by Jan Pierce, M.Ed
When I was a child my elementary school was so small we had two grades to a schoolroom. And no, I’m not 150 years old either. It was a tiny school in the Pacific Northwest. We were too small to have our own library so the bookmobile visited us twice a month. Those were golden days for me, a hopeless bookworm. I can still remember the excitement I felt when it was my turn to hunt up and down the aisle of that crowded mini-library.
Today, thanks to my retirement from teaching, my grandchildren own an entire library of good books larger than that old bookmobile had. They’re beginning to outgrow them however, and I’m sure they’ll be passed on to younger children who can benefit from having lots of reading choices.
Access to good books has proven over and over again to produce children with high interest in books and reading. And schools and homes with adequate libraries produce the same results---kids who want to learn to read.
But books are expensive and if your children are like I was, they can plow through a stack of books in a matter of days. So what can parents do when teaching at home? After all, you’re not made of money.
My suggestion is to build a strong library of classics—those books your family will enjoy reading more than once. Those books that cross ages and that even adults enjoy. And then make good use of e-books, your local library and other inexpensive options such as church libraries, garage sales, book exchanges and the like. Don’t forget that reading materials other than books provide lots of reading practice. Magazines, newspapers, baseball cards, charts, graphs and maps, even comic books are great for both motivation and practicing reading skills.
Beware of offering children lots of phonics drill materials apart from access to authentic reading experiences. Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Book says: “Doing phonics lessons with no access to real literature is like giving oars with no boat.” What he means is that practicing skills in isolation usually doesn’t produce fluent reading. Phonics is one board in the platform but should be used in conjunction with real books at the appropriate reading or listening level.
So your children need access to lots of good reading material.
In fact the three key ingredients to highly motivated readers are:
• Access to a wide variety of reading materials
• Personal ownership of some favorites
• Self-selection
When those three ingredients are in place kids feel like reading is something they want to do and with your support, it’s something they will do.
Happy Reading.
Jan Pierce, M.Ed., is a retired teacher and author of Homegrown Readers: Simple Ways to Help Your Child Learn to Read. Find Jan at www.janpierce.net.
When I was a child my elementary school was so small we had two grades to a schoolroom. And no, I’m not 150 years old either. It was a tiny school in the Pacific Northwest. We were too small to have our own library so the bookmobile visited us twice a month. Those were golden days for me, a hopeless bookworm. I can still remember the excitement I felt when it was my turn to hunt up and down the aisle of that crowded mini-library.
Today, thanks to my retirement from teaching, my grandchildren own an entire library of good books larger than that old bookmobile had. They’re beginning to outgrow them however, and I’m sure they’ll be passed on to younger children who can benefit from having lots of reading choices.
Access to good books has proven over and over again to produce children with high interest in books and reading. And schools and homes with adequate libraries produce the same results---kids who want to learn to read.
But books are expensive and if your children are like I was, they can plow through a stack of books in a matter of days. So what can parents do when teaching at home? After all, you’re not made of money.
My suggestion is to build a strong library of classics—those books your family will enjoy reading more than once. Those books that cross ages and that even adults enjoy. And then make good use of e-books, your local library and other inexpensive options such as church libraries, garage sales, book exchanges and the like. Don’t forget that reading materials other than books provide lots of reading practice. Magazines, newspapers, baseball cards, charts, graphs and maps, even comic books are great for both motivation and practicing reading skills.
Beware of offering children lots of phonics drill materials apart from access to authentic reading experiences. Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Book says: “Doing phonics lessons with no access to real literature is like giving oars with no boat.” What he means is that practicing skills in isolation usually doesn’t produce fluent reading. Phonics is one board in the platform but should be used in conjunction with real books at the appropriate reading or listening level.
So your children need access to lots of good reading material.
In fact the three key ingredients to highly motivated readers are:
• Access to a wide variety of reading materials
• Personal ownership of some favorites
• Self-selection
When those three ingredients are in place kids feel like reading is something they want to do and with your support, it’s something they will do.
Happy Reading.
Jan Pierce, M.Ed., is a retired teacher and author of Homegrown Readers: Simple Ways to Help Your Child Learn to Read. Find Jan at www.janpierce.net.
