12 comments

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  Ted M. Gossard

  1 year ago

  Mark, Great advice and ideas here. We read to Tiffany too, and at one point they said she was easily the best writer in the eighth grade at a charter school. She read, "Lord of the Rings" three times (I have yet to read it!). But now she's on a hiatus away from it, and seemingly not either interested in writing or reading. Don't know....
  
  But yes, great advice.
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  LaurenMarie - Creative Curio

  1 year ago

  Have you ever listened to books on tape? I'm currently going through Harper Audio's Chronicles of Narnia (funny you should mention Lucy and Aslan!). They're read by famous British actors (Patrick Stewart does The Last Battle!!!) and although I don't have kids yet, I can see my family putting on an audio book rather than watching TV. You can imagine the story in your head infinitely better than any screen could capture!
  
  I remember my mom reading to me before bed when I was little and I would always draw pictures of what she read about. Got to exercise my mind and my creativity, too. It's no wonder I ended up a graphic designer :D
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  L.L. Barkat

  1 year ago

  All of the above.
  
  And patience regarding development. Research on reading and the brain suggests that no child shall read before her time. There's a part of the brain that simply has to mature before the whole thing "clicks". Even if the child has known her letters and written all of them and made their sounds since she was two years old (On this one, I can attest), it doesn't matter. So pushing a child to be an early reader can be counterproductive and ultimately irrelevant.
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  Eric

  1 year ago

  As a teacher I can attest to all of the above and more. I have found that the strong readers in a class, whether it be a second grade, fifth grade or even in high school, are those that have some or all of the items mentioned above in their homes. I have also seen many a good reader who enjoys reading turned off by his late elementary years because of some of the inane curriculum, lousy "research based" ideas and just plain bad literature used in the school system (that's why I would expose my second graders to the likes of Whitman, Twain, Dickinson, and even Shakespeare!).
  
  With your permission, I would like to copy/print your post and send it home for my students parents as well.
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  Tom

  1 year ago

  I was going to do lots of things to be the perfect parent before my kids were born; drag them to a different museum every weekend, sign them up for every possible volunteer opportunity, teach them how to manage their money. But I quickly discovered I couldn't sustain all those "do-gooder" activities, because they weren't truly part of my core.
  
  Ah, but reading. There is one area where it was easy for me to model passion. My kids see me getting excited about reading, and they make a connection in their own lives.
  
  Not every parent has such a passion for reading (but given that this is a writing blog, it just feels like it here!) so I don't want to make any parent feel guilty that they don't approach reading with the virulence that my wife and I do. In the same way, I bristle when a colleague tells me his little Janey has already mastered basic interest rate calculations. "Yeah," I think, "but can she read 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations?'"
  
  Somehow, I've also taught my kids to be sanctimonious (and misuse big words.)
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  Susan

  1 year ago

  wonderful comments, all!
  
  I love to read - always have - so my kids grew up seeing me read. I've logged a LOT of hours turned around backwards from the front seat of the car (oh seatbelt laws) reading to the backseat as we traveled cross-country with 4 kids.
  
  My youngest is a 5th grade teacher and living at home for the first time in several years - and she still loves it when I read aloud to her!
  
  And I still do voices!
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  Gina

  1 year ago

  Great advice! I wish the schools would take a closer look at this.
  
  When my kids were in private school, they didn't like to read mainly because the school dictated what books qualified for reading credit. My eight year old was just not interested in reading the books in their classical library. So I found books he liked to read and though he didn't get credit for them, I let him read them.
  
  When we started homeschooling his love for reading took off. I would often catch him staying up way too late engrossed in a Christian fantasy novel. I do limit his reading to books I feel enforce Chritian values and principles, but I'm so glad he has learned to love reading. I don't think he would have learned to love books if he was always forced to read things he didn't enjoy.
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  Eve

  1 year ago

  If we read something that has the movie out, we watch the movie after.
  
  The other thing we do is to ask questions and relate it to our lives.
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  Katharine

  1 year ago

  A friend's husband used to sit in the hallway after their five kids were tucked into bed, and read so everyone could listen. His wife got a lot of laundry folded during those hours -- she had to find something quiet to do so she had an excuse to listen!
  
  When my boys were young, I tried to read the "Little House" books to them, but they were put off by the girls on the bookcovers. Finally, I just started in on Farmer Boy, and they loved it and let me read the rest of the series.
  
  Modeling reading (both silent and oral) is great, but being excited about the story is the best selling point possible. My kids are nearly grown now, but I've taken a tip from Jim Trelease and read aloud interesting tidbits from the newspaper or whatever I'm reading, in real time, every chance I get. They'll stop what they're doing and listen out of politeness, but often will then engage in a short discussion about the topic at hand.
  
  My boys aren't big readers now, because there are so many other things they'd rather *DO* than sit still and read. They think reading only fits them at night, in bed, but I think they'll come back to it someday.
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  Marcus

  1 year ago

  Thanks for all of the great comments, you all.
  
  Ted, don't worry about your daughter's reading hiatus. I've taken many myself. Once I went nearly a year without reading a book. There are just seasons like that, you know?
  
  LaurenMarie, I listen to podcasts obsessively. (See my post at Writer... Interrupted.) My kids love books on tape, especially for car trips.
  
  L.L., that's a great reminder. We never pushed our kids to be early readers. We just tried to share our joy of reading. Here's an example: Our son doesn't care for the LeapPad toys. We don't push it. Instead, he and I play pirates EVERYDAY.
  
  Eric, of course you can reprint this! We are a bit concerned about schools turning CJ off of reading. It isn't a problem right now. As a kid, my answer was that I supplemented my education with whatever I was interested in reading.
  
  Tom, you make me laugh! I certainly don't mean this as a prescription for other parents necessarily. Just an example of what has happened in our home. In fact, parents might do good to read "The Courage to Teach." I think it is more important for parents to share their passion--whatever it is--than to try to manufacture some passion to help their kids get ahead.
  
  Susan, reading backwards in the car? Ugh. I'd puke. I'm so glad to hear that you and your daughter read to each other. It has become one of the great joys my wife and I share--when we find a good book to read.
  
  Gina, so many classical books just aren't very fun to read. I made a pact with myself one year that I would never teach The Scarlet Letter again. Too many of the students hated it. I deemed the book dangerous to literacy and tossed it from my curriculum. (Without telling my department head, I might add.)
  
  Eve, movies are great for studying ekphrasis. I figure every movie is just an artistic response to the book. So Jackson's Lord of the Rings bears the same relationship to Tolkein's book as Led Zepplin's songs do.
  
  Katharine, if your boys read at night in bed, they are readers as far as I'm concerned. I love hearing how you read tidbits from magazines and newspapers. That kind of group reading can be lots of fun. It's our breakfast activity sometimes, but we do it with magazines. My daughter gets Lady Bug, my son gets Baby Bug, I get Wired or The Week, and my wife reads Newsweek or Parenting. And we all share good sentences that can't be kept silent. (OK, not my son. But he shares the pictures he likes.)
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  Jason

  1 year ago

  I was thinking about this post yesterday. My mom read to me a lot, always giving inflection to make the reading interesting. She says I was reading by 4. I can't quite recall...
  
  One of her favorite moments of mine in elementary school was when my 2nd grade teacher told her she loved to call on me to read instructions or other things in class, because of the inflection and enthusiasm I showed when doing it. Because of her I've always been a strong reader.
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  spaghettipie

  1 year ago

  Great thoughts, Marcus and everyone. As a newer mom, I enjoy reading them. Interestingly, the last time I was at the pediatrician's office, our doctor said, "You read a lot to your daughter, don't you?" I replied that we did and gave him a funny look. He commented, "I can always tell which kids are read to a lot."
  
  Fascinating.
  
  We also read every single night before bedtime. At various other times during the day we read as well, and we've started attending our library's toddler story time every week. We want our daughter to view reading as fun, not another required task.
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