Read with your children, not to them
Research has found that reading with young
children and engaging them can make a positive impact on the child’s future and
their family.
Bradford Wiles is an Assistant Professor and
Extension Specialist in early childhood development at Kansas State University.
For most of his career, Wiles’ research has focused around building resilience
in vulnerable families.
His current research is focused on emergent
literacy and the effect of parents reading with their children ages 3 to 5 years
old.
“Children start learning to read long before they
can ever say words or form sentences,” said Wiles. “My focus is on helping
parents read with their children and extending what happens when you read with
them and they become engaged in the story.”
The developmental process, known as emergent
literacy, begins at birth and continues through the preschool and kindergarten
years. This time in children’s lives is critical for learning important
preliteracy skills.
Although his research mainly focuses on 3-5 year
olds, Wiles encourages anyone with young children to read with them as a family
at anytime during the day, not just before going to bed. He also believes that
it is okay to read one book over and over again, because the child can learn new
things every time.
“There are always opportunities for you both to
learn,” said Wiles, “and it creates a family connection. Learning is
unbelievably powerful in early childhood development.”
It goes deeper than just reading to them, as
parents are encouraged to read with their children. Engaging children is how
they become active in the story and build literacy skills.
“There is nothing more powerful than your voice,
your tone, and the way you say the words,” said Wiles. “When I was a child, my
dad read to me and while that was helpful and I enjoyed it, what we are finding
is that when parents read with their children instead of to them, the children
are becoming more engaged and excited to read.”
Engaging the child means figuring out what the
child is thinking and getting them to think beyond the words written on the
page. While reading with them, anticipate what children are thinking. Then ask
questions, offer instruction, provide examples and give them some feedback about
what they are thinking.
“One of the things that I really hope for, and
have found, is that these things spill over into other areas,” said Wiles. “So
you start out reading, asking open-ended questions, offering instruction and
explaining when all of the sudden you aren’t reading at all and they start to
recognize those things they have seen in the books. And that’s really
powerful.”
Wiles explains it in a scenario where a mother
reads a book with her 4 year old about a garden. Then they go to the supermarket
and the 4 year old is pointing and saying, “look there’s a zucchini.” The child
cannot read the sign that says zucchini but knows what that is because they read
the book about gardens.
During this time called the nominal stage, the
developmental stage where children are naming things, a child’s vocabulary can
jump from a few hundred words to a few thousand words. The more exposure they’ve
had through books and print materials, the more they can name things and
understand. It’s the emergent literacy
skills that can set the stage for other
elements.
The school of Family Studies and Human Services
at Kansas State University is producing lesson plans to help families learn how
to read with young children. These lesson plans are research-based but they have
been condensed into usable and applicable lessons for families.
Culled from Punch
Comments
Post a Comment