|
Join our list
|
 |
|
|
Welcome to issue #13!
Summer is an excellent time to further develop skills that may be difficult to work on during the hustle and bustle school year -- and reading is the single most important academic skill. This week's issue, therefore, is about one way to enhance summer reading.
Before we begin, let me remind you of my summer class offerings. Click links in sidebar at the left for details. Thank you.
|
Tuesday Tip: Summer Reading -
Enacting a Family Reading Time
|
|
Reading has always been, and remains, the single most important skill necessary for success in school. Studies on reading indicate that more than 85% of students who more than 30 minutes of uninterrupted sustained silent reading (USSR) per day achieve fluent reading. Some arrive at fluency sooner, some later, but the vast majority who do 30 minutes of USSR per day will achieve good reading skills.
One way to encourage USSR, or pleasure reading, is to frame reading as a family activity, that is to set a daily family reading time. Even fluent readers often find it difficult to read friends in the neighborhood are outside playing, so consider arranging reading times in the evening, and take advantage of rainy days. Set aside 45 minutes three or four times per week when everyone in the family reads, preferably in the same room so that parents and older siblings can model reading for the younger ones. That everyone is involved makes staying with the task much easier for the reluctant or non-fluent reader, and even for fluent readers and the too-busy mom or dad.
Be sure the entire family is consulted about convenient reading times. Try to accommodate everyone's needs. If a proposed time conflicts with someone's favorite TV show, discuss alternative times. Record favorite TV shows that air during reading time. You may want to point out that watching a recorded program is more fun because you can fast-forward through the commercials.
During reading time, everyone may read any book of his or her choosing, regardless of whether the reading seems too difficult or too easy. Books are preferable to magazines because much of the time with a magazine or newspaper is spent deciding which article to read and not actually reading.
No one has to finish every, or any, book that is begun. This is simply pleasure reading. Everyone in the family is subject to the same rules: read for the entire family reading time, along with everyone else. No one has to report on the reading unless he or she wishes to do so, though it does help if mom and dad share facts, insights, or highlights from their own reading, perhaps at the end of family reading time or at dinnertime.
If you have a younger child who wants to read aloud with a parent or older sibling, they can read to each other in another room during family reading time. As they become more adept at silent reading, they can begin reading with the rest of the family.
The key is to make reading fun and interesting. What we like to do, we do more often. The things that we do more often are those at which we develop more skill.
|
Each Tuesday's newsletter will include a Tuesday Tip, book review, interview, or article on education or science or the arts. If
you've received a forwarded copy of this message from a friend, be sure
to subscribe, so that you will continue to receive my newsletter
directly from me. Just click on the "Join Our Mailing List" button
above and to the left of this paragraph. In each mailing will be an
unsubscribe link, so that you can opt out at any time. You can also
subscribe from my website: www.kevindohmen.net.I hope you have found this issue helpful. Please feel free to forward
this newsletter to friends, family, teachers -- to anyone who has an
interest in, or a passion for, learning.I welcome your feedback.
Sincerely, 
Kevin D. Dohmen, M.Ed. Learning Consultant21 West Caton Avenue Alexandria, VA 22301-1519 --- 703.683.9617 kevindohmen@verizon.netwww.kevindohmen.netthe art of learning for the information age
|
|
|
