A Parent’s Guide for Raising Readers (NAPSA)—If you want yourchild to be a good reader, pick up a book. Researchers say children whose parents read to them 20 minutes or more a day during pre-school years have substantially higherliteracy skills when they enter kindergarten compared to those whose parents didn’t read to them. Reading time with your child may be only thefirst step, however. The way you read could be important as well. “We now know that parents should read with their kids, not just to them,” says Sue Ritchie, editorial director of Family Education Network (FEN), which offers online learning-based content for teachers, parents, home-schoolers and students. That means the more the experience resembles an interactive conversation—with back-andforth questions and answers about the book from all involved—the more a child will get outofit. One statistic consistently stressed by education experts like FEN, an arm of the world’s leading education publishing company Pearson Education, is this sobering one: Only two percent of a child’s entire life will have been spent learning to read. And yet, as numerous studies have shown, mastering the skill is highly predictive of who will succeed in life. That’s why parents would be wise to follow even such simple suggestions as showing how much pleasure they get out of reading books, taking frequent library visits with their kids, and generally encouraging them to read almost anything around— from cereal boxes to road signs to movie listings—whether they're BookIt Reading with children helps them develop a lifelong love of books. Some age-appropriate books recommended by familyeducation.com: Ages 2-4 “Corduroy”by Don Freeman—Corduroy the stuffed bear has always wanted a home.Lisa wants to buy him buther motherpoints out that thelittle bear's green overalls are missing a button! Ages 5-6 “Town Mouse Country Mouse”by Jan Brett—After trading houses,the country mice and town micediscover there's no place like home. Ages 7-8 “Freckle Juice” by Judy Blume—Andrew wants freckles so badly that he buys Sharon's freckle recipe for 50 cents. At home,he carefully mixes thestrange combination of ingredients. Then something unexpected happens... @) at home, in the car, or even the bathroom. What’s more, there are a variety of textbooks, computer programs, books on tape and gamesthat let children have fun while practicing their reading skills. For instance, thousands of kids now read online at sites such as funbrain.com. What if your child’s reading skills don’t seem to be developing? Ritchie says not to panic, but to take action: “Reading problems don’t magically disappear. The earlier children receive intervention at school and at home, the more likely they will become good readers.” For more information, visit www.familyeducation.com.
