Home and Reading

It is a home rich in literature

Newspapers, magazines, novels, and children's books are found in abundance in the home rich in literature. This is a home where children have their own bookcases in their bedrooms. In the previous section, we talked about the importance of children being in an environment where they see good role models (parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, and others) appreciating and enjoying the reading process. This environment becomes even richer when literature of all kinds is seen by the child as a very natural part of the home. Magazines, coffee table books, newspapers, recipes, books of all shapes and sizes, and bookcases all are experienced by the child to be as much a part of the home as tables and chairs and lamps and sofas. Any home with children is likely to have a refrigerator groaning under the load of pictures, cartoons, and student work and accomplishments attached to the exterior. The home rich in literature very often goes a step further and has newspaper clippings, humorous poems, and inspirational sayings. It is not unusual to find kids clustered around the refrigerator, not for food, but for entertainment and information!

In addition to books of all shapes and sizes, there should be books from a wide variety of genres. It is a home truly rich in literature when fiction is found alongside nonfiction, and poetry is next to picture books. Folktales, fables, myths, and science fiction can be found. It is also important that a child's own books be varied. Later in this book, we will discuss the importance of alphabet books, books that play with sounds, children's books of poetry, nonfiction books, predictable books, and books that deal with important moments in children's lives. Each of these should have a central place in the home.

It is a home where the local library is a familiar and important place

The library is much more than a place filled with books. Libraries house the thinking of individuals who have shaped the way society works. Children who understand what libraries are about and how libraries work have the knowledge of the world at their fingertips! Anything they want to know lies waiting to be discovered in a good library. Yet, there are children who can program a VCR, tame the most complex microwave oven, and make video games dance at their command who are ignorant about how to check out a book from the library. Parents should ask themselves some important questions: "Have I been to the toy store with my children more often than I have been with them to the library?" "Can my children find and check out a video from the video store yet not do the same with a book from the library?" The family that visits the library weekly, with each member of the family checking out a variety of books, very naturally produces children who become friends with the library. When a father and child walk through the library to find a book on how to raise their new puppy, then head to the children's section to find Clifford, the Big Red Dog (Bridwell, 1988), then walk together to the checkout counter, each using his or her own library card to check out books, the library becomes a friendly and useful environment .

It is a home where children are read to regularly

Almost universal agreement exists that the single most important factor in developing the background necessary for success in reading is for children to have been read to aloud. Reading aloud regularly to children in their early years is critical to their later reading achievement (Spear-Swerling & Sternberg, 1996). It is not just reading to children, however, that is important. Equally important is the way books are read and the discussions parents have with their children as they read. Questions such as "What would you do if you were Curious George?", which prompt children to think about ideas in a book, are important in literacy development and are not unlike questions teachers will ask in school. When children encounter these questions at home, they are often much more comfortable and successful with teachers' questions. Conversations about the meanings of less familiar words also support literacy development. For example, when you read about a fleet of ships that arrives in the harbor in The Man Who Loved Books by Jean Fritz, take a moment to discuss the meaning of the word fleet.

As children are read to regularly, they also gain knowledge of how books work. They know where books begin and where they end; they recognize that people (who read English) read from left to right and from top to bottom. Most significantly, they learn that books have important and enjoyable things to say to them. A child who enters school knowing how "to turn a book on" is a child who will find learning to read a much gentler and more successful endeavor.

As children are read to regularly, they develop an "ear" for the language of literature. They become comfortable with the way written words are put together and the way sentences and stories are supposed to sound. When children hear Bill Martin, Jr.'s (1996) "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? I see a redbird looking at me. Redbird, redbird, What do you see? I see a yellow duck looking at me" or Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault's (1989) "A told B, and B told C, 'I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree.' 'Whee!' said D to E F G, 'I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree,'" they are discovering the predictability of written words. When this happens, learning to read is often a much easier process.

Finally, and probably most importantly, children who are read to regularly associate reading with a time of warmth and closeness with their parents. These children enter school with a tremendous advantage. Reading is viewed as a positive part of their lives, as something they want to do .

It is a home where parents provide encouragement and motivation

The five characteristics discussed above will often produce children who enter school ready to read. However, it is the home where parents, on a consistent basis, encourage their children to involve themselves in reading- and writing-related activities that most often develops children who will be successful in school. In fact, homes that encourage reading and writing by having paper, pencil, crayon, chalk, and even chalkboards readily available to children are developing characteristics in children that will allow them to enter school with confidence. Reading researcher Dolores Durkin (1966) labeled children from these homes "paper and pencil kids." She found that it was not intelligence or social class that produced kids who enter school already reading. She discovered that successful readers came from homes where someone read to them, someone answered their questions, and the children liked to write or make marks on paper. Many children write before they begin reading. Parents who encourage their children to experiment with writing often are helping them ease into reading. However, these parents do not expect perfect handwriting, spelling, or grammar. They are very accepting of their child's attempts to write.