The Importance of Reading at Home

The Importance of Reading at Home
Posted on 01/26/2016
An important reminder from our Literary Coach, Ms. Vecchiarello:

Dear Families / Caregivers,

Happy New Year! As we make our New Year resolutions, please keep in mind the importance of reading at home for our growing readers. While it may take some time to get there, the hope is for all students to want to read for pleasure. Reading for pleasure is a key ingredient in creating a life-long reader. Now is the perfect time to revisit your home plan for supporting your child(ren)’s reading habits, as research shows that the amount of time spent reading (in and out of school) directly relates to a child’s success as a reader.

When children read for pleasure, when they get “hooked on books”, they acquire, involuntarily and without conscious effort, nearly all of the so-called “language skills” many people are so concerned about: they will become adequate readers, acquire a large vocabulary, develop the ability to understand and use complex grammatical constructions, develop a good writing style, and become good (but not necessarily perfect) spellers.
– Linguist Stephen Krashen (1993, p. 85)*

There are many ways for our students to read at home, but I truly believe that children most love to read when they can share the reading experience with someone else, especially an important adult in their life. Below are some tips for reading with your child(ren):
–Encourage your child to tell you about what he/she is reading.
–Take turns reading to one another (especially 2nd-5th graders).
–Listen to audio books in the car to and from school or on the way to extracurricular activities.
–Let your young child ‘tell’ the story using the illustrations in a picture book.
–Act out a story as a family.
–Create a quiet and comfortable place to read at home and snuggle up!
–Develop an incentive chart/plan to encourage reluctant readers and complete the plan together.

We ask that every family make a commitment to read for at least 20 minutes each night. Our partnership in building better readers is important to us and we are thrilled when families support our efforts. For more information and/or ideas for reading at home, please visit the following sites:

TumbleBooks Online Library
List of Literacy Sites
Ideas for Reading at Home
Reading Rockets


*Krashen, S. (1993). The Power of Reading. Englewood, Col.: Libraries Unlimited, Inc.
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