Reading With Children

by Lester L. Laminack, Ed.D.

INTRODUCTION
Why Read to Children?
Goldilocks, The Three Bears, Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, The Three Little Pigs, The Gingerbread Man. I'd bet that you are familiar with each of these delightful characters and the stories they call "home". It is very likely that you can recall a special chair, the smell of your grandmother or perhaps your father's chuckle when you think of those characters and stories. The fact that you are reading this, that you are willing to help another individual learn to read, demonstrates a personal commitment to literacy and a love of literature. Chances are that your affection for words began in your childhood, when reading was paired with security, warmth, and significant adults.

It is difficult for those of us with fond memories of stories and books to truly understand what it would be like to grow up without them. Unfortunately, many children are missing this important factor in their overall language development because many adults either do not have those memories and experiences to draw from or do not fully appreciate the value of sharing them with children. Lacking this experience during childhood has been shown to have a measurable negative effect on later literacy development. In fact, a great deal of educational research (including a U.S. Department of Education study entitled, A Nation at Risk, published in 1987) has shown that children whose parents/caretakers read to them regularly, make books available, and encourage exploration of books, papers, and writing implements are typically more successful as students in elementary school.

Although a focus on parent-child reading will definitely enrich the lives of children, the primary audience of this training is the adult learner. Then why "reading to children" as a means of literacy development for adults? Why not just focus directly on adults and their needs? We are! Few forces drive adults more strongly than meeting the needs of their children. Therefore, we suggest several strategies for enhancing literacy development in general. These strategies will assist adults in gaining proficiency with reading, writing, and listening and will be useful tools for working with young children in their care. Adults, as you are aware, are already quite sensitive about their level of proficiency in reading/writing. In fact, those emotions can get in the way when progress is not as obvious or as rapid as the adult learners and/or the tutor might have expected. With the focus on reading with children, the emphasis is shifted away from adults' lack of proficiency with literacy and is placed on helping develop strategies that will enable sharing in the literacy development of their own children, or children in their care.

The materials and strategies presented in this handbook and accompanying workshop are those proven successful with young children in a variety of settings, including the home. Since they are focused on children, they are not as likely to be perceived as threatening and, since the emphasis is on learning the strategies in order to share with them as a child, they are less likely to be perceived as condescending. This provides a situation in which everyone is a winner! The adults learn basic sight words, sentence patterns, story structure, and fluent reading strategies, while developing a positive attitude toward the value of sharing literacy and modeling the functions of literacy with young children. In addition, adults build a repertoire of strategies, stories, and poems for helping the young children who are of extreme significance in their lives. The child grows from exposure to the language of books, stories, and rhymes while sharing in the excitement and establishing a strong, significant bond with both the adult and the written word. The tutor wins too! As a tutor, you witness growth in the adult and the child and find a level of motivation that is typically inherent when an adult is committed to helping a young child.

This book is for those literacy tutors wishing to help parents and other caretakers of young children both improve their skills and learn to read to their children. It assumes some familiarity with reading approaches described in TUTOR (LVA, 1987) and the Instructor's Guide for the Read On! II Series (LVA, 1988).

Why Use The Small Group Format?
Working with adults to help them help their children is an appealing idea and should, at this point, seem a bit more logical as a means for helping adults develop independent growth in literacy. But you may be asking why this should be done in a small group setting rather than in a one-to-one or classroom format. There are several reasons for using the small group format, not the least of which is the support network that can and should be established in the group setting and which is not available in one-to-one or the more impersonal, crowded classroom situation.

When several adults work together toward a set of common goals, and when those adults have several characteristics and experiences in common, there is tremendous potential for building a sense of community. Each meeting is an opportunity to share experiences, successes, and concerns about working with their children and learning thereby becomes a cooperative venture. The group becomes an open forum for discussion of the strategies and materials presented in the program. The tutor and learners in the group soon discover that each member brings a slightly different perspective on similar concerns. This helps to generate options and alternative applications for the strategies presented. Additional materials may also surface that can be used to reach the common of the group while working toward individual goals at one's own pace.

Perhaps a more practical reason, from a program administration perspective, for working with a small group is that one tutor can facilitate the growth of three to five adults. In the group setting it is imperative that you, the tutor, be seen more as a facilitator and less as the "instructor" or authority. Therefore, it is critical that the tone for a cooperative learning environment be set in the first small group meeting.

Why Offer a Specific Number of Sessions?
The six sessions described in the video and this handbook can be seen as a sampler – as initial experience with each technique. This design allows for learners to commit a definite length of time to working on their literacy skills and to focus on helping their children. Any one of these topics could then be offered as the focus of the next series. The group would have the opportunity to choose one of the topics in which to go into greater depth – such as expanding the writing sessions. They would choose the number of sessions they wanted to have in the series. New readers could also be invited to join the group; and people could drop out for a while and return when the next series begins. Each of the techniques given in this handbook would then be used again and again as appropriate.

Of course, the series could be offered in any number of sessions which prove most successful or useful to the learners and program needs. A number of sessions could be spent on any one of the topics as the learners express a desire to go into greater depth or have more practice.

As you know, making a commitment for a definite period of time allows you to plan and arrange your schedule. It also frees you from the need to give reasons for ending a voluntary commitment such as this, which in turn, makes it more likely that you would return for a second and third series. This reasoning also holds for the learners in the group.

See Appendix for other ways to adapt the series.

To order a copy of Reading With Children, call toll free 1-800-LVA-8812.

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