- Have your young reader find a favorite page in the book and rehearse it until it can be read perfectly. Then let your child perform that page for you. Brag about how well your child read that page to other relatives and friends. Ask your child read that page to them.
- Ask your child to read to a younger sibling. Self-concept for reading improves when a child helps others learn to read.
- Children love break-in reading. You start reading and they can break in and begin to read any time you come to the end of a sentence. You can break in next. Another form of this game is called hot potato: You begin reading and stop at any sentence and say, "Hot Potato!" Your child begins reading and stops at any sentence and says, "Hot Potato, Mom!"
· Read more difficult books to your child. Your child's brain is a "work in progress."Reading aloud helps your child build vocabulary, reading comprehension, listening skills, speaking skills, and writing skills.
Good luck! The ability to read fluently is the most important gift you can give your child.
You may have tangible wealth untold:
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be –
I had a mother who read to me.
Strickland Gillilan
“The Reading Mother”