Whether your budding book lover is a natural or one of the 20 per cent of children who find reading a challenge, here's how you can nurture her growth into a successful and enthusiastic reader.
A haircut. New shoes. A cool backpack. We send our kids out the door in September with hugs and promises: "You will make friends. You will learn to read. School will be fun."
But school is not all fun and games, as any four-year-old who has been sent to the time-out chair can tell you. Friends come and go. And reading? Well, let's just say it's not easy for everyone. In fact, one child in five will find that reading is a challenge.
Kids walk into a competitive arena when they start school. Even in kindergarten, children know which of their peers can print their own names without name cards. They can tell you which kids recognize all the letters. They can point out the hotshots who bring chapter books from home and read them for show and tell.
"Do you like to read?" I ask children before doing their reading assessments. If the answer is anything less than an enthusiastic "Yes! I love to read," the warning light starts flashing. Answers spiral downward from "It's OK, I guess" to "Sometimes." I am especially concerned about the child who cannot meet my eyes when he admits, "I'm not good at reading." And that just about sums it up. If a child is not good at something, he probably doesn't enjoy it.
But don't underestimate your role as a parent: you can help your child learn to read - and love it. Before you hear the heart-wrenching lament "I'm not good at reading" (or if you've heard it already), here are a few specific strategies that promote independence, build confidence and empower your child with the written word.
Let go of control
Give it up! Hand it over - the book, that is. Parents and teachers want to solve the word quickly and get on with the story. We want to rescue the child from the struggle. But children are capable of developing independent reading strategies at a very early age if they are given control over the text. Starting in kindergarten and through the primary years, children benefit when an adult acts as a "guide on the side" during the reading process.
When I facilitate parent workshops, I often invite children to join us for a reading demonstration. Parents and children, sitting side by side, sometimes get into a power struggle to determine who is in charge. The person who is holding the book and pointing to the words has control. If the adult doesn't relinquish control, it sends a message to the child: the deadly "You're not ready for prime time." So hand over the book and sit on your hands.
But wait - don't disappear. Travelling in unknown territory can be scary if you're alone. Like all adventurers, your child is embarking on a journey that will require a lot of risk-taking and confidence. He will need your guidance as he deciphers the unintelligible symbols along the way. Just look at an alphabet in an unfamiliar language to remind yourself how difficult it is to match sounds to symbols, put the sounds together into words and then string those words together to come up with a sentence - one that makes sense. Whew! It's a tough job.
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