Celebrate National Reading Month - Guest Blogger Dr. Carolyn Jaynes, PhD from LeapFrog

Getting Ready for School and Motivating Young Readers

Did you know that this is National March into Reading Month?  Every March, communities from coast to coast enjoy Read Across America events designed to promote children’s love of reading.  While many of these celebrations take part in school settings, the fact remains that children’s experiences from birth, before they enter Kindergarten, significantly impact their language and literacy development, as well as their attitudes toward reading.  Children preparing for school can benefit from experiences that support and reinforce skills and concepts they will encounter as they enter the classroom one morning this summer or fall. In short, what parents do to support their children’s language and literacy development makes a difference (See reading tips “Get Kids Ready to Read…Then Keep Them Reading”).  Children win when parents and teachers reinforce the same concepts and skills that will make them stronger readers and writers.  As your child prepares to transition to more formal school experiences, keep these three important points to keep in mind. 

 

Oral Language Development is Key

Oral language and literacy development go hand in hand.  That is, when children are talking and listening—whether they are retelling a funny story at the dinner table or singing rhyming songs as they pick up toys—they are learning that words and language are part of the fun.  At the same time, they are developing skills like sequencing events and recognizing rhymes that are linked to future success with reading and writing.  So talk and listen, explain things and ask questions, sing songs and make up simple chants.  Turn car trips and walks to the park into opportunities to predict the weather based on the clouds, plan a birthday party, or create your own silly limericks.  And as you help your child make predictions, outline plans, and recognize the sounds and rhythms of language, be assured that you are reinforcing skills that will help them comprehend what they read, organize their writing, and determine word spellings in the years to come. 

 

Variety is Essential

Providing children with a wide variety of experiences helps them build background knowledge and conceptual understanding that will support their future growth as readers and writers.  And broadening your child’s sphere of experiences does not require more money or time.  It can be as simple as taking a new route to the grocery store and talking about the different things you see along the way, or exploring new shelves in the library that contain nonfiction books about cheetahs or trains or some other passion topic that piques your child’s interest, or volunteering to walk a dog from the local animal shelter.  Each new experience and every new book introduces your child to vocabulary, ideas, and knowledge about the world that will help them comprehend what they read and express themselves with greater precision and sophistication as they move into the classroom and beyond.

 

Modeling is Powerful

The behaviors and attitudes you model for your children are powerful teachers.  We all know that young children learn from watching what we do, or don’t do.  The first lessons that children learn about the value and purposes for reading and writing take place in the home.  As children observe their parents reading, composing emails, making lists, or chatting on the phone, they are developing their first understandings of how literacy-related activities can provide entertainment and fun, help us communicate and connect, allow us to organize and plan, and help us learn something new.   As children prepare for school where they will learn a range of essential literacy skills through a carefully designed curriculum, they will continue to learn a lot, from you, about how people actually apply these skills and make use of literacy in the course of their everyday lives.  What you model at home is linked in significant ways to what your child will learn in the classroom.

 

With these three important points in mind, above all, strive to honor your child’s natural gift for play by keeping it fun, being open to a little spontaneity or goofiness, and remembering that helping your child recognize the fun and value of words and language invites them to follow a path filled with lifelong readers.

 

Carolyn Jaynes is a Learning Designer for LeapFrog Enterprises, specializing in language and literacy development.  Before coming to LeapFrog, Dr. Jaynes was an assistant professor of literacy in the teacher education department at Sacramento State University, a literacy curriculum developer for the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, and a classroom teacher in the San Francisco bay area.  She earned her doctorate in educational psychology at Michigan State University where she was a researcher and professional development consultant for the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA). 

 

References:

Darling, S. (2005).  Strategies for Engaging Parents in Home Support of Reading Acquisition. The Reading Teacher, 58(5): 476–479.

Strickland, D.S., Morrow, L.M. (2004). The Role of Literacy in Early Childhood Education. The Reading Teacher 58(1): 86-100.