Children Becoming Readers: How It Happens in the Home

By Tom Schroeder

This book treats a critical but often overlooked element in the development of strong reading skills in children. Namely, it exposes the vital importance of the home – not just as a support to the school, but as a foundational source from which literate behavior emerges.

This is not a "teach your child how to read" book. Rather, it is a book that examines how the development of reading ability in children can be a part of their natural development in the culture of the home in which they grow up.

The book begins by discussing three basic elements that are important for success in any endeavor, including reading, and showing that the home is the critical place where these important foundations for reading are best developed. Along with these basic ideas, readers are reminded that in order to help others develop reading skills, it is important to understand the reading process and how it works.

This idea brings readers into a key element of the book by taking the reader inside the reading process, showing what is happening as a child is processing print while reading. This explanation not only gives interesting and exciting insights into what is happening while a child is reading, but also shows that the most important elements that promote success in reading are things that are happening naturally in the child's home environment.

These chapters equip the reader with essential understandings that can promote powerful and positive influences on children's experiences with literacy by examining questions such as what is reading? what is happening when the child is reading? where does word power come from? and where does meaning come from?

Equipped with these understandings, the reader is led to discover how the home can be a vital factor in helping the child acquire and practice a collection of skills and attitudes that make him an effective and powerful member of a literate society. In fact, this is the heart of the book -- the importance of developing a culture of literacy in the home and enabling the child see himself or herself as a natural and powerful member of a literate culture. This is something that is desperately needed in today's world.

The book ends by examining some challenges and opportunities that emerge when we engage with this notion of creating a literate culture in the home. Pulling the ideas presented in the book all together, we see that treating children as members of a literate culture unleashes an amazing potential for children to experience the power and the joy of literacy in their lives, which is critical to the well-being of our children as individuals and of our society as a whole.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798350930245

Tom Schroeder

Tom Schroeder is a retired Professor of Elementary Education at Ball State University, serving at Ball State for thirty-six years as a Professor, Department Chair, and Associate Dean. His passion for understanding how literacy develops in children began when, after graduating from the University of Kansas, he spent six years as a classroom teacher at Apache Elementary School in Overland Park, Kansas. Encouraged by two mentors at the University of Kansas, Tom returned to KU, graduating with his PhD degree in 1973. Since that time, he has continued to ponder and examine the notion of how it is that children become readers, and what role the home, along with the school, plays in making that happen. This book is very simply the culmination of many years of thought and study, motivated by the belief that literacy is among the most essential foundations of success for us as individuals and as a society. It is presented in the hope that it gives parents understanding, and as a result, confidence to joyfully journey along with their children as they experience the power and joy of reading.

Book preview

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©2023 Tom S. Schroeder. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 979-8-35093-023-8 paperback

ISBN: 979-8-35093-024-5 ebook

This book is dedicated to Steven –who taught me more about reading than all the professors and scholars I have encountered over the years.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: WELCOME HOME!

CHAPTER ONE: MAKING IT HAPPEN – THE BIG THREE

CHAPTER TWO: DO THE RIGHT THING

PART TWO: WHERE TO START

CHAPTER THREE: WHAT IS READING?

CHAPTER FOUR: WHERE DOES READING COME FROM?

CHAPTER FIVE: WHERE DOES WORD POWER COME FROM?

CHAPTER SIX: WHERE DOES MEANING COME FROM?

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GRAND MEETING

PART THREE: GOING DEEPER

CHAPTER EIGHT: UNLOCKING PRINT

CHAPTER NINE: A CLOSER LOOK—WATCHING IT HAPPEN

CHAPTER TEN: WRITING AND READING

CHAPTER ELEVEN: LET’S TALK—PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

PART FOUR: MOVING AHEAD

CHAPTER TWELVE: CREATING A CULTURE OF LITERACY IN THE HOME

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

APPENDIX: LEARNING FROM MISCUES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the result of decades of experiences with all kinds of wonderful people who have been part of my own personal and professional life. That life has involved a continuous journey toward understanding and appreciating the amazing phenomenon of children becoming a part of a literate culture. It began with six wonderful years of teaching at Apache Elementary School in Overland Park, Kansas. It took on new direction under the mentorship of Dr. Lee Capps and Dr. Nita Wyatt at the University of Kansas and has been given life by students and colleagues during thirty-six wonderful years at Ball State University.

I especially want to thank Dr. Barbara Weaver Smith, whose encouragement led me to carry this project out, and whose knowledge and outstanding editorial skills have carried me to complete the book and bring it to publication.

Most of all, I want to thank my children—Dana, Steven, and Emily—who lived out my journey before my eyes and allowed me to experience the joy of seeing literacy become a part of life.

INTRODUCTION

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.

—Frederick Douglas

Don’t we want more than anything for our children to be free? Free to grow, free to do, free to choose, free to be? Reading is a key to all kinds of freedom, and the home can be an important place where that freedom is born and nurtured.

This book is for parents, and also for teachers, grandparents, and friends—for anyone who is anxious to help the children in their life become strong readers. But this is not a Teach Your Child How to Read book. It’s not a learning-to-read method that will suddenly transform your child into a star reader. It doesn’t happen that way. Becoming a good reader takes time, direct instruction, and it takes special attention from the adults surrounding a child.

Whether your child is attending school, or you are doing home-schooling, this book is written to help you understand more of what reading is all about and what is happening when children are learning to read. There is so much you can do at home to help your kids become great readers. In fact, your home can be a critical and powerful factor in their reading success.

Assuming they sleep eight hours a day, children spend around 5,780 hours awake in a year. Once they are school age, they will spend about 1,000 of those hours in school, and a small number of those 1,000 hours getting reading instruction. How do they spend those other 4,780 hours? Can some of those hours spent at home and in your community help them become good readers?

I think that’s a big YES. And that’s what this book is all about.

PART ONE:

WELCOME HOME!

Do you have a child who is in the process of learning to read? Do you wonder (or worry) about how that will happen? Most importantly, do you wonder about how you can have a role to play in this critical part of your child’s development? Why is the home so important to children learning to read? And how does the home life of a child contribute to learning to read? In this beginning section of the book, I want you to understand two big ideas about how your home is a critical factor that will influence how your child develops as a reader. So, I welcome you and welcome your home into your child’s reading life. Let’s get started.

CHAPTER ONE:

MAKING IT HAPPEN –

THE BIG THREE

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

–Dr. Seuss

Imagine yourself in the middle of a well-equipped and well-stocked kitchen. You have a big collection of beautiful, fresh raw ingredients and a fancy stove and sharp knives and lots of counter space with everything you need to make a perfect meal and enjoy eating it. And you are a very good cook. But … you’re not hungry. In fact, you are completely full, and the thought of food doesn’t even cross your mind. My guess is that you’re not going to take the time and go to the trouble of cooking. There’s no point! It doesn’t matter how great the conditions are for you to do something, or how great you are at it, if you see no reason for doing it, you won’t do it—especially if it takes some time and effort.

Now imagine that you are a person who loves to eat—and loves to cook—and you’re good at it. You can imagine yourself preparing a scrumptious meal and enjoying it with some friends. And you’re hungry! But … you’ve got no food to prepare and no kitchen to work in. Under those circumstances, you can’t prepare a great meal even if you want to. It doesn’t matter how motivated you are to do something; if you don’t have the opportunity to do it, you won’t do it.

OK, one more time, now imagine yourself back in the kitchen. This time you are hungry. You crave a great meal. You are motivated to create something special for you and your friends to enjoy. All the great raw ingredients are there. All the appliances you need are there. You have unlimited time to spend on cooking and enjoying a terrific meal. Only one problem: You don’t know how to cook! You don’t have a cookbook or a recipe. And even if you did, you probably couldn’t follow it because you know nothing about cooking. You think boiled eggs just come that way from certain kinds of chickens. You don’t know the first thing about how to turn those raw ingredients into a meal. It doesn’t matter how much you want to do something and how many resources are there to do it. If you don’t know how to do it, you won’t.

These three scenarios illustrate the big three elements that need to be present for anyone to do anything:

They need to have a reason to do it.

They need to have the opportunity to do it.

They need to have the tools to do it.

This is absolutely true of learning to read. To be successful, our children need to have reasons to read, opportunities to read, and the tools to read. If these three elements are not present in their lives, learning to read will be a struggle. Let’s briefly look at these three ideas.

First, what about having a reason to read? Think about it What reasons do our children have to read? In school, the reason is usually that the teacher tells the children to read. They are assigned the task of reading. They are told what to read and when to read. Of course, having an assignment in school is a legitimate reason to read, but no one ever learns to love reading if they only read when they are told to.

That’s where your home life can play a leading role. You can make reading a vital part of your child’s life. Take a moment to think about some ways you can give your child reasons to read at home or in your community.

First, there are practical reasons for reading, like reading you the recipe while you’re cooking, or looking up and reading information about the place you’ll be going for vacation, or finding reviews for a new movie, or reading letters or text messages from friends or family.

Then there are personal reasons to read, like reading books of their favorite author,