Helping Children Learn to Read
How Schools and Parents Can Work Together to Facilitate Reading
Dec 31, 2008
The ability to read well is a prerequisite to success in most fields today. Although learning to read is a complicated process that requires mastery of many skills, most children seem to learn with little effort. Other bright children experience great difficulty learning to read, and may suffer embarrassment and shame because of their inability to learn to read quickly and well.
Parental Involvement Crucial
Parents can play a major role in teaching their children to read. The schools need help from parents for two reasons. First, learning to read is a lifelong process – not a task that begins when a child enters school and ends when he has completed third grade or any other grade. Reading begins in infancy, when children listen to their parents' voices, learn to "read" their parents' facial expressions, when parents talk and sing and play with their children. It continues throughout life as people learn to read for a variety of purposes.
The second reason that parents and schools must work together to teach children to read is that just as practice in sports, music, or any other endeavor makes one better at that undertaking, the more children read, the better they are able to read. Children need many opportunities to practice the new skills they are learning. There isn't enough time during the school day for them to get the practice they need to become fluent readers.
How Parents Can Help
Parents can help by showing their children that they think reading is important. They can read to children and talk about what they have read. They can let their children see them reading for their own purposes, whether for pleasure or to get information that they need.
Parents can give books and magazine subscriptions for gifts. They can take the children to the library to check out books. Children should be encouraged to select their own books with guidance from an adult.
Parents can communicate through their actions that reading is valued in the family. Although most people don't say that they are reading when they use recipes, maps, or directions for assembling household items and toys, they are using reading skills for a variety of purposes. When they encourage their children to help with these tasks, they are helping them improve their reading skills at the same time.
People who can read well are the ones who possess the power to achieve their goals. Schools and families must both take responsibility for making sure all children can read well. They can show children that reading is important by exposing them to print and online media and by letting them see adults using reading skills for different purposes. Children need all the adults around them working together to help them become good readers.
 |
