Yew Chung International School of Beijing

Reading at Home

Why Is It So Important?

• “When schools encourage children to practise reading at home with parents, the children make significant gains in reading achievement compared to those who only practise at school.”

• “Being told stories boosts language and, by feeding the child's imagination, develops abstract thought.”

"Children who are told stories are the ones who first form abstract concepts across the curriculum – in other words, being read to makes you brainy. The best writers in the class are always those who are avid readers.”

• “Parents need to get the message that reading really matters.”

Read Aloud!

• Hearing stories being read has a direct impact on literacy development.

• Reading aloud promotes the pleasures of reading.

• Research tells us it takes 1,000 stories read aloud before a child begins to learn to read for themselves.

Reading Stories

• Hearing stories has a direct impact on literacy development. Children who are read to, read more on their own.

• When teachers and parents read stories and discuss the stories, children read more.

Developing A Love Of Reading

• Read and talk about what you are reading as adults. High frequency reading parents are six times more likely than low frequency reading parents to have children who are high frequency readers ( 42% VS. 7%)

• Help your child to select books they want to read.

• 89% of Students said that their favourite books are ones they have chosen themselves.

When Children Start Reading for Pleasure

• Reading comprehension improves• They find difficult, academic text more comprehensible• Writing style improves• Vocabulary improves• Spelling improves• Control of grammar improves

Increase Recreational Reading

• One of the major goals of language education should be to encourage free voluntary reading – the kind of reading that highly literate people do obsessively all the time.

• Reading as a leisure time activity is the best predictor of comprehension, vocabulary and reading speed.

Increase the Conversation

• – especially the book conversation.

• The highest literacy gains occur with children who have access to discussions following a story.

• Being read to does not by itself automatically lead to literacy. The real link seems to be the verbal interaction that occurs between adult and child during story reading.

Talk to Success in Reading

• Children who eat with their families have higher reading achievement than those who don’t eat with their family. They talk more and read better.

• Students who have the biggest vocabularies are the best readers.

Thinking Aloud

• Children of talkative mothers perform better than do children of quiet mothers. They use a larger vocabulary, they show more curiosity, and they display a more vivid and active imagination.

Build a Print Environment

• The 3 B’s• Books (+ audio books, e-books, magazines, and English captions

on DVDs and TV.) • Bathroom (everywhere and in the car) • Bed Lamp (a reward to stay up 15 minutes later)• Visit libraries and book shops.• Let your children see you reading often.

How do we Comprehend?

• We need to understand the text• Phonics/decoding words• Grammatical cues• Contextual cues• Picture cues

• We must engage with the text.• We critically evaluate the text.• Look at clues on the page + the knowledge in your head!

Example One

• John had got up early to learn his spellings. He was very tired and decided to take a break. When he opened his eyes again the first thing he noticed was the clock on the chair. It was an hour later and nearly time for school. He picked up his two books and put them in a bag. He started pedalling to school as fast as he could. However, John ran over some broken bottles and had to walk the rest of the way. By the time he had crossed the bridge and arrived at class, the test was over.

• What was John trying to learn?• How many books did John pick up?• How did John travel to school?• What did John do when he decided to take a break?

Example Two

• Billy was crying. His whole day was spoilt. All his hard work had been broken by the wave. His mother came to stop him crying. But she accidentally trod on the only tower that was left. Billy cried even more. “Never mind,” said his mother, “You can always build another one tomorrow.” Billy stopped crying and went home for his tea.

• How do we know where this is taking place?• Why is Billy crying?• What has spoilt his day?• What work has he been doing?• Why was only one tower left?• Why is it easy to build one tomorrow?• Why did Billy stop crying?• What time was it?

On Parent Involvement

• Success in reading is almost always has a direct link to parents who – read to their children, help teach a child to read, are teachers of reading, buy books as presents, take children to the library, organize subscriptions for magazines & read a lot themselves.

• The degree to which mothers and fathers endorse the view that reading is pleasurable is related to children’s motivation and reading achievement.

Mem Fox’s Ten Read Aloud Commandments:

• Spend at least ten wildly happy minutes every single day reading aloud.

• Read at least three stories a day even if it’s the same story three times. Children need to hear a thousand stories before they can begin to learn to read.

• Read aloud with animation. Listen to your own voice and don’t be dull, or flat, or boring. Hang loose and be loud, have fun and laugh a lot.

• Read with joy and enjoyment: real enjoyment for yourself and great joy for the listeners.

• Read the stories that the kids love, over and over and over again, and always read in the same ‘tune’ for each book. i.e. with the same intonations on each page, each time.

Continued

• Let children hear lots of language by talking to them constantly about the pictures, or anything else connected to the book, sing any old song that you can remember or say nursery rhymes in a bouncy way.

• Look for rhyme, rhythm or repetition in books for young children, and make sure the books are really short.

• Play games with the things that you and the child can see on the page, such as letting kids finish rhymes, and finding the letters that start the child’s name and yours, remembering that it’s never work.

• Never ever teach reading, or get tense around books. Reading should be natural.

• Please read aloud every day, mums and dads, because you just love being with your child, not because it’s the right thing to do.

Thank You!

• Visit our website at: www.ycis-bj.com

• Or email us at: enquiry@bj.ycef.com