Read Together: Parents and Educators Working Together for Literacy

2000

Developing Young Readers

Learning to read doesn’t happen magically. Parents and teachers play important roles in developing young readers. Supporting a child is best accomplished when parents and teachers share common methods and basic understandings about the reading process. This brochure describes ways you can help your child as a reader. As you work together, celebrate your child’s efforts and successes–just as you did when your child learned to walk and talk.

Three Ways to Read Aloud

Child reads to parent.
Your child gains confidence in reading ability. Emphasize your child’s positive achievements. Have your child reread the same material to develop more confident reading ability.
Parent reads to child. Read aloud to your child to build positive attitudes toward books, to develop an understanding of written language, and to enjoy the sound of spoken language. You may choose books above your child’s reading ability. Be sure the books will interest your child. You may even let your child choose the books.
Child and parent read together. Take turns reading paragraphs or pages in a challenging or long book. Always be positive and lighthearted. Have fun sharing the reading material and your time together! Discontinue the reading if the reading experience becomes tense.

While you read the book . . .

allow your child to spontaneously comment on events and characters in the story.
discuss the predictions, opinions, thoughts, ideas, connections, and questions you and your child may have.

Encourage your child to spontaneously comment on events and characters in the story. Explore comments or connections that might not yet make sense; all learners’ responses are purposeful and show their attempts to make the reading meaningful.

Discuss the predictions, opinions, thoughts, ideas, connections, and questions you and your child may have. We know that readers understand books differently, depending on their experiences. Differing ideas add value to conversations about stories.

These are natural and meaningful ways to know if your child is understanding the story.

How Can I Help My Child Learn to Read?

Research findings in early literacy have shown that the most important factors enabling children to become readers are:

exposure to books and literature from infancy
awareness of print around them (cereal boxes, store signs, freeway signs, etc.)
awareness of letters, words, labels, and letter sounds in real-life contexts
10-30 minutes of daily reading aloud
regular visits to the public library
accessible books that interest children
time to enjoy books by themselves
parents/adults who read and value reading
rich and varied experiences (visits to the zoo, aquarium, museums, fairs, etc.).

Most importantly, daily support from parents and adults significantly increases success in reading.

What Should I Do When My Child Gets Stuck?

Ask the child, “what would make sense here?”
Have the child look at the pictures to see if they give any clues.
Skip the word or phrase and come back to it later.
Ask the child, “What word would make sense and begins with that letter?”
Have the child look at the word and say it slowly as you run your finger under it.
Ask the child, “Do you see a part of the word that you know?”
Telling the word to the child is okay at times.

Emergent Readers

Child is learning about print and is becoming aware that print tells a story or gives information. Child uses pictures to retell what is in a book.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear
by Bill Martin
Count and See
by Tana Hoban
Each Peach Pear Plum
by Janet and Alan Ahlberg
Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
by Eileen Christelow
Go Away, Big Green Monster
by Ed Emberley
“More, More, More” Said the Baby
by Vera B. Williams
My First Book of Songs
by Jane L. Manning
My Aunt Came Back
by Pat Cummings
No, No, Jo!
by Kate H. McMullan
On Mothers Lap
by Ann Herbert Scott
Rosie’s Walk
by Pat Hutchins
Sweet Baby Coming
by Eloise Greenfield
Who Sank the Boat?
by Pamela Allen

Few children learn to love books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way.

–Orville Prescott, A Father Reads to His Children

Early Readers

Child begins to use knowledge of letter/sound relationships and is developing a sight vocabulary of high frequency words (a, and, the, etc.). Child uses print and pictures to read a story and begins to point to actual words being read.

Bony Legs
by Joanna Cole
The Carrot Seed
by Ruth Krauss
Daddy Play with Me
by Sigeo Watanabe
Fox in Love
by Jim Marshall
Go, Dog. Go!
by Philip D. Eastman
I Like Books
by Anthony Browne
It Looks Like Spilt Milk
by Charles Shaw
Just Grandma and Me
by Mercer Mayer
Mama, Do You Love Me?
by Barbara M. Joose
Messy Bessy
by Patricia McKissack
Noisy Nora
by Rosemary Wells
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
by Simms Taback
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
by Eric Carle
Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale
by John Steptoe
New Cat
by Yangsook Choi
On Mother’s Lap
by Ann Herbert Scott
Que Sorpresa de Cumpleaños!
by Loretta Lopez
Stinky Cheese Man
by Jon Scieszka
Strega Nona
by Tomie de Paola
Swimmy
by Leo Leonni
The Trees of Dancing Goats
by Patricia Polacco
The Turkey Girl: A Zuni Cinderella
by Penny Pollock
Where the Wild Things Are
by Maurice Sendak

You may have tangible wealth untold: Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold, richer than I you can never be-I had a Mother who read to me.

–“The Reading Mother,” by Strickland Gillilan, from Best Loved Poems of the People

Fluent Readers

Child is able to read independently and reads fluently for meaning. Sentence structure is varied and child need not rely on repetition or patterned sentences.

Amelia Bedelia
by Peggy Parrish
Borrequita and the Coyote
by Verna Aardema
Clifford the Big Red Dog
by Norman Bridwell
The Drinking Gourd
by F. N. Monjo
Finding the Titanic
by Robert Ballard
Frog and Toad Are Friends
by Arnold Lobel
Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea
by Cynthia Rylant
The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear
by Don and Audrey Wood
Nate the Great
by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
A Picture Book of Rosa Parks
by Davis Adler
Stories Julian Tells
by Ann Cameron
Too Many Tamales
by Gary Soto
Whales
by Seymour Simon

Great Read-Alouds

Infants, toddlers, and beginning readers will have a wonderful time listening to these favorite stories read to them by parents.

Abuela
by Arthur Dorros
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
by Judith Viorst
Dancing Feet
by Charlotte Ageli
A Day’s Work
by Eve Bunting
Dr. DeSoto
by William Steig
Flossie and the Fox
by Pat McKissack
Good Night Moon
by Margaret Wise Brown
Grandmother’s Dreamcatcher
by Becky Ray McCain
Ira Sleeps Over
by Bernard Waber
The Island of the Skog
by Stephen Kellogg
Koala Lou
by Mem Fox
Minty, the Story of Young Harriett Tubman
by Alan Schroeder

Signs of Reading Development

Holds a book right-side up
Turns pages from right to left
Interprets pictures and makes up a story using pictures to read
Retells a story in sequence
Mimics and points to print but without voice and word matching
Memorizes stories
Begins to gain knowledge of letters and sounds and letter/sound relationships
Begins to recognize names, words on cereal boxes, labels on toys, names of stores and restaurants
Finger points to read single words
Asks questions about what a word is
Begins to identify common, high frequency words (a, and, the, it, is, will, go, to, etc.)
Attends to beginning consonant sounds
Attends to ending consonant sounds
Uses picture cues to read unknown words
Self-corrects when something doesn’t make sense or doesn’t sound right
Develops fluency with practice

Position Statements