Comments on: Guest Post – Six Early Reading Skills Your Children Need To Learn

By: myrt

myrt — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:54:17 +0000

p.s. Love the post. Kudos!

By: myrt

myrt — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:53:03 +0000

Dear MOM and BADDAD. The rule of unfamiliar words on a page is less than five. It’s called GIVE ME FIVE. You choose a random page from the book in question and hold up a finger for each unfamiliar word if you have less than five, the book is fine. If you have five or more, it is too difficult. If you have no fingers up, then the book is too easy.

The trick is to help your kids have a healthy balance between easy books for pleasure and books that will challenge the reader.

Hope that helps!

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 19:56:03 +0000

I love this post! It’s so important to get children excited about reading at a young age.

By: beagooddad

beagooddad — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:02:32 +0000

I highly recommend letting the kids pick their own books. I literally cannot remember the any books from grade school through high school and most of college that were assigned reading that I actually finished. And I have always read a ton of books.

After the class was done, I went back a read several of them and loved them. There’s something evil about assigned books with me for some reason.

By: MOM

MOM — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:36:53 +0000

PS incentives or bribery are ok with me too. We once gave our son 20 dollars if he would not “feel bad” that we skipped his 3 hour- all school- all band Sunday afternoon concert.I am not sorry we did that and neither is he. MOM

By: MOM

MOM — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:33:15 +0000

things that popped into my head when I read your comment Bad Dad were:
..Be sure what he is trying to read is not too hard for him (even if he picked it out) maybe even easy for him….at first at least. There are guidelines for determining what is a recreational level for a child to read. It has something to do with how many words they are unfamiliar with on a page. Find the guidelines on the internet…I’ve forgotten them.
..How about books with flaps, windows or other gimmicks……sometimes they extend interest
..reading aloud sharing every other sentence with a parent or other adult.
….high interest themes or topics
…magazines Time for Kids, SI for Kids, Ranger Rick etc.
…find some children’s plays on the internet and have the family choose parts and read their scripts
…look the pages over that he might be going to read, find the hard or unfamilar words and point them out, discuss their meaning and then let him try to read it figuring other words out as he goes along…if you knows more about the context he may have more luck sounding out some words.

This guy is what reading teachers and librarians call a “reluctant reader” so google that term and perhaps his age and see what ideas come up…there are whole books written on the topic. MOM

By: Bad Dad

Bad Dad — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:31:04 +0000

Reading is becoming a battle in our house. It’s ridiculous. Awesome Mom and I love to read and try to set the example around the kids. But our older 8 yr old twin yells and screams at his brothers pretty much because his twin and 6 yr old brother are taking an interest in reading and are much better than him. He’s taking his frustrations out on everyone else.

I still make all four sit for 15 minutes of reading on the floor with me at bedtime night each night.

I’ve laid out a challenge to them: I’ll buy a $20 toy for whoever reads solo for thirty minutes a day, every day, until back to school. We set up a log to keep track. Today is day two of the challenge. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that ~~bribery~~ an incentive will help ease the tension a bit.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:40:33 +0000

I agree with teaching kids to read and love books at an early age. I used to tutor reading. When the kids really learned, they just couldn’t put books down. But if it’s a struggle for them, you’ll lose them forever.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:02:10 +0000

As a teacher of students that dropped out of school I can testify from the other end of success. Ninety percent of my students have no interest in reading. Nor do they read at a significant level. Often when I take in a student that can’t read beyond a first or second grade level.

Most of my students aren’t going to have a chance at success because they are incapable of reading or writing. They do not posess a high enough level of communication skills to even create a resume that would compete with the more literate.

If you don’t establish strong reading skills at a young age your child will be at a disadvantage their whole life.

BTW…
Tag your it.
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