Reading with kids

Everyone agrees that reading to kids is beneficial. But how often and until what age? I’ve been doing some reading on differentiated learning and other education issues. One book recommends that parents read to their children daily long after the kids are able to read to themselves – even through the early teenage years. Some of the points regarding the development of language were pretty interesting

One idea struck me in particular. Early readers/elementary age children can listen and understand books two or more reading levels higher than what they might be able to read on their own, and that the vocabulary they learn during read-aloud sessions directly affects how quickly they can increase their independent reading skills.

Another point the author made is that with novels, not all of them are suitable for reading aloud even with older kids, some because of sensitive subject matter and others because of long descriptive passages for which younger children might not have developed the requisite attention span. He suggested that in lots of cases, it is helpful to pre-read the selection, and skip some of the longer, descriptive passages that aren’t as compelling when they are read aloud. The below list is excerpted from Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook¹:

Jim’s Favorite Kindergarten Novels (in order of difficulty)

• Two Times the Fun by Beverly Cleary
• Chibi: A True Story from Japan by B. Brenner and J. Takaya
• Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus by Barbara Park
• The Chalk Box Kid by Clyde Robert Bulla
• My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
• Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith
• Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne
• The Reluctant Dragon adapted by Inga Moore
• The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron
• The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith
• Wolf Story by William McCleery
• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

I haven’t read any of these with my kids yet, although James and the Giant Peach (and anything by Roald Dahl) is a personal favorite of mine. Judy Blume isn’t mentioned here, but Punkalicious might enjoy the book Superfudge because it deals with how an older brother is continually aggravated with his younger, toddler-age brother. Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants’ series was also recommended to me by a local children’s librarian. Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White are also highly recommended. And they are nice because you can read them together, then watch the movies – it can be a good opportunity to discuss similarities and differences between books and movies. My children are ages 4 ½ and 6 ½ and some of their current favorites to read with me (aside from all the early readers books that we are reading these days) include:

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
I have an abridged version, but it is still broken up into chapters and takes several nights to read through. I think they are willing to sit through it partly because they have seen the movie and are somewhat familiar with the story. I found that to be counterintuitive, but my daughter is also totally into the true story of Pocahontas after seeing the Disney version (She notices that in the book, Pocahontas wears her hair differently!)

A Treasury of Children’s Literature edited by Armand Eisen
They love the fairy tales, and there are also some “American Tales” like Paul Bunyan, a selection of Aesop’s Fables, some poetry. And my daughter particularly loves it because it feels like a grown-up book. There are beautiful illustrations as well. I think Punkalicious will like this one a lot.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
We also have the audio of this and when I’m sick of listening to kid music in the car, I play this and they listen happily and have memorized most of the poems.

The Frog Wore Red Suspenders by Jack Prelutsky
He has many books of children’s poetry, and they are all really fun to read. My daughter turned a corner in her reading when she started singing the poems rather than reading them aloud. I think the rhymes/singing really helped her confidence. And her first independent effort at reading a book to her brother came when she picked up a Barbie as Island Princess book that had a little lullaby in it. She was really motivated to sing it, so she read it in spite of the fact that she didn’t know many of the words.

The Trelease book also mentions that BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.) offers seven hours a day of drama and readings on the radio, including chapters from children’s novels, and these selections are posted on their web site as they appear on the air.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/kids/

Many public libraries and schools also post summer reading lists on their web sites. American Library Association posts a list of recommendations for early elementary readers. I browsed through it, and recognized many titles that my daughter has read with her teacher in kindergarten as well as some that we’ve read at home.

http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/alscresources/booklists/greatearlyelemreads.cfm

A more general list for children’s literature is the National Education Association’s top 100 children’s books chosen by teachers, and a companion list of 100 books chosen by kids.

http://www.nea.org/readacross/resources/catalist.html

http://www.nea.org/readacross/resources/kidsbooks.html

Reference:
¹Trelease, Jim. 2006. The Read-Aloud Handbook: London, Penguin Books.

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