Getting kids reading: What does work

What does work. (By Getting Kids Reading.)

Reading to your kid every day. The number-one thing you can do to create a reader.

Letting him see you read. Kids do what their parents do. If you don't enjoy reading - fake it. Or read magazines or comic books or something.

Surrounding your kid with books. Access to books gives a kid ownership and once they feel entitled to books they're more likely to casually pick them up - now and throughout their life.

Reading extensions. I'm referring to other media that are associated with certain books - movies, a TV series, cartoons, merchandise - that may interest the child in a book. Who cares what hooks the child into reading? As long as he eventually reads the book, it's all useful.

Letting your kid choose what he reads. Many schools now go by the maxim that "any reading is good reading" and, barring violence or inappropriate content, I agree. If you don't like his choices, then find something similar that you do approve of. For instance, if he's reading Superman comics, find him novels with superheroes.

Treating books like treasures. Books contain: secrets, surprises, gems, rewards, new friends, adventures, useful facts, gross stuff, silliness and lots of other things your kid values. Let your kid see that a book is something precious and exciting and cool.

Turning off the TV. Much as I hate being the bad cop, you've gotta, gotta limit screen-time. Create space for reading time. Here's a GKR article about the reading bubble.

Sharing books with friends. The next time your child's friend is over, casually mention that your kid is reading "....." book, and ask what they're reading. Before you know it, the two will be having a conversation about books. And that will reinforce what you're trying to do in a way that only peers can.

Letting girls be girls and boys be boys. Your boy may want to walk around while he reads. Boys need to move, especially when they're thinking. Your daughter may want to read stuff about dogs and love and celebrities. Girls often gravitate towards books with detailed relationships. (Advice: get your boy an exercise ball to sit on instead of a chair; get your girl a book with an empowered heroine who has sophisticated relationships.)

Never giving up. Don't stop trying to get your kid to read. It's so important. So, so important. If one thing doesn't work, try something else. One day it will click and your kid will be a reader. And spend the rest of his or her life thanking you.

Getting your kid reading: What doesn't work

From the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) website: What doesn't work.

Nagging. Avoid lecturing about the value of reading and hounding a child who is not reading. Your child will only resent it.

Bribing. While there's nothing wrong with rewarding your child's reading efforts, you don't want your youngster to expect a prize after finishing every book. Whenever possible, offer another book or magazine (your child's choice) along with words of praise. You can give other meaningful rewards on occasion, but offer them less and less frequently. In time, your child will experience reading as its own reward.

Judging your child's performance. Separate school performance from reading for pleasure. Helping your child enjoy reading is a worthwhile goal in itself.

Criticizing your child's choices. Reading almost anything is better than reading nothing. Although you may feel your child is choosing books that are too easy or that treat subjects too lightly, hide your disappointment. Reading at any level is valuable practice, and successful reading helps build confidence as well as reading skills. If your differences are simply a matter of personal taste, respect your child's right to his or her own preferences.

Setting unrealistic goals. Look for small signs of progress rather than dramatic changes in your child's reading habits. Don't expect a reluctant reader to finish a book overnight. Maybe over the next week, with your gentle encouragement.

Making a big deal about reading. Don't turn reading into a campaign. Under pressure, children may read only to please their parents rather than themselves, or they may turn around and refuse to read altogether.

Hmmm. So here's an interesting conundrum. I liked this article, which I found on RIF.org a month or two ago. Sometimes when I see a good article, I stash it or its URL in my "edit" file until I can use it. Unfortunately, in this case I don't know whether I parsed/rewrote it before stashing it (to prevent plagiarism) or just stashed the whole article from RIF, intending to rewrite it later (crediting RIF, of course). And now I can't find it on RIF's website. Can't find it anywhere. Searched and searched. So: apologies to RIF if I ripped (or riffed) you off. Just to be safe I'll put a nice big link to RIF right in the headline. There. Good article, though, eh? On second thought, maybe it's RIF's original article after all. I don't think I'd say "youngster." "Kid" is more my style. UPDATE: Oh geez, it's like a week later and I just remembered. I actually contacted RIF and asked them if I could reproduce their article! (They said yes.) Oh phew! Know what made me think of it? I was writing the companion article, "What does work," and I was thinking, "I wonder if RIF would be interested in reading this?" And then I recalled e-mailing them and hearing back from them. Oh geez. Sorry to make you read all of this fine print - but thanks for hanging in there. Wasn't the ending worth it? Well, it was for me. You're awesome, reader.

Take 30 seconds for literacy this holiday

Think about literacy.

Take 30 seconds during the holidays - today - to reflect on how you can help your child become a better reader, enjoy books more and have greater access to books.

Just taking the time to focus on literacy will bring your child one step closer to enjoying reading more.

Here are some ideas to help you answer the question:

"How can I help my child enjoy reading more?"

* Extend your child's bedtime - as long as he's reading, he can stay up a bit later.

* Take your child to the library.

* Buy a great book and put it on your child's pillow for her to discover tonight.

* Buy yourself a good book. When kids see their parents reading, they're more likely to read themselves. (Have you read Andre Agassi's new biography Open? Even if you don't like sports, biographies or Andre Agassi - you will enjoy this great, fast and engaging read.)

* Read with your child tonight, even if he's already reading by himself.

* Buy books at Goodwill or another second-hand store.

* Rent your child the movie of a famous book. Buy the book too.

* Suggest that the grandparents purchase a magazine subscription for your child.

* Buy your child a booklight. Let him use it tonight after lights-out.

* Get your son a fact-based book like the Guinness Book of Records or one with lots of adventure like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (the graphic novel has just come out).

* Get your daughter a book with lots of great characters and developed relationships, or one with a wonderful, empowered heroine like Eloise.

* Don't ever give up. Every second you spend with your child on reading is quality time and an investment in his future.

Image: Wikimedia Commons, by this author.

Access to printed materials does help

What impact, if any, does access to print materials have on our children's reading?

A lot, according to extensive research by RIF, Reading Is Fundamental, a non-profit children's literacy organization based in Washington, DC.

Owning and borrowing books from the library causes, "positive behavioural, educational and psychological outcomes."

In other words, kids who have access to books do better socially and at school.
(Does this sound familiar to regular GKR readers? But I digress.)

RIF found that having access to printed materials:

...improves children's reading performance. Children, and kindergarten students in particular, read better when they're often surrounded by books.

...is instrumental in helping children learn the basics of reading. Kids who have lots of different books become better at identifying words, being able to sound out words, and read sentences.

...causes children to read more and for longer lengths of time. There is more shared reading between parents and children. Kids read more often and for longer stretches.

...produces improved attitudes toward reading and learning among children. Kids who own, borrow or who are given books say they like reading and schoolwork more than kids who don't have access to books.

So there you have it. It's what this blog has been advocating for more than a year, and I'm thrilled to see another significant study that backs it up: kids who have access to books are much more likely to become great readers, and to love reading.

Scatter books around the house
Please check out these ideas for surrounding your kid with books.
Mom got her son reading!
Percy Jackson and the Olympians (let him find books on his bed)
Get your six-year-old reading
More books = more education

How the RIF study was done
Researchers searched 11,000 reports and analyzed 108 of the most relevant studies. They then chose "the most thorough and carefully conducted 44" of the 108 and did further analysis in order to draw their conclusions. That's a lot of stuff.

How to build reading success

Could this be Snappy the mouse?
Well, no, I made him up.
But if there was a mouse named Snappy,
this would be him. In a bi-plane.
Image: by Dvortygirl.

Here’s a great way to help your child succeed at reading and at the same time develop a love of books… and it starts with one word.

When you’re reading with your child, point out a word or two and help him to memorize it. Every time the child reads that word—and can read that word—he’ll feel successful. And that’s when you praise the heck out of him.

Here’s how it would look
ME: This is a book about a mouse named Snappy. Look at that name, “Snappy.” See the big S at the front? It’s like a snake, isn’t it? How many letters does Snappy’s name have—let’s count them. Six! What else does Snappy’s name have?

KID: Two of these letters. (pointing).

ME: That’s right! Snappy’s name has two ps! And do you know this letter? (Pointing to the y.)

OK, so now the child will recognize that if there’s a word with two ps and a capital S and a y, it’s likely to be “Snappy.”

You’ve shifted his focus from all of the grey text in the book, to looking for just one little word. And you’ve chosen a word that will come up a lot in the book, so there will be lots of successes.

And now as you’re reading out loud, pause whenever the word “Snappy” is in the text. And you know who’s going to read that word? (Right!) The kid.

The first couple of times you’ll pause and point to the word, and maybe point out the capital S and the ps with your finger. And then look pointedly at the child, as if waiting… for… him… to… say…

KID: Snappy!

ME: Good one! That’s right! There’s that word: Snappy! Nice job. I wonder if it’s in here again…

And sure enough, the second time you pause, he’ll notice the capital S and call out, “Snappy!” And you’ll both be delighted. And the next time it will happen faster, and the next time you won’t even have to pause at all.

It will become seamless, like this:

ME: One day when (child: Snappy!) was in his bedroom, his mother called to him. (child: Snappy!) she called. Oh, (child: Snappy!). Come down and eat your dinner!

And then later in the week, the child will see the word in some other context, in another book or in an ad (Snapple) and he’ll be so proud that he knows that word.
Is he sounding out the word using phonics? No, he’s memorizing it by its shape and a couple of cues. And memorizing is an important part of learning to read, especially in the beginning.
But more than that, your child has taken ownership of a word. He’s taken ownership of a book with “his” word in it. He has learned that he can read something, and he’s been successful.

Promote literacy: four important activities

There’s a fourth promoter of literacy.

You know that I’m always going on about the three most important things you can do to turn your kid into a great reader:

1) Read to her every day.
2) Have lots of books scattered throughout your house.
3) Let her see you reading.

Research tells us that if you do those three things, you’re more likely to have a kid who loves to read.

A Grade 1 - 2 teacher at my son’s school told me about another one: The number of books she reads/looks at/has read to her.

Mr. Remisch told me that kids who “go through” books at a fairly good clip tend to be lifelong readers. It makes sense; it’s kind of an extension of #2—exposing her to books, having them around her.

Mr. Remisch has a wonderful plan to get the kids in his class to “get through” a lot of books. He uses an incentive.

The kids in his class will write down the title of every book they read, along with as much as they can or want to say about the book. When they get to 30, they’ll get a certificate.

For a six-year-old, that’s a pretty solid incentive. In fact, just keeping track—or having your teacher keep track—of the books you’re reading is enough to keep a kid reading.

In this exercise, Mr. Remisch isn't concerned as much about the quality of the reading material, as the quantity. He’s not trying to make kids read specific things, here; he’s trying to expose them to books. Lots of books.

He’s setting the stage for later years, when the quality of the reading material will become more important.

He doesn’t want kids going home and staying up until two in the morning, reading all 30 books in one week, so he’ll probably set a limit of three books a day.

And he says it is important that the child understand what she’s reading, so there will be some discussions about the books. And for every, say, dozen or so books, he’ll ask the child for a bit more detail.

A reading incentive chart with a nice reward is a great way to expose your child to books and get her reading.

Here’s an earlier article we wrote on Reading Reward Charts.

Literacy Lava - excellent (free) resource

Literacy Lava 5

I've got an article in the latest edition of Susan Stephenson's (The Book Chook) great e-newsletter, "Literacy Lava."

"Literacy Lava" is a free .pdf for parents and educators, and is basically a collection of great articles on helping kids to read.

This is the 5th edition of the newsletter and it includes:
*my article, on getting your video-loving kid to read;
*developing spelling skills;
*whether graphic novels are real reading;
*encouraging kids to write poetry;
and much, much more.

It's a tremendous resource, very professionally done, with articles taken from various experts on children's literacy. Stephenson does it as a labour of love, and to help promote her excellent blog, "The Book Chook."

I'm honoured to have been asked to contribute to the e-newsletter; I'm in excellent company.

Click here to download a free copy of the .pdf. While you're on the site, click around and you'll find lots of gems - including back issues of Literacy Lava.

Quick and easy literacy activities

Our school board issued a list of great literacy activities.

They're simple and fun, and are great examples of what I like to call "guerilla literacy" - using tons of little tactics here and there that add up to... a kid who likes to read.

You may want to print this list out and put a copy in your kitchen, in your car, in your purse; wherever you can use it to remind yourself of a quick and easy activity that encourages reading.

The great thing about the list is that it specifically targets some of the things that the Toronto school board has found that kids typically struggle with: identifying the main idea, making inferences and explaining point-of-view.

The school board also found that students could use more exposure to poetry and graphic texts. Discussing song lyrics or talking about billboards, ads and menus for instance, will help familiarize your child with these text forms.

So here's the list - I've bolded some of the ones I found particularly new, fun or do-able.

• Write out a phone message for a member of your family.


• Bake a favourite recipe.


• Tell a story about growing up.


• Tell the story of your birth.


• When you are travelling in the car with your parents, give the directions.


• Tell a traditional story about your culture.


• Put a message on a sticky note and place it on the fridge for your parents.


• Look at family photos and tell stories together.


• Make up stories when you are travelling together.


• Make a scrapbook about something that interests you.


• Play cards.


• Play board games.


• Read or write poetry.


• Make up tongue twisters.


• Look up words you don't know in a dictionary or online.


• Read a news story out loud and talk about what you think about it.


• Learn a song. Teach it to your parents.


• Write an e-mail together to a friend or family member.


• Get some refrigerator word magnets and play with them.


• Write a thank-you card together.


• Watch a TV show together and talk about the main idea.


• Watch a movie and see whether you can summarize it in just five sentences.


• Read a book together and then watch the movie version. Talk about the differences between the two versions.


• Write out the family shopping list.


• When you are travelling together, point out street signs, ads and other text that is interesting.


• Read a computer manual or online instructions together.


• Put something together that comes with plans.


• Read something while thinking about the author's message.


• Read "between the lines" and see if you can make an inference about the way someone in your family is behaving. For example, "based on the fact that you are rushing around the house frantically looking in every drawer, I'm going to infer that you've lost your keys again, Mom."


• Make a connection between an idea in a book and something from your own experience.


• Give a five-minute summary of a movie you recently enjoyed (but remember not to ruin the story by giving away the ending!).

I don't think "bolded" is a word. It sure is a concept I find that I need to use a lot. Emboldened? I could say "higlighted in bold" I guess, but "bolded" is faster. Sigh. But probably not a word.

This list was put together by the Toronto District School Board.

A good teacher - the most important thing

Sometimes, the research catches up with what mothers already know.

"Everything the world has learned about education shows that the quality of the teacher is the most important factor in a student's success." -The Toronto Star, reporting on a speech given by Malcolm Gladwell, author of the bestselling Blink and The Tipping Point. Gladwell was speaking to Ontario's Liberals at a fundraiser in Collingwood, Ont.

Let's look at that again.

The quality of the teacher is the most important factor.

And I'm going to add, "equally important is whether or not the parents play an active role in supporting the child's education," but I think Gladwell's talking about an "all-things-being-equal" scenario here.

So what he's saying - and what the research says - is that if a kid has a lousy teacher, he's likely not going to do well that year. And if he has a lousy teacher three years in a row, he "will fall three years behind a child lucky enough to have a good teacher three years in a row," Gladwell said.

Gladwell says it's much more important than classroom size, and that "even if you were to cut every class in Ontario in half, you'd (only) improve the performance of Ontario's schoolchildren by about five percentile points."

So back to the parents. I don't know about your school, but this is the time at our school when we can let our principal and our current teacher know what our child needs. We are encouraged to write a letter outlining our child's strengths and weaknesses, and what kind of teacher we think could best help our child.

So for instance if your child is having trouble reading, you could let the principal know that reading instruction would be a priority for you next year. Or if your kid's a really good reader, you could ask for "learning extensions" in reading so he's challenged.

No teacher is good at everything. And getting a good teacher who is proficient in the areas in which your child needs help is really important to a successful year. So talking to the principal about what your child needs is a good idea. It's something parents can do to advocate for their child, and I don't think we should be shy about doing it.

After all, teachers and principals can't be expected to read our minds. And as long as we're respectful and talk about the teaching qualities our child needs, then I think it's a good thing to do.

Here's a link to the Toronto Star article.

And here's a link to Malcolm Gladwell's website.

More books = more education

Books lead to education.

There are three things that you can do to help ensure your child will become a reader:
1) Read to him every day.
2) Have lots of books in your home.
3) Read, yourself.

The research is very consistent. Statistically, families that do these three things end up having kids who read.

Yesterday, the Toronto Star ran an article about the benefits of having lots of books in your home.

Basically, the more books in the home, the more education the child is likely to get. The effect is very profound in less-developed countries like China and among low-income families.

"In China the study found a child whose parents own 500 books will average 6.6 more years of education than a child from a home without books. Amongst blacks in South Africa it is 4 years. In the U.S. the figure is 2.4 years. In Canada it is 1.6 years. According to Evans a child from a family rich in books is 19 percentage points more likely to complete university than a child who grew up without a home library." (-Toronto Star.)

Why?

It's a statistical correlation. In other words, having books doesn't send a kid to university. But in homes with lots of books, kids tend to go to university. And if parents are poor and uneducated, kids are much more likely to go to school longer when there are lots of books in the home.

There is another link, brilliantly outlined in the book Freakanomics. When a child is surrounded by books, she feels entitled to them. Whether or not she even opens up a book at home, she becomes comfortable with them, understands them and feels that she is entitled to be in a place where there are lots of books - ie, a university.

The article and associated research also speaks to my third point - that reading, yourself, will get your child reading.

"If you get parents reading even a small amount, Evans said, you gain in cognition, learning capacities and vocabulary in children. “This study says having bookish parents no matter where they sit in social stratification if they stick to their books they can improve their children’s futures,” she said." (-Toronto Star.)

So number one, read to your child every day.
Number two, give your child his own books.
Number three, read yourself.

Here is a link to the article in The Star, by Debra Black.

And are some past GKR articles that talk about the three most important things parents can do to get their kids reading:

Read to your child. Every day.

Get your six-year-old reading.

The three main factors.

Another reason to read to your child.

How to foster a "reading culture."

I know it sounds like I'm beating on the same drum--read to your child, scatter books, read yourself. But everything, everything I read about literacy points to the same things. It's like saying, "If you want to lose weight, eat less and exercise more." Yes, it's simple.

But yes, it's true.

Thank you to my wonderful husband for pointing this article out to me. Good get.

Read the signs

Signs are great "flash cards."

The other day, I was speaking with a mom whose son is having some trouble with reading.

It was recommended that he start learning "whole words." (As opposed to phonetically sounding things out.)

I'm all for the whole-word approach to learning to read. It's a great partner to phonetics and for some kids, may be the best way to learn.

When kids memorize some words it gives them confidence. When they're struggling with a sentence and then they come to a word they know, it's like an oasis in a desert.

We do it in math - math teachers will tell you that memorizing the times table is a must. With reading, memorizing words creates successes and can help defray frustration.

Flash cards are what come to mind when you're thinking about learning whole words. They can easily be created yourself or downloaded from the Internet or, as in the case of this boy who is very artistic, he can create them himself. That will give him buy-in and because he's drawn the pictures, he'll have the exact images that will make the words stick in his mind.

I know this boy well, and he's also very active. He loves to keep moving. So I suggested to his mom that they go for a walk outside and take advantage of the natural "flash cards" that are all around us.

The Stop sign. Yield. For Sale.

And here's a good one - our neighbour built a bird house and put "Vacancy" on the side of it. But it was damaged this winter, and now it says "Vacanc..."

It's a great flash card, because it begs a question: "What is that word? What does it say now? What do you think it should say? What does that word mean? What letters are missing?"

Life isn't perfect, and signs are often hard to decipher. Don't shy away from them - stop and talk about them with your child. The strange ads that at first glance make no sense. The missspellings on signs and billboards. The misplaced punctuation marks.

My son often stops and points out grammatical errors on signs. We laugh together at the funny meanings that get created by these errors. (Yes OK, I know it's nerdy but we have fun. We just don't do it when there are, um, people around.)

The whole-word approach is great with really long words. Kids can often memorize long words that may be difficult to sound out. Often those are better memorized. Kids are sponges - use that quality! Store some good stuff in their memory banks that they can draw on later.

Read to your child. Every day.

It's the single most important thing you can do to get your kid reading.

Statistics show that if you read to your child, every day, even for 10 minutes - it's likely that your child will grow up to become a reader.

The New York Times recently published a heartwarming true-life story about a father who read to his daughter every night, without missing a single night. For more than nine years.

It's a wonderful article about a single father who wanted to create a bond with his youngest daughter. He proposed "The Streak" - to see if they could read together for 100 straight bedtimes without skipping.

That 100 became 1,000. And then 2,000. And they didn't miss a single night right up until she went to college. (Are you tearing up yet? You will, read on.)

An excerpt from the beautifully written New York Times article by Michael Winerip:

"In those nine-plus years, they survived many close calls. When Kristen was still in elementary school, her father and older sister went to Washington. "The phone rings at 10:45 in the hotel and it's Kristen," Mr. Brozina recalled. "She says, 'Dad, we forgot The Streak!' Fortunately, I always travel with several books and we read right then and there."

The Streak brought the pair much more than a love of reading. It brought them a shared language, taken from the pages of the Dr. Seuss and Dickens and Shakespeare books they read together.

But more importantly, it was something they both could count on, through the hectic days. No matter what happened during the day, they knew where they would both be that evening.

Together - reading.

Here's a link to the article.

You can do this, too. Don't think of it as a nine-year streak. Think of it as - tonight I'm going to read with my kids. Just 10 minutes.

Thank you to Jen Robinson, for bringing this story to my attention through your tweet. And to Michael Winerip for being "that" kind of journalist.

Bonus nonsense: Did you catch that I've used a picture from Family Affair, that great 1966 sitcom about a single dad bringing up two children (and of course featuring their butler, Mr. French)? If you look at the picture accompanying the New York Times article, you'll see why. I hope. Or maybe it's just me.

Bubblegum writing

Another tip from Lori Jamison, speaking at the recent Reading for the Love of It conference.

When she's trying to get young children to sound out words, she calls it "bubblegum writing."

She tells them to pretend the word they want to write--let's say, "camping"--is a piece of bubblegum.

With one hand, you s-t-r-e-t-c-h the bubble gum from your mouth out into the air.

You're stretching the word.

With the other hand, you write down each letter as you say it. Like this:

C....a....m.....p....ing

The child writes: k m p n

It's not "book writing" yet, of course, but they've learned how to manipulate a word to figure out the sounds within it. And that's a pretty great start!

A related tip - every day she teaches one new word, spelled properly. And then she says, "now, whenever we want to write that word, that's how we'll write it." She always starts with "I" because it's easy and it's about the child. So in a very short time, a child will be able to write:

"I wnt kmpn." Not bad.

Sorry about this photo. Lip gloss - not good. But it was all I could find. As with all of my blog photos, one must use one's imagination!

Wanna hear something cool? Two days ago, CBC radio picked my account of teaching literacy to a young adult, to win a small prize. The bigger prize was that Rita Celli read my article on the air. Thanks, CBC!

Seen in Blockbuster: books!

Get your kids reading by telling them about the movie or TV show.

I don't visit Blockbuster very often. So it was a revelation to to me that they had a book rack filled with the book versions of about a dozen popular movies.

That is great.

I'm a big advocate of what I call "reading extensions." That's a book that has been made into a movie or a TV show.

I think reading extensions can get kids reading. For instance, while they're waiting for the new Alice in Wonderland movie to come out, I bet a lot of kids are picking up the book for the first time.

Or let's say they've seen all the Twilight movies. It takes a long time for those movies to be made. In the meantime, they buy the buttons and the reversible Jacob/Edward posters... and then they see the book stand at Blockbusters. And maybe they buy the books.

Harry Potter. Julie and Julia. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Up in the Air (betchya didn't know there was a book). The movies can be portals into the joys of reading, that's what I think.

My 18-year-old niece is, by her own admission, not a big reader. But she did read all the Twilight books. The other day, I gave her The Host, by the same author. I'm hoping that her interest in Twilight will spark her to read The Host. If not, the book may sit on a shelf in her room until the movie comes out and then I'm almost certain she'll read it.

Wait - I just Googled it - yes, they are making a movie of The Host. So now I've just texted my niece, saying "you'd better hurry up and read the book!"

See, that's how it works.

So - good on ya, Blockbuster, for selling books and helping to get kids reading.

That last line had a bit of an Aussie accent, didn't it? Consider it an homage to all our readers down under (undah).

The argument for making Harry wait

There’s an interesting post on a blog called Kidliterate - here.

The author, Melissa, argues that parents shouldn’t be in a big hurry to read the Harry Potter books to their children.

She says there are lots of books kids should experience first, and if they dive into Harry Potter too early:

1) around book three the series gets quite scary as “Voldemort starts picking off Harry’s friends and family one at a time”;

2) while young children may be ready for the “happier” themes in the book such as loyalty and magic, they’re likely not sophisticated enough for the darker themes such as racism, self-loathing and evil.

3) If they hear Harry Potter read aloud at a young age, they will likely not go back and read the books themselves, later.

She suggests starting kids on books such as the Ramona series, Stuart Little and Roald Dahl.

While she doesn't recommend a specific age at which Harry Potter is appropriate (probably because it depends on the individual child), she does say that 6 is too young.

She then offers a terrific list of 14 great fantasy-type books, and reasons why she recommends them.

If you can ride out the author’s occasionally condescending tone (“Usually these parents did not listen to my careful, polite warnings that this would happen.”), she makes a pretty interesting point.

The article is worth a read.

Thanks to Jen Robinson’s Book Page, where I learned about the Kidliterate article.

Idioms are helpful

My son loves idioms.

When he was in junior kindergarten, a wonderful school librarian took him under her wing to give him some learning extensions.

She taught him about idioms – phrases that can’t be taken literally, like “break a leg” or “you run like a cheetah.”

He had great fun creating his own, world-of-a-five-year-old idioms.

That lesson helped him enjoy school more and challenged his imagination. It was also a great literacy activity, since it involved reading and writing. (They used books to get inspiration for new idioms, and they wrote them down.)

Since then, just knowing about idioms has been a really good thing for my son. Whenever someone on TV says a phrase that makes no “literal” sense – but we kind of know what the person means, I can point out that’s it’s an idiom. And he knows exactly what that means.

And, his writing is more colourful and fun because he's good at using idioms now.

But most of all, it’s fun to use the word “idiom” with an eight-year-old.

Here's a link to a definition of idiom.

Yesterday I saw, well not an idiom but somewhere between “pun” and “idiot” comes to mind. It was a phrase written on the windshield of a truck. It said, “King of Pain.” I was taken aback – what kind of sicko publicizes that he’s the king of… wait a minute (I thought to myself) what’s the side of the truck say? And sure enough, it was a window installer’s van. Puns aren’t supposed to use the word that fits, they’re supposed to use the other word. If you’d written “King of Pane,” I would have gotten the joke. And I wouldn’t have been all creeped out. Idiom.
Image: Wikimediacommons, Tltld.

Boys don't like school

Send the message, "I want to hear the story you want to tell."

OK, here are some final highlights from the Leonard Sax seminar:

1) Many more girls than boys graduate from university. This is true for Canada, the UK, and the US. Sax says boys have given up on school and on marks - they been given the unintentional message that "school is for girls." His theory is that boys have been marked according to girl-based systems. When boys get low marks because they haven't put enough colour in a drawing, or because the drawing is violent, they give up; they figure they just can't do it. Then they say, "school is for girls."

2) The same applies to reading. When they're faced with a book like Jane Eyre, which doesn't immediately appeal to the "boy brain" they say, "reading is for girls."

3) And writing: When a boy writes a story that contains action (and/or violence) and limited character development, they get marked down for it. So they say, "Writing is for girls."

4) It's our job - as parents and educators - to find a way to make boys find reading, writing and studying relevant to them. Sax says, "want to hear the story your boy wants to tell." They want to tell a story that has action, excitement, car crashes! Why do we insist they tell stories the "girl way"?

5) The top three factors at age 15 that determine who will graduate:
-grades at age 15
-reading ability
-study habits
Gender in ability isn't a factor! So boys can do it - they've just become demotivated to do it. (See 1-3, above.) They think that "school is for girls."

6) This isn't to say that girls don't have problems. They do. They're more likely to have an eating disorder, be clinically anxious or depressed and become moody.

7) Boys understand boundaries. Instead of saying, "no throwing snowballs," make some boundaries. "Snowball throwing within this area only." Boys get "inbounds vs. out-of-bounds." And they're good with it.

8) Boys like action and that includes violence. Give them boundaries, says Sax. "generic and classic violence (wars, car crashes) is allowed; personal/threatening (specific to a person) violence is not allowed."

9) 40-year-old men and women can sit still for the same amount of time. But a six-year-old girl can sit still and pay attention about twice as long as the average six-year-old boy.

10) There are boy-oriented teachers, and girl-oriented teachers. Sax says very few teachers are both - nearly all teachers prefer to teach one gender over the other. And it has nothing to do with the gender of the teacher.

11) Boys learn better when they're standing. It's been researched. (At our school, one grade-six teacher offers exercise balls rather than chairs if kids want to use them. Great idea.)

12) When girls have a personal bond with a teacher, they'll work harder for them, so as not to disappoint them.

13) Girls' eyes and brains process colour and texture earlier than boys. Boys' brains process movement. It explains why girls use 10+ crayons in drawings, while boys use one or two. It explains why boys' drawings have scribbles (it's hard to draw action!) and car crashes. It explains why girls like dolls and boys like trucks.

I talked to my son about colour. Without prompting, he said, "Mom, when I draw at home I use one colour. But if I'm at school and I want to get a good mark, I use lots of colours." That could have come right from Sax's lecture. Boys prefer to use one colour, but are graded on using many colours. (Having said that, my son's teachers are awesome - and very empathetic to boys, so I'm definitely not dissing anyone here. But he definitely has gotten the message that more colour is better.)

Boys' and girls' brains develop differently

Part II of our coverage of Dr. Leonard Sax's seminar in Toronto about how boys and girls learn.

It's not that boys' brains develop more slowly than girls' brains, according to Leonard Sax. "It's more nuanced than that."

Researchers have found that:
* the areas of the brain involved in language and fine motor skills mature about six years earlier in girls than in boys;
* the areas of the brain involved in targetting and spatial memory mature about four years earlier in boys than in girls.

Boys mature faster in some areas than girls (for instance, at age two, a boy is likely to be able to build a bridge out of blocks more easily than a two-year-old girl).

And girls mature faster in some areas than boys (3.5-year-old girls may be able to interpret facial expressions than boys who are five years old).

The bottom line - rather than getting frustrated that your son is "being lazy" or "not trying hard enough," it may simply be that his brain just isn't ready for that particular skill.

And in that case, it's more helpful to focus on what he is doing well, and help him work on those areas.

In reading, it's often best to take a step back - and breathe. If he has a parent who cares enough to be reading a blog like this, then chances are he'll be fine. Scatter books around the house. Read to him every day. Let him see you reading. These are the single most important elements that help to build a great reader.

Getting boys reading - start in the middle

Start from the middle.

This was Leonard Sax’s counter-intuitive (and possibly brilliant) suggestion to English teachers who want boys to enjoy great literature.

Boys’ and girls’ brains process information differently. Girls process emotional information throughout their cerebral cortex, where language and analysis are also processed.

Boys, however, process emotional information in the amygdala – which doesn’t connect with the “talking” part of the brain.

So girls take in emotional scenes and can talk about them, analyse the characters, and empathise easily. The boy's brain is more attracted to action.

And if there’s nothing “happening” in a book, boys’ brains aren’t going to find it engaging. So Dr. Sax says, skip right to the action. In Jane Eyre, that’s page 233, when Mason is having his shoulder bandaged – for teeth marks that have punctured his skin.

The boys will be instantly hooked by the action and the mystery. Ask them, “why would someone bite a person, rather than use a knife, which would be more efficient?”

“Maybe the person didn’t have a knife!” one boy will offer. “Maybe the person was crazy!” another might say.

A-ha… now you have them. And now you can take them back to the beginning of the novel, looking for signs of the crazy person who, you know, bites Mason on page 233. Now the boy is engaged in the action of Jane Eyre, rather than having been turned off during the actionless opening scenes.

"Reading" English

Mispronouncing uncommon words can be the mark of a reader.

People who read a lot will come across uncommon words that aren’t normally used in conversation. So they won’t know their correct pronunciation—just the one that’s in their head.

The other day my son said, “Tan-za-NEE-a? I thought it was Tan-ZANE-ee-ah.”

That was how I pronounced Tanzania when I was a child too, because I’d only ever read the word.

Here are some others:

I always thought there were two words meaning pinnacle: “EP-i-tome” in books, and “e-PI-to-mee” in spoken English. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I realized those were the same word: epitome.

My friend always read that people were “MI-zled” – sent astray. In fact they were misled.

In my grade 6 classroom, there was a sign that said:
DIS-
CO-
VER-
Y

For years, I thought that sign said “DISCO-very” and had no clue what they meant by that.

If your child mispronounces a word, she will likely be embarrassed. Explain to her that if it’s a word she has only ever read, she would have no reason to know the correct pronunciation. And tell her that you’re proud of her for reading.

The map? That's Tanzania (or Tan-ZANE-ia in "reading" English). From http://www.wikimedia.org/. Do you have any reading-English mispronunciations? Please share them in the comments or e-mail me.