How To Help Children Read Better: September 2002
Sending your kids off to school this fall? Wondering how to help them with their reading? Here are some useful ideas for every grade.
Kindergarten
Choose great ABC books, counting books, concept books like those by Tana Hoban to reinforce basic skills being taught in school. Read each book at least three times before taking it back to the library. Find wordless stories like the John Goodall books and Mercer Mayer "Frog" stories and let your child make up the storyline.
First Grade
Read Rosemary Wells' "Max and Ruby" stories out loud and let your child read them back to you. Choose books with HUGE print (if you can read it at ten feet, it's about right for a beginning reader) like No, David! by David Shannon. Choose picture books with one line per page, read them often and help your child follow the text with a pointy finger.
Second Grade
Shower your child with joke books, funny books with mangled language like Amelia Bedelia, A Chocolate Moose for Dinner, Once There Was a Bullfrog and read each title out loud three or four times. Choose some short "chapter books" like Junie B. Jones to read aloud to your tooth-loose kids.
Third Grade
Choose skinny books in a 5"x 8" trim size that don't look like "baby books"--Magic Tree House Series, Captain Underpants series, Junie B. Jones series, Bailey Street Kids, and anything by Dav Pilkey. They love "funny" books like How to Eat Fried Worms if you can stand to read them out loud.
Fourth Grade
Ask your library for recommendations and you're liable to get books like Shiloh, and Harry Potter. Read one chapter at breakfast every morning and keep the television turned off. The kids are liable to pick up where you left off, but whatever you do, don't stop reading every morning (even if they are sneaking a peek at what comes next)!
Fifth Grade
Keep reading a chapter every morning to them but also take them into longer listening by indulging in Listening Library's fabulous selection of books-on-tape. Start with Whalesong by Robert Seigel and Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. If you're driving them to school, put the tapes in the car stereo.
Middle Schoolers
Take a gaggle of kids to the bookstore and help them get a book discussion group started. Redwall or Harry Potter or Xanth are all great series for this age. Talk to the bookstore manager beforehand and help other parents conspire to keep kids reading by giving them all bookcards and money to hang out in the café. Help make reading cool and fashionable for them.
High School
All grown up and no time to read? Plant books and magazines in the car, in the bathroom, in the kitchen on the microwave for the busy, print-hungry high-schooler and you might just find them reading and talking on the phone.
Remember: Television is not there to tell you stories--it's there to sell you stuff you don't need. It is not conducive to reading, so you have to be sneaky in subverting its powerful influence. Put books in front of the television and read during the commercials! Happy reading!
Previous tips from Gwynne Spencer on getting children to read.
Gwynne Spencer is the author of Recipes for Reading which combines cooking and picture books with hundreds of recipes; she has been a children's bookseller and promoter for over twenty years and invites your comments at pengwynnes@aol.com
Reviews
So Many Circles, So Many Squares
Tana Hoban
Buttons, fruit, boxes on a luggage cart and a checkered tablecloth are some of the everyday items photographed in this geometric concept book. Many of the vivid photos are from city street scenes and will help children identify and recognize important and commonplace things. The bright color photos are appealing and interesting. Children will enjoy trying to find all of the circles and squares in each picture. Some of the photos contain only one type of object, such as grapes or bicycles, but some are more challenging. For example, a street scene with a horse-drawn carriage in the forefront has the obvious carriage wheels that are circles. And one person in the photo is holding balloons in her hand. But the square windows of a hotel or apartment building in the background are less apparent. This book can keep a child busy identifying colors as well as shapes, and may help her to look at everyday things with a more discerning eye. 1998, Greenwillow Books, $15.00. Ages 2 to 4. Reviewer: Jeanne K. Pettenati
ISBN: 0-68815-165-5 (trade)
ISBN: 0-68815-166-3 (lib. bdg.)
Best Books:
The Best Children's Books of the Year, 1999 ; Bank Street College of Education; United States
Children's Catalog, Eighteenth Edition, 2001 ; H.W. Wilson; United States
Fanfare Honor List, 1998 ; Horn Book; United States
Max and Ruby's Midas: Another Greek Myth
Rosemary Wells
Back they go, "Max," said Ruby. "One more of these and you'll turn into a cupcake." A favorite hero, Max the rabbit, is back, this time in an uproariously funny version of the Midas legend. Proper sister Ruby tries to curb Max's sweet tooth, with results that would have had King M himself in stitches. In a market flooded with anthropomorphic animals that are hard to swallow, Max somehow is eminently appealing. In the end, we're left comforted with the thought that he's completely incorrigible, and so we can perhaps await further volumes containing Ruby's untiring efforts to reform him. And if "escalarium" sounds a tad more Roman than Greek, is such a minor point really worth the quibble? 1995, Dial, $12.99. Ages 3 to 6. Reviewer: Uma Krishnaswami.
ISBN: 0-80371-782-2
Best Books:
Adventuring with Books: A Booklist for Pre-K--Grade 6, 1997 ; National Council of Teachers of English; United States
Children's Choices, 1996 ; International Reading Association; United States
School Library Journal Book Review Stars, May 1995 ; Cahners; United States
No, David!
by David Shannon.
Poor David. He is constantly doing things that elicit stern words of discipline. He hears "No David!" when he walks over white carpet with muddy shoes, and then again when he climbs a chair to reach the cookie jar. His mother tells him to "Settle down!" when he gets too rowdy in his room, and to "Come back here!" when he runs up the street without clothes on. Surely, this is how life must seem to a spirited child--always being scolded and always being held back. But David's mother does love him. The book ends on a high note with a mother's reassuring hug and words of love--and a smile on David's face. 1998, Blue Sky Press/Scholastic, $14.95. Ages 2 to 5. Reviewer: Jeanne K. Pettenati.
ISBN: 0590930028
Best Books:
Adventuring with Books: A Booklist for Pre-K--Grade 6, 12th Edition, 1999 ; National Council of Teachers of English; United States
Bulletin Blue Ribbons, 1998 ; Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books; United States
Capitol Choices, 1998 ; The Capitol Choices Committee; United States
Children's Catalog, Eighteenth Edition, 2001 ; H.W. Wilson; United States
Choice List, 1999 ; Children's Literature; United States
Not Just for Children Any More, 1999 ; Children's Book Council; Unites States
Notable Books for Children, 1999 ; American Library Association-ALSC; United States
School Library Journal Book Review Stars, August 1998 ; Cahners; United States
School Library Journal: Best Books, 1998 ; Cahners; United States
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Colorado Children's Book Award Runner Up 2001 Picture Book Colorado
Emphasis on Reading: A Children's Choice Book Award Program Winner 2000 Grades K-2 Alabama
Flicker Tale Children's Book Award Winner 2000 Picture North Dakota
Georgia Children's Book Awards Winner 2000 Georgia
New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books of the Year Winner 1998 United States
Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award Winner 2001 Grades K-3 Pennsylvania
Randolph Caldecott Medal Honor Book 1999 United States
Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People Awards Winner 1999 Excellence in a Picture Book United States
State Reading Lists:
Colorado Children's Book Award List, 2001 ; Colorado
Flicker Tale Children's Book Award, 2000 ; North Dakota
Georgia Children's Literature Awards, 2000 ; Georgia
Good Driving, Amelia Bedelia
Herman Parish
Illustrations by Lynn Sweat
In this Harper Trophy edition of the 1995 collaboration between Herman Parish and Lynn Sweat, Amelia Bedelia takes to the road for a birthday drive in the country. Literal-minded as always, she steers straight ahead when Mr. Rogers warns her that there is a "steer straight ahead," pushes on the cow's horn instead of the car's horn when Mr. Rogers tells her to "Push on the horn," comes back with an armful of directional signs when Mr. Rogers sends her off on a walk to "get some directions," is puzzled when Mr. Rogers points out a fork in the road ("I don't see any forks or spoons"), does not bear left when she is told to, for fear of a bear on her left, and finds a Jack rather than a jack to help with the subsequent wreckage. But then Mr. Rogers and Amelia get a tow home (despite Amelia's protesting that she has all the toes she needs) in time for Amelia Bedelia's birthday party. As enjoyable a linguistic romp as all the other titles in this enduringly popular series. 2002 (orig. 1995), HarperTrophy, $3.99. Ages 6 to 8. Reviewer: Claudia Mills
ISBN: 0-06-008092-2
Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants
Dav Pilkney
George and Harold like to play pranks. It livens things up at school. Unfortunately, the jokes sometimes get them into a lot of trouble. When Professor P. Poopypants becomes the new science teacher, they almost cause the entire planet to be taken over by a mad scientist in a giant robot suit. Who will stop the perilous plot? Captain Underpants, the boys' principal who becomes a gigantic baby turned superhero at the snap of their finger. Zany humor and fun illustrations abound in this fourth adventure of Captain Underpants. Mad from everyone laughing at his silly name, Professor Poopypants uses his scientific inventions to shrink everyone, forcing them to change their names to be as silly as his. Funny, creative, and somewhat irreverent, you'll laugh out loud and have fun finding your new names as you flip through the action filled pages. If you are easily offended, you may want to pass on reading it with your child. 2000, Scholastic, $3.99. Ages 7 to 10. Reviewer: Dia L. Michels
ISBN: 0-439-04998-9
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
ABC Children's Booksellers Choices Award Winner 2001 Beginning Readers United States
State Reading Lists:
Indian Paintbrush Book Award, 2001 ; Wyoming
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