Small Action Delivers Big Results

Parents, Grandparents, and other caregivers often ask how they can help their children be successful in school.  According to medical providers there is one easy but very important activity that can be done to insure that young children will come to school with great background, good language development, curiosity, and a love of learning.  The answer at every age is read aloud every day!
  Local libraries have fliers published by the organization Reach Out and Read.  Below, with permission, is good advice taken from their publication titled  “Reading Tips for Your Family”.  What great information for all who want to give children a head start for a lifetime of success.
 Read Aloud Every Day
  It’s fun. It’s a special time with your child.  Reading helps children learn many new words to prepare them to be excellent readers in first grade. Here is the wise eight list: 1) It’s never too early to start.  Babies love to be held and to hear your voice. 2) A few minutes are OK. Very young children may sit still for only a few minutes.  They will listen longer as they grow. 3) Let children turn the pages.  Give a little help if they need it. 4) Ask children questions about the story.  Be sure to give them lots of time to think and answer. 5) Make the story come alive.  Read with fun and excitement in your voice.  6) Talk about the pictures.  Make up stories to go with the pictures. Let the listeners join in. 7) Read anywhere, anytime.  Read at playtime bedtime and nap time.  Read any place you have to wait. 8) Go to the local library to get more books. Let children choose some books to bring home. When children are read to by people they love, children learn to love books!”
Reach Out and Read
  Medical providers stress that direct, positive verbal interaction between caregivers and children is crucial to the development of language and understanding. Reading aloud, along with meaningful conversations, have a very important place in early learning.  As the first teachers, families and other caregivers have the wonderful opportunity and responsibility to help children build for a future of success.
   Reach Out and Read is a national non-profit organization of medical providers and volunteers who promote early literacy and school readiness by integrating books and advice to parents during actual well child visits.  Since it’s founding in Boston in 1989, Reach Out has distributed over 6 million books to children and their families.  They serve more than 4 million families annually, and the number reflects participation in every state in the country. 
Sketch: Mark Nowicki
More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest

Helping Your Child Love to Read

Maya Angelou, writer, poet, and inspiration was born April 4, 1928 and died May 28, 2014.  This thought is one of her best, “I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.” Books and libraries nourish children when they are sad, lonely, and hungry for information.

On the Reading Path

  How do we get children on this path?  We can read to children daily. Cuddle up together to associate comfort with reading. Make a fort with blankets and chairs, climb in with a few snacks, a flashlight, and read.  Read before naps and bedtime or after a scrape.  Give children an LED flashlight to help read under the bed covers. Read together when children are out of sorts. Show children that you find comfort, knowledge, joy, and refreshment while reading a variety of materials.

  Take children to the library at least once a week. Libraries have a wealth of materials and programs. Check out a wagon full of books.

   In Toni Morrison’s new children’s book, “Please, Louise” she writes about a little girl who could be Maya Angelou.

  A little child looks out the window on a sad colorless day. The child dresses up in yellow rain gear and heads out somewhere with a little red wagon and a determined look.  She hurries past a man sitting on a curb, passes a frightening dog, an old rundown house, and an empty yard full of junk. A black crow cowers overhead.

Imagination

  Finally, the child reaches a destination. It’s a colorful room filled with sunshine and books, thousands and thousands of books. Filled with awe while exploring and choosing books, she settles to read on the floor.

  The next few pages show her imagination. Pages are filled with rainbows and pictures of adventures.  

  When she leaves, her wagon and arms are filled with books. Her world is not so scary. The dog is brown now and friendly. Her neighborhood is not as frightening, and the sun is shining while she reads to a dog on her porch.

   Idealistic, perhaps, but it is not if you have seen a child’s face who has discovered reading and has a nose in a book.

Photos: Maya Angelou Visits:York College http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maya_Angelou_visits_YCP!_2413_-_crop.jpg 
Storytime: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Story_Time.jpg daveparker at http://flickr.com/photos/92155448@N00/1299391810

Hall, Donna. ddc599.jpg. May 2008. Pics4Learning. 14 Jan 2013 http://pics.tech4learning.com

  For more information to help children become readers see grandparentsteachtoo.org and listen to pod casts at wnmufm.org “Learning Through the Seasons” and live broadcasts Tuesdays 4:30 pm and Saturdays 8:35 am EST.

& More Ideas and Activities... See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest.