help our children learn to read

help our children learn to read

What are the essential tools to help our children learn to read, you ask? just some examples:


Parents,

* read to your children (indeed, both mom and dad). Show them that reading is important to you.

* make your home a place that values The Book as we[ I as many other books: books open worlds and minds.
* show the wonderful world of letters and sounds, of concepts and words, of ideas and sentences; language itself is such a tremendously fascinating gift.

* take your children to the local library; help them to broaden their reading horizon.

* most importantly, help them to discern between what is valuable and wasteful.

* talk to your children about interesting topics they have read about.

* prepare your vacation spots with some advance reading about interesting things to see and learn about. practise what you preach.


Teachers,

*

inform yourselves as fully as possible about that wonderful and awesome ability to read: how letters and sounds relate, how words and sentences are formed, how paragraphs connect, how stories work ....
*

make your classroom a place where reading is valued as a source of information as well as enjoyment, as a means by which we may be persuaded to another point of view.
*

make quality books readily available not just one hour per week during library period; textbooks are usually not the most exciting reading fare: use real books to learn about things.
*

read to your students on a daily basis, fiction as well as nonfiction; why not read out loud an article from Popular Science to your Grade 8 students?
*

practice what you preach.


Young people,

*

discover the marvellous world of books; become world travellers in your own home.
*

develop your own thinking abilities by reading; books contain the thoughts and experiences of other people and reading them brings you into contact with their authors; you can argue, debate, agree, disagree, even cry and swoon . . . you might discover something about yourself.
*

make use of the many resources available to you; never in the history of the world have so many different books been available.
*

learn to discern: not every book or article is equally wholesome; read at least one article from each issue of Reformed Perspective and Clarion
*

talk about a good book with your friends; give them a good book for their birthday.