Raising Readers
Reading to Your Child

(This is the first in a series of letters to the editor. Teachers may use this as or adapt it to use with parents)

We often hear it said that reading to your child is the single most important thing you can do to prepare him or her to read. There are many important aspects of parent-child involvement in reading. Most often it takes place in a cozy setting with the youngster on Mom’s or Dad’s lap or seated on the sofa, comfortably nestled within the parent’s loving grasp. This nurturing position teaches the child that reading is a very pleasant activity. Reading to your child tells him or her that you enjoy reading. Your enthusiasm, your tone, your fluency, and your expression all provide models for the time when she too begins to read out loud.

Reading to your child about a wide variety of topics increases her vocabulary. It also builds what we call background knowledge, general information which she stores until it is recalled in another context at some later date. This adds to her ability to comprehend both the spoken and written language that she encounters in school.

Reading to gain background knowledge can be supplemented by a wide variety of experiences such as trips to the beach, to the farm, to the zoo, etc. Every new term used to explain what is seen and every new experience the child brings to the reading process triggers a response to the written word.

Looking at the pictures in books helps children identify a series of ‘happenings,’ even before they are able to read the words on the page. Having your child retell the story in her own words can help her develop a sense of ‘story’. Such activities set the stage for an understanding of and interest in the reading process.

As you read to your child, she may or may not become curious about words. As my own three-year-old sat on my lap long ago, she must have noticed that certain strings of letters were repeated frequently on the page. Her question was, "What’s that word?" As I answered, "Tom," she quickly added, "There’s Tom, and there’s Tom, and there’s Tom." as she moved her finger around the page. This child was ready to learn by recognizing words as wholes and, at the age of three, was able to read short stories containing high frequency words.

Reading to your child is one of the most important tools in developing reading ability but unfortunately, of its own, will not guarantee that all children will learn. In future letters to the editor, I’ll be discussing other aspects of learning to read and suggesting waysparents can help at home if your child is not succeeding in school.

Grace/IL, gsh@mc.net,
3/05/00

This month's letters: