Michael Carley offers advice for parents who want to encourage their children to embrace books and reading at a young age.
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“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend
Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
—Groucho Marx
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As we take our young son around town, we often get positive comments, not just from friends and acquaintances, but total strangers. Some of this is typical for an attractive, outgoing child, but the thing that seems to most amaze people we meet is his developing language skills.
At the risk of sounding like a proud parent (as if that’s a bad thing), our son is well ahead of his age group. When we were discussing with some parents the skills he’d need to enter kindergarten (at least two, perhaps three years away), we noted that he already seems to have most of them already. For several months now, he’s bean able to speak in complete sentences, knows his ABCs, and can count to 20 (though for some reason he often seems to leave out 13 and 15).
As he approaches age 3, our son is also developing emergent reading skills. Of course, much of what he’s doing now is repeating what he’s memorized, but he does recognize all of his letters and a number of words.
I don’t think we have any kind of special genetic magic and our son does have some real advantages. He’s an only child so he has all of our attention. He also has two educators for parents. And, as quite the talkative little guy, he gets lots of practice with his language skills.
But I’d like to think we have something to do with his advanced development. So, for whatever it’s worth, here are a few tips for those who want to give their kids a leg up.
READ: I don’t mean reading to them; you need to read yourself. The most important thing we do for our children is set an example. If you want your child to read, you need to be reading yourself. Your child needs to see books in the house and see you reading them.
And, it needs to be books, particularly novels. Sorry if that sounds snobbish, but you don’t learn the same skills reading web sites, email, or text messages. Newspapers aren’t the best either. Because of the deadlines involved in journalism and the way they’re edited (from the bottom of the article up usually), newspapers use a style of writing that you wouldn’t want your child to emulate.
Read to Them: We started reading to our son before he was born, but that’s really probably not necessary. Experts suggest starting around six months or so, when your baby can sit up and pay attention. Start out with simple rhyming books with pictures. Repetition may be boring for adults, but it is useful for small children as it is how they pick up on patterns in language. Dr. Seuss is great for this, especially for the very young, but there are lots of other children’s authors as well. (Shel Silverstein is a personal favorite.)
Once our son was mobile, one of his favorite things to do was to bring us books to read. As his world expanded, his interest in reading waned a bit, so we instituted “family story time” at night. After a few days, it was part of his bedtime routine and within a couple of weeks, he was again bringing us books.
Speak Correctly, But Don’t Correct Them: This one may sound contradictory. A friend who majored in linguistics explained this to us some time back. Children often get tenses and parts of speech wrong—“me want,” etc. But, as long as you speak reasonably standard English to them, it isn’t necessary to correct them when they make mistakes. It may even prolong the problem. Just set the example and they’ll pick things up eventually.
Get a Library Card: Let’s face it, books are expensive and some children’s books cost more than adult ones. A trip to the library every two or three weeks can save you a lot of money and expose your child to more books than they’d otherwise see. Make the library trip a reward for good behavior or a new skill learned.
Encourage Fantasy: I’ve written elsewhere about the value of storytelling. Legends, stories, fables, fairy tales—all of them are crucial in the development of both the imagination of the individual child and the culture of which we are all a part. Collections of fairy tales are particularly valuable. As he gets older, I look forward to sharing with our son some of the legends I learned as a child, Paul Bunyan and John Henry being among my favorites. Often more truth can be learned from legend than from any textbook your child will ever read. It’s not all about reading. Engage in storytelling outside the reading process. Make some up yourself and include your child as the protagonist.
Turn Off the TV: Commercial television is not for small children. They don’t distinguish well between programming and advertisements and the time they spend in front of the tube is time spent not experiencing the world. We’re not especially rigid about this. Our son has a few movies and programs he loves (WordWorld on PBS is his current favorite), but, most of the day, the television should be off.
Avoid Corporate and Movie Tie-ins: Again, this need not be a rigid rule, but I find that books written specifically to sell certain toys or to capitalize on the success of a particular movie tend to not be very imaginative.
Get Them Tested: This isn’t for the youngest age group, but if your child is in school and is falling behind, ask the school about testing for learning disabilities. Dyslexia is among the most common, but there are several learning disabilities that affect children of average or above average intelligence. The kids usually have plenty of ability, but their brains work in a different way and they must learn different skills to succeed. In some cases, their teachers may have to adjust how they work with them. Getting your child tested early can save them a great deal of pain later.
Have Fun: From some of the looks we get when we people see our son’s language development, you would think we sit him down and drill him for hours of the day. Nothing could be further from the truth. We read and we read to him, but most of his day is spent like any other toddler, playing and getting into things we don’t want him into. Children are natural sponges. A love for learning is innate; to develop that natural curiosity, the main thing we need to do is not squash it.
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I originally wrote this piece nearly four years ago. Our son is now six and a half and just finished kindergarten. Paul Bunyan and John Henry have made their appearances as have many of the fairy tales we read as children. Jack the Giant Killer became a quick favorite.
Our son is now reading chapter books. He’s obsessed with the Magic Tree House series and we recently handed him down my wife’s old e-reader when we got her a newer version. (He’s a bit young for it to be honest, but you can disable the parts that would get a kid in trouble.) With the e-reader, we quickly introduced him to the Boxcar Children.
As we like to say in our family, “Indoctrination Complete.” We have a reader.
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Credit: Image—Eden, Janine, and Jim/Flickr