|
Why learn to read early?
Two-thirds of students who cannot read
proficiently by the end of the 4th grade will end up in jail or on
welfare. The fourth grade is the watershed year.
(National Center for Education Statistics)
To participate fully in society and the
workplace in 2020, citizens will need powerful literacy abilities that
until now have been achieved by only a small percentage of the
population. (National
Council on Teachers of English Standards for the English Language Arts)
"If parents understood
the huge educational benefit and intense happiness brought about by
reading aloud to their children, and if every parent—and every adult
caring for a child—read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the
children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within
one generation."
Author Mem Fox
|
Reading is
the Answer!!!
More and more
research is pointing to a break down in basic education.
Universities,
educational foundations and the government continue to wonder
about the health of our educational system. Manhattan
Institute Senior Fellow Jay P. Greene, Ph.D. and Senior Research
Associate Greg Foster, Ph.D., found that only 32% of the high
school class of 2001 had the skills to attend a four-year
university.
In 2005, Indiana
University issued a report "Getting Students Ready for College:
What Student Engagement Data Can Tell Us." In it they
reported that 27 percent of high school students make past their
freshman year.
The committee on
Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (a division of
the National Research Council) reported in 1998 that "The
educational careers of 25-40 percent of American children are
imperiled because they don't read well enough, quickly enough,
or easily enough.
And, the Department
of Health and Human Services estimates that "...more that $2
billion is spent each year on students who repeat a grade
because they are having reading problems."
If anecdotal evidence
isn't enough, scholarly research and statistics are showing that
reading, simple reading to oneself and being read to, is the
answer to our dilemma.
Anderson, Wilson &
Fielding (1988) report in Reading Research Quarterly that
out-of-school reading of even 15 minutes a day of independent
reading can expose students to more than a million words of text
in a year. The increased exposure increases fluency.
Likewise
reading aloud to
young children promotes language acquisition and literacy
development as well as reading comprehension and overall success
in school. (National
Center for Education Statistics)
Jim Trelease, best
selling author and read aloud guru (http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/)
says we can change our world. He recommends reading aloud
to children all the way up through middle school and longer if
possible. Read excerpts from his book, "The Read-Aloud
Handbook" on his website.
We are passionate
about reading and about reading aloud to children. If we
can assist you in making Usborne & Kane Miller Book selections
for your home library, contact us by phone or email. We
would love to help you.
Click here for how to help your baby get ready for reading.
Also see our
Parent Resources. |
