Literacy Builds Life Skills as Well as Language Skills

This article coincides with the passing of the nation's great literacy champion (for both children and adults), the late Barbara Bush. There could be no more fitting tribute to her and her lifelong dedication to the cause of reading. The piece is thoughtful, well-written, and right on target.

In my experience, reading to and with children from infancy through grade school is one of the best things a parent can do. It's a time of sharing and bonding that promotes increased learning, language, expression, and opens doors to adventures. Initially I thought it had just a minimal impact on my son. Later, I realized as an adult, my son reads more than I ever would have thought. He attributed this to early reading together. My daughter has never stopped reading.

Stuff like this should be part of Health class, or Parenting 101 or "Parenting or Dummies."

Reading to your child alone will do nothing to create a reader for up to 20% of children. This writer doesn't even mention those with neurological diversity 1 in 5 with some range of dyslexia. There is no early screening for this common learning difference,. Children commonly struggle unsuccessfully to progress in reading as teachers have not been taught how to give explicit reading instruction. Falling back on parents to read more at home to their child is a reading strategy given to families by schools. This creates heartbreak and frustration. We need to acknowledge these children in our classrooms, indentify them and use multi-sensory Structured literacy programs to allow them to experience the same learning as their peers. Teacher training colleges need to reflect upon how they are failing to train teachers and give them the quality training that they will probably be in debt for many years into their careers. Every child has a right to education. New York Times let's see a story about what is really going on in literacy in the classroom starting in K.

As is typical here in the NYT, the least important most salacious and frivolous articles have the most comments and the most important ones only a few. This is REALLY crucial about child development. As a teacher from a family of educators, including a renowned child development professor, I can only underline in big red lines what this author talks about. The process of teaching a child to read (or write), or simply sharing reading and writing with a child, engages many faculties that must be developed for a fulfilling life in society. We want our children to succeed, we say. But many many parents haven't a foggy clue what that means. You have to sit down in a quiet and calm place with no distractions and you have to let the give and take happen. There is a reason to read: that is your message. You must help the child become aware that words on the page are the gateways to entire worlds, inner and outer. Your own responses and suggestions, combined with the child's questions and individual small accomplishments is an adventurous process. Many parts of the child's psyche begin to engage, and at a certain point can gel into a scaffolding of intellectual and emotional support that will last a lifetime. The schools are only partially responsible. Parents must take their own responsibility. And if they poor and illiterate, then they must engage help from others. The community must make resources available and promote them aggressively to uneducated parents.

Yes, we read in Idaho. Even the New York Times. That being said, I am forwarding this article to all parents, librarians and teachers on my email list.

First, I commend Dr. Klass for documenting that love of literature and a nurturing environment do much more for children than build literacy skills. Second, research by Dolores Durkin in the 1960s was the first to suggest this is the case. Third and most importantly, I invite Dr. Klass to a long conversation with Dee Tadlock, Ph.D., also located in Washington State, who has amassed a huge data base supporting her original research documenting that low literacy and poor reading skills can be corrected at any age - something that current reading experts think is heresy. It isn't. Dr. Tadlock has been ignored by the U.S. reading field for documenting that over-emphasis on phonics, decoding, and individual word attack CAUSE low literacy. Her methods intentionally avoid all three and transform struggling readers into successful readers. I can prove it - right here in NYC.

Having had the good fortune to experience it I feel that nothing in the world can substitute for the time and attention spent by a parent teaching a child starting from infancy. Those lessons are deeply impressed in the mind and last for a lifetime.

There is an assumption behind this piece by Dr. Klass, and that is the parent themselves can read functionally. Unfortunately, for literally millions of children, this is not true. I've been involved in literacy since 1988 when I found significant numbers of workers in our mills could not read, or read functionally. Found a system that worked for 98% of those folks. Implemented in over 20 mills, nationwide. There are several issues: the top one being that over 35% of children are now born to single mothers. https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/tag/single-motherhood-by-race/ Defined as having a child under 18 at home with no father. So, they have a very low chance of having anyone reading to them. Ranges from 72% of Blacks to 16% of Asians/Pacific Islanders. The next issue is that our school system doesn't know how to enable the brain to learn to read (much less do math). They think you "teach" the brain to read. Wrong. You have to create the environment that enables the brain to learn to read and it WILL DO IT'S JOB!! It has been doing it since the child was born. Learning to talk, learning to walk, learning to scratch it's nose without putting a finger in its eye, etc. Everything you can put the words "How to...." in front of, the brain learns differently than when dealing with declarative knowledge. The capitals of all the states, for instance. So, interesting article that doesn't address the real issues. So many broken systems.

Reading to my child has been one of the most pleasurable parenting activities I have experienced. From the minute he was born until now at age ten, we have spent many many hours together in the company of books. Sure, it was torture when he was 1-4 and his favorites were on repeat, but I could see the language growing in his mind as I read and reread and read again stories like My Truck is Stuck and Chugga Chugga Choo Choo. We now end each day sitting side by side reading our respective novels. It is still so important as he advances in reading to be beside me when he stumbles on a word or needs help contextualizing something. And I see the positive impact this has had on him in school-his teachers always comment on his executive functioning. It is my hope that his love of reading continues through his life. Some of my favorite moments in life have come to me because of books--and surely this season of parenting is one of them!

Read to your child when they are in utero. They hear your voice. Read to your child everyday at bedtime and you are raising a reader and thinker. Share your love of reading for the sounds of language and the power of learning that reading brings.

Yes. Everything said in this article rings true. However, concrete examples of the broader success of a literate person were not cited. I have one to offer. Speaking and writing any language well prejudices listeners and readers to take me seriously. Clarity breeds respect . . . I do not write, "Meet me at 3 o'clock." No, I write, "Meet me today, Thursday the 22nd, at 3 o'clock in the school library cafeteria, west wing entrance." I have been a translator and interpreter for various governments and their agencies for more than 40 years. I teach English as a foreign language. Often, with adults, I must. in pursuit of their comfort zone while learning, elicit the relaxing balm of laughter, remind myself to be gentle in suggesting corrections in speech, idiomatic expressions and the timing and social context of a word or phrase. Communication is successful when accepted. The thought we wish to impart must not only reach ears, but suffuse the listener's body, heart and mind. The speaker--the teacher, the diplomat, the salesman, the writer, the mother or father, the interpreter--must empathize with the child or adult to establish comfort as precursors to ideas, proposals, explanations and previously misunderstood information. Clarity is but one dimension of communication. Relaxed, your face inquires, receives and cares when prefacing disagreement with the words, "With all due respect . . ." Tension declares disrespect, love conquers all. To hear, listeners require affection.

This is such important research, and is so vital for parents to understand! Children who aren't read to and/or don't attend preschool start kindergarten significantly behind, and it is incredibly hard to catch up! Reach Out and Read has done incredible work, helping parents to understand this, and providing access to books for their young children. I work for another literacy nonprofit, BookTrust.org, and we focus on early literacy in high-need (Title I) elementary schools across the country. We all must help our children fall in love with reading so they can be successful in learning and in life. Thank you, ROAR and Dr. Klass for your important contribution to childhood literacy.

Parents should make sure they read non-fiction books to even their very young children. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

I love this kind of research, and studied child development in school. I have always wondered how I became a voracious reader at a young age, and began keeping a journal at nine. I don't remember ever being read to, but sitting quietly, reading on my own. Is it possible that some children are naturally attracted to books and writing? I'd love to hear from others with similar experiences.

When a child is still young, he touches the pictures in the book after you read the accompanying text, as if to fully absorb the information, which in the case of Bible stories makes you think he has grasped something that you haven’t.

As the parent of a dyslexic child, I cannot stress enough the importance of literacy in the broad sense. My child struggles with print, sight reading but I don't want her to miss out on all that literature, story telling has to offer - vocabulary, learning how to share, arrange thoughts, diving into a different culture or time period or experiencing a character's emotions etc. This is why conversations, storytelling and "ear reading" (we read to her or audio books) is so important for all children, especially those children who struggle with sight/print reading or don't like to read at all. As a life long reader, I did put sight/print reading "above" ear reading and decided it was inherently "better" than ear reading. I know now that was foolish. If a child is interested in audio books or interested in having a parent read, this should be welcomed and encouraged. It really does work. Last week, I finished reading a book to her where the middle school character had wrestled with feelings of insecurity and self-doubt. This Sunday, we were at soccer and one of her fellow teammates had been sluggish and played poorly. My daughter commented, as we were getting in the car, that her teammate might be feeling like that book character. It made me smiled. That is literacy.

I'm so glad you clarified what "to read" really means when your audience is a baby or young toddler. I think a lot of parents, myself included, start out taking it literally, and get discouraged when their baby seems uninterested or unable to sit still for a reading of any length. Even one short sentence per page can be too much. I knew reading was important, so I read to my babies since birth, but I was frustrated and even worried that until age 3 they had absolutely zero patience for me to read any amount of text. Stereotypes like the baby peacefully cuddled in your lap, listening in amazement to the rhythm of "Goodnight Moon", frustrated and discouraged me even more. Both of my babies wanted to pull, flip, throw, chew - anything but listen to the book. Again, I'm talking about the simplest of picture books here - not an actual fairy tale. So I gave up on reading, adjusted my expectations and adapted my approach, and switched entirely to pointing, asking and talking. My babies loved it! Up until almost age 3, I had no idea what the text in any of their books actually said. We had a great time interacting with the book in all kinds of ways other than reading. I finally began to relax about this when my kids proved above average verbally, despite not having been "read to" in the literal sense for the first 3 years, and now I don't worry about it anymore. I guess the parental interaction and verbal back-and-forth matters more than the rhythm or whatever of the actual text.

As someone who does volunteer bedside reading at my local children's hospital, I really appreciated this article. I didn't know there was a name for dialogic reading. Engaging the child in the story rather than just reading to them always felt natural to me. I'm pleased to know that it has formal benefits as well! I would just say that for babies, the only thing that makes it hard to read to them is that they constantly try to grab the book (flipping it over, turning multiple pages, etc.) which is really adorable but is there a way to keep them engaged in what I am saying even though they don't understand? I've noticed that goofy sound effects works, but anything else?