'Cross-Training' Your
Reader
Once children start school, only one-third of parents read
every day, a 2006 poll of 1,500 parents in Great Britain found. Most parents
read just 10 to 15 minutes a night, and 25% of them admitted to skipping pages
to speed up the bedtime story.
That's
not enough households in which reading is happening . . . not enough time is being
devoted to make a meaningful difference . . . and too much interference in the
form of skipped pages is happening to create a good environment for reading
comprehension.
The
poll, by the charitable organization Booktrust and publishing company Pearson,
points out that parents today are not being diligent and deliberate enough
about reading to and with their children. They must either not put a high
enough priority on it, or think it's boring. But if reading isn't an enjoyable
and automatic skill, a child's learning curve could be seriously hampered.
It
could be that parents don't realize the subskills that they are teaching their
children by the simple practice of reading to and with them. You can think of
it as "cross-training," like an athletic program. Don't settle for 10 or 15 minutes;
try for more than 30. Don't do it once or twice a week; make it a daily habit.
And don't skip pages! You don't throw out perfectly good food - so don't skip
perfectly good pages of books, because they're nutrition for your child's
brain!
Here
are some methods parents can employ to make the reading-aloud habit more
purposeful and enjoyable, especially in gradually making the child an
independent reader:
n
Weekly library trip. Make it a habit to check
out new books each week. You check one or more out for yourself, too, to model
lifelong learning. A smart idea is to limit children to one movie or video per
week, and guess what? The library usually has videos to check out for free!
n
Emergent readers. Your local library or
children's book department will have highly-repetitive, easy-reading series
that can give beginning readers a lot of success. Try Rookie Readers, GoodYear
Books, My First Readers, Bank Street Ready to Read, or Get Ready, Get Set, Read
Books. But since these have little or no storyline, use them only as your child
begins to read independently.
n
Predictive picture books. Consistent structure
in a book helps a child feel competent and builds a bank of "sight words" that
the child doesn't have to decode. The child can repeat the rhyme or pattern and
change just one new word each page, which is easy for most beginners. Try Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?,
Cat on the Mat, Chick and the Duckling, The Little Engine That Could, and I Went Walking.
n
Cover detection. Before you begin
reading, show your child the cover and ask him or her to predict what the story
is about. Halfway through, give him or her a chance to revise the prediction.
At the end, brainstorm a different cover.
n
Echo reading. You read the sentence
first, and then your child reads it. You set the cadence of the language and
dynamics and inflections, and your child can pick up on that.
n
Dialoguing. You read a line, your
child reads the next line, and on you go. It's as if you are telling each other
the same story.
n
Let your child have the
last word. When you're reading poetry aloud, such as Dr. Seuss or other
children's poetry, stop and let your child supply the last word of each line.
That will build listening skills and rhyming skills, as well as involving your
child more directly in the experience without overloading him or her with
"work."
n
Ear training. Before bedtime, go on
a "sound walk." How many sounds can your child hear and identify? Listening is
a key subskill of reading. The child literally has to "hear" the sounds the words
make, though silently and in his head.
n
Two-bit word file. Give your child an old
recipe box with index cards inside. As you read together, every time your child
encounters an unfamiliar word, you or your child can write it down and keep it
in the card file, alphabetically. It will be fun to see the collection of "big"
words grow!
n
Tickle the funny bone. Kids love to laugh, so
every once in a while, get a book that will make you both laugh out loud as you
read out loud. Use riddles, jokes and funny poetry. You can read the "straight"
line and let your child read the "punch" line.
n
Build a reference
library.
It's smart to serve your child a rich mixture of fiction and nonfiction books.
In both of them, there are likely to be vocabulary words and references that
aren't explaining in the book itself. For that purpose, you really should have
reference books and other materials on hand for the child to look things up,
with your help. Go ahead and do this right in the middle of your reading time -
that's what reading is for, to learn new things! You can get a used set of
encyclopedias relatively inexpensively, and all kinds of books on animals,
geography, sports, computers, nature, and endless other topics can be found at
flea markets, used-book shops, and even library sales. Never neglect an
opportunity to learn a little extra!
n
Read with purpose. Instead of a bedtime
story, why not read a recipe with your child and make the next night's dinner?
Reading to follow directions is a great skill. Or you could read a how-to on
making a craft item together, or a model car or plane.
n
Drawing conclusions. As you read a story
together, pause occasionally and ask your child questions. "Why did he do
that?" "Who do you think was the bad guy?" "How is this going to end?" "How do
you think she is feeling?" These questions will help your child learn to
"process" a story while in the midst of it, a good comprehension skill.
n
Revisit the olden days. So you loved Winnie the Pooh, or Brer Rabbit, or Peter Rabbit,
or the Wind in the Willows? Great!
Read the stories you loved as a child to your child now, and you'll both
benefit from the tradition and sweetness of that.
n
People are endlessly
fascinating. Don't neglect biographies. Kids need to learn about heroes and
famous people, and see what problems they overcame in order to make important
contributions to the world.
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Repeating old favorites
is fine.
It builds your child's confidence and understanding if you read the same books
over and over again. One way to make them a little more exciting the second -
or 40th - time around is to do a little activity associated with the
storyline. Your child could act out the story as you read it, for example.
Before you read Good Night, Moon, or
a Curious George tale, your child
could gather up stuffed animals and props or draw pictures to approximate the
scenes in the book.
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Be
sure to visit the feature, "Read With Me," that appears on Saturdays on www.GoBigEd.com for more about reading to
and with children.
