November 1997 Publication Offers Tips to Help Parents Nurture Good Readers
Parents can start guiding their children toward success in reading from Day One, says a new publication from the Northwest Laboratory. "Reading begins at birth," says Tips for Parents About Reading, a joint publication of the Laboratory’s Comprehensive Center and Curriculum and Instruction Services. Even the youngest babies enjoy action nursery rhymes and Mother Goose verses, the publication says. Infants react to rhythm, repetition, and rhyme. They listen to stories as their parents rock them. Even when babies seem more interested in gnawing the pages of books, they are benefiting from hearing words and seeing pictures.Parents who steep their homes in reading materials, who read to their children daily, and who demonstrate their own interest in books, magazines, and newspapers are helping to ensure that their kids become good readers, say authors Deborah Davis and Jan Patricia Lewis. After a brief discussion of reading as language and an explanation of the foundations of the reading process, the publication offers practical ideas parents can use with children from birth through middle school to encourage and support reading proficiency. For instance, with infants and toddlers, some of the practices parents are encouraged to follow are:
- Read books over and over
- Talk about the pictures and ask the child questions about them
- Link reading to real life
- Use libraries as a source of books and storytelling for small children
- Talk to the child as a regular part of the daily routine
With fourth- and fifth-graders, parents are encouraged to (among other things):
- Link movies and television shows to books
- Limit TV viewing and video games to between 10 and 14 hours a week
- Give the child a magazine subscription as a gift
- Play games that involve reading and thinking about words
- Have kids read schedules, such as those for TV, buses, trains, and ferries
In addition to tips like these, the publication provides guidelines about what children typically can do at certain ages and stages of reading development.Titles of kids’ favorite books also are provided, along with a list of resources for parents and a glossary of reading terms.
"To be successful readers, children need to do a lot of reading," the authors stress. "The important thing is that it happens regularly and that it’s a positive experience."
Copies of Tips for Parents About Reading are free from NWREL’s Comprehensive Center. To request a copy, please call Bracken Reed at (503) 275-9481. It is also online as a PDF (797K, 26pp) at http://www.nwrac.org/pub/tipsforparents.pdf.
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