Reading – A Leg Up to Success in School and Life

Edwardྍ? September 27, 2014

READING IS HUGE! Reading early sets your child up for success. Neurological, Educational, Psychological, Social, and Linguistic development are all enhanced by reading. See this great article at Teach Reading Early.com

Check in and check out at your local library. This was a family favorite field trip before our kids could walk. They got their own library cards as preschoolers and could bring ninety-nine books home at a time.

Start off reading to your infants. They may be more interested in eating the book than the pictures at first. (Please don’t let them eat books.) They are still getting huge benefits. First they are spending up-close, cuddle, one-on-one time with you (and you with them). Secondly they are seeing you read and model how fun and interesting it is. You are encouraging them to do something valuable, reading, by modeling the behavior to them.

• “A child who has been read to will want to learn to read herself. She will want to do what she sees her parents doing. But if a child never sees anyone pick up a book, she isn’t going to have that desire.” Jim Trelease, author of Read-Aloud Handbook

The first few years of life, through about age six, a child’s brain is growing faster, making more connections, than will ever be possible again. Research shows children that read in these years do better in school and life. Google “benefits childhood reading” and you’ll get references to the science behind the promise.

• “There’s solid research that shows [the] intervention of handing a family a book, giving them a couple of age-appropriate pieces of advice about how to read with their kid, and just encouraging reading, they — those kids will do better in school.”DR. CINDY OSMAN, Pediatrician, Bellevue Pediatric Clinic

School age children will be reading by themselves and hopefully discussing it with you. They also will benefit from being read too. Of course they will enjoy the time with you. Secondly they can listen and understand books that are above their level. At times our family would read books toghether in the evening before bed. We read out loud together the “Lord of the Rings” triology, went with John Carter to Mars and laughed and cried with adventurers at Green Knowe. Besides these common shared experiences, many discussions, speculations, theories and memories were created. Kids are thirty-one now and still talk about our family read-alouds.

Personally we believe there is something special about books. We believe that having the pages and paper in your hands is an experience that can not be duplicated.

Of course, this is 2014, there are a myriad of electronic readers. Any reading is going to be beneficial.

More and more free sources are becoming available on the web. Among the amazing number and variety of resources available online are The Tennessee Electric Library. (The Khan Academy offers free instruction on subjects K3 to MCAT)

Read this quote by Dr. Nace and then answer me – What could be better than that?

• Reading is an important part of a child’s learning process. Reading is a way for children to make connections between what they already know and what they read about in books. These connections help children understand the world around them. In addition, through books, children are exposed to characters and cultures that they may not otherwise interact with in real life.Dr. Felecia Nace, Family and Community Relations Office, New Jersey Department of Education