Over a third of children in the U.S. enter school unprepared to learn. They lack the vocabulary, sentence structure, and other basic skills that are required to do well in school. Children who start behind generally stay behind – they drop out, they turn off. Their lives are at risk.
Why are so many children deficient in the skills that are critical to school readiness?
Children’s experience with books plays an important role. Many children enter school with thousands of hours of experience with books. Their homes contain hundreds of picture books. They see their parents and brothers and sisters reading for pleasure. Other children enter school with fewer than 25 hours of shared book reading. There are few if any children’s books in their homes. Their parents and siblings aren’t readers.
Picture book reading provides children with many of the skills that are necessary for school readiness: vocabulary, sound structure, the meaning of print, the structure of stories and language, sustained attention, the pleasure of learning, and on and on. Preschoolers need food, shelter, love; they also need the nourishment of books.
It is important to read frequently with your preschooler. Children who are read to three times per week or more do much better in later development than children who are read to less than three times per week. It is important to begin reading to your child at an early age. By nine months of age, infants can appreciate books that are interesting to touch or that make sounds.
dialogic reading
?How we read to preschoolers is as important as how frequently we read to them. The Stony Brook Reading and Language Project has developed a method of reading to preschoolers that we call dialogic reading.
When most adults share a book with a preschooler, they read and the child listens. In dialogic reading, the adult helps the child become the teller of the story. The adult becomes the listener, the questioner, the audience for the child. No one can learn to play the piano just by listening to someone else play. Likewise, no one can learn to read just by listening to someone else read. Children learn most from books when they are actively involved.
The fundamental reading technique in dialogic reading is the PEER sequence. This is a short interaction between a child and the adult. The adult:
Imagine that the parent and the child are looking at the page of a book that has a picture of a fire engine on it. The parent says, “What is this?” (the prompt) while pointing to the fire truck. The child says, truck, and the parent follows with “That’s right (the evaluation); it’s a red fire truck (the expansion); can you say fire truck?” (the repetition).
Except for the first reading of a book to children, PEER sequences should occur on nearly every page. Sometimes you can read the written words on the page and then prompt the child to say something. For many books, you should do less and less reading of the written words in the book each time you read it. Leave more to the child.
There are five types of prompts that are used in dialogic reading to begin PEER sequences. You can remember these prompts with the word CROWD.
You leave a blank at the end of a sentence and get the child to fill it in. These are typically used in books with rhyme or books with repetitive phases. For example, you might say, “I think I’d be a glossy cat. A little plump but not too ____,” letting the child fill in the blank with the word fat. Completion prompts provide children with information about the structure of language that is critical to later reading.
These are questions about what happened in a book a child has already read. Recall prompts work for nearly everything except alphabet books. For example, you might say, “Can you tell me what happened to the little blue engine in this story?” Recall prompts help children in understanding story plot and in describing sequences of events. Recall prompts can be used not only at the end of a book, but also at the beginning of a book when a child has been read that book before.
These prompts focus on the pictures in books. They work best for books that have rich, detailed illustrations. For example, while looking at a page in a book that the child is familiar with, you might say, “Tell me what’s happening in this picture.” Open-ended prompts help children increase their expressive fluency and attend to detail.
These prompts usually begin with what, where, when, why, and how questions. Like open-ended prompts, wh- prompts focus on the pictures in books. For example, you might say, “What’s the name of this?” while pointing to an object in the book. Wh- questions teach children new vocabulary.
These ask children to relate the pictures or words in the book they are reading to experiences outside the book. For example, while looking at a book with a picture of animals on a farm, you might say something like, “Remember when we went to the animal park last week. Which of these animals did we see there?” Distancing prompts help children form a bridge between books and the real world, as well as helping with verbal fluency, conversational abilities, and narrative skills.
Distancing prompts and recall prompts are more difficult for children than completion, open-ended, and wh- prompts. Frequent use of distancing and recall prompts should be limited to four- and five-year-olds.
Virtually all children’s books are appropriate for dialogic reading. The best books have rich detailed pictures, or are interesting to your child. Always follow your child’s interest when sharing books with your child.
Dialogic reading works. Children who have been read to dialogically are substantially ahead of children who have been read to traditionally on tests of language development. Children can jump ahead by several months in just a few weeks of dialogic reading. We have found these effects with hundreds of children in areas as geographically different as New York, Tennessee, and Mexico, in settings as varied as homes, preschools, and daycare centers, and with children from economic backgrounds ranging from poverty to affluence.
Dialogic reading is just children and adults having a conversation about a book. Children will enjoy dialogic reading more than traditional reading as long as you mix-up your prompts with straight reading, vary what you do from reading to reading, and follow the child’s interest. Keep it light. Don’t push children with more prompts than they can handle happily. Keep it fun.
Reading books, sharing stories, talking and singing every day helps your child’s development in many ways.
Reading and storytelling can:
Reading stories with children has benefits for you too. The special time you spend reading together promotes bonding and builds your relationship with your child.
You can start reading aloud to your baby as early as you like – the earlier the better. Your baby will love being held in your arms, listening to your voice, hearing rhyme and rhythm, and looking at pictures.
Reading isn’t the only way to help with your child’s language and literacy development.
Telling stories, singing songs and saying rhymes together are also great activities for early literacy skills – and your child will probably have a lot of fun at the same time. Sometimes your child might enjoy these activities more than reading.
You and your child might like to make up your own stories or share family stories. Your child will learn words and develop language skills from the songs, stories and conversations you share together.
You can use books to share stories, but you don’t always have to read. Just by looking at pictures and talking about them with your child, you can be a storyteller and a model for using language and books. Your child will also learn by watching you hold a book the right way and seeing how you move through the book by gently turning the pages.
You can read, sing and tell stories with your child in whatever language you feel most comfortable speaking.
Using a language you’re comfortable with helps you to communicate more easily. It also helps to make reading, singing and storytelling more fun for you and your child. Your child will still learn that words are made up of different letters, syllables and sounds, and that words usually link to the pictures on the page.
If you speak languages other than English at home but want to introduce your child to reading in English, you can look for dual-language books. Or you could read a book aloud in English or listen to an audio book in English and then talk about the story with your child in whatever language feels most comfortable.
Bedtime, bath time, potty time, on the train, on the bus, in the car, in the park, in the pram, in the cot, when you’re in the GP’s waiting room ... any time is a good time for a story! You can make books part of your daily routine – take them with you to share and enjoy everywhere.
Knowing when to stop can be just as important as finding the time to share a story in the first place. Pay attention to your child’s reaction to the story, and stop if your child isn’t enjoying it. You can always try a different book, song or story another time.
If you don’t have a book or can’t make up a story on the spot, don’t worry. There are many other ways you and your child can share letters, words and pictures. For example, you can look at:
You could check out our storytelling videos. Let storyteller Anne E. Stewart introduce you and your child to ‘Mook Mook the owl’, ‘The crocodile’ and ‘The old lady and the mosquito’.
If you have older children, they can share books with your younger children, or you can all read together. Taking turns, asking questions and listening to the answers are all important skills that will help children when they start learning how to read.
Just reading for a few minutes at a time is good – you don’t always have to finish the book. As children grow, they can usually listen for longer.
As a broad rule, young children often enjoy books, songs and stories that have good rhyme, rhythm and repetition. In fact, one of the ways that children learn is through repetition and rhyme.
Children also like books they can relate to – for example, books about play, toys, dinner, bath time, walks, animals and cars.
It’s also important to choose books that are the right length for your child.
For a guide to what might suit your child, you can look at the following articles:
You can also vary the books and printed materials you read. Picture books, ebooks, magazines, instruction manuals, TV guides and letters can all be interesting and engaging for your child.
If your older child is interested in ebooks, look for ones without distracting games or animations. Also, it’s important to read ebooks with your child, rather than leaving your child alone with a device. It’s best if ebooks don’t replace paper books.
If you want to try new books or magazines without much cost, you could arrange book swaps with friends or other parents at your parent group or early childhood centre.
Libraries have a lot to offer. Getting to know your local library can be a part of learning about and loving books.
You can borrow great children’s books for free from your local library. This means you can have plenty of books in your home for your child to explore – and it won’t cost you a cent.
Taking your child to the library and letting them choose their own books can be a fun adventure. You can talk about and plan your trip to the library with your child. You could ask your child, for example:
Many libraries also offer free story times and activities for young children. Going along to these sessions is a way to help your child get familiar with the library, have fun, and enjoy books and stories. Some libraries offer these sessions online.
Libraries often have audio books, dual-language books, ebooks and magazines.
Just contact your local library for more information.
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