Jj is for Jottings 151. Daily Reading Time.
Daily reading time for children is much more important than just reading books leading to a longer life. It makes sense that children who read more have better vocabulary, reading skills, fluency, reading comprehension and overall literacy. It can also strengthen family relationships and helps children to understand the world outside. So just how many minutes per day should we be reading with our children?
THE MAGIC NUMBER FOR DAILY READING TIME.
The magic number is 20 minutes (or more, of course). It’s amazing how many words the child encounters as a result of those minutes. Here’s a comparison:
STUDENT A. STUDENT B. STUDENT C.
20 mins/day 5 mins/day 1 min/day
1,800,000 words/year 282,000 words/year 8,000 words/year
On standardised tests, Student A scores 90%; Student B scores 50% and Student C scores 10%. Where would you want your child to be?
Of course, it’s not really the amount of time the child reads that is important. It’s the amount of reading. 20 minutes spent reading difficult books results in exposure to fewer words than 20 minutes spent reading easier books. (But you don’t want to go too far in the direction of easy. There’s a happy medium.)
READING OUT LOUD.
To be clear, we are talking about the child reading out loud to you for 20 minutes a day. When children read aloud, they are able to practise their reading in a safe and supportive environment. You can encourage them to sound out unfamiliar words or use other strategies for reading difficult words. When they are reading aloud, they are listening at the same time as they are reading. This helps them put words into context and reinforces learning and reading fluency.
Make sure it actually is a safe and supportive environment. Tired or distracted parents can become tetchy at their child’s reading errors, and that is counterproductive. See the article on reading to dogs. While reading to dogs works so well in the situations described, it’s not really a practical replacement for daily reading aloud to a caregiver.
PREPARATION FOR CHILDREN READING ALOUD.
The best preparation for your child reading to you for 20 minutes a day is for you to read with your child every day from a very early age. Note that I said “read with” rather than “read to”. Follow the link for the differences between “reading with” and “reading to”.
So you begin by reading books with children at a very early age, and that lays the groundwork for them to read to you for 20 minutes a day when they begin formal education. When children have been immersed in an environment of books and reading all their life, it won’t be a hardship to do the 20 minutes of daily reading. They already have a huge head start. But if 20 minutes is a bit of a stretch at first, you can always take turns, page by page, until they are able to work up to the full 20 minutes.
And remember to keep reading to your children, even when they are quite fluent readers themselves. As they become more skilled readers, it’s important to continue to read books to them – not so much of the “with” any more. The reasons are given in the link above.
Daily Reading Time. The alpacas and the children are listening to a story. This is great preparation for them reading aloud when they are older (although perhaps not the alpacas)
CHOOSING THE RIGHT TIME…
It can be difficult to find a time when the child is not too exhausted after a day at school and you can fit it in between running children around to after school activities, preparing dinner, work etc. It will work differently for every family, but it you are really motivated, you will find a way. Also be aware of distractions – noise, younger children, TV in the background. I’ve heard many ways in which families work to create optimal time and space, although in my case it was usually for speech therapy practice.
I have read the suggestion by an educator that you don’t always need to be sitting with children to listen to them read. You can have them read while you are driving, preparing dinner, washing the dishes and so on. If they need help with a word, they can spell it out for you. For me that is not an ideal situation. Children may receive the message that they are not important enough to have your full attention. It means you miss opportunities to encourage good reading strategies because you can’t see the context. And you can’t be sure that they are reading all words accurately. Sometimes they substitute a word of similar meaning, but it’s not what is printed on the page. But of course it’s better than not reading at all.
…AND THE RIGHT HELPER.
It’s not uncommon for parents to get an older sibling to listen to readers (or to do speech therapy practice.) When I say “older”, it has often not been very much older. Again, this is not an ideal situation because an older child may miss errors, and probably won’t be able to help develop reading strategies. It’s worse with speech therapy practice. That requires fine auditory discrimination skills on the part of the helper, and the ability to help the child make adjustments with his articulators. That’s far too much to expect of an older sibling, and is unlikely to be a success in terms of therapy progress. Once again, an older sibling who is a good reader and not too close in age is certainly better than not reading aloud.
It’s difficult to find the time; you’re busy; you’re exhausted. But one of the best things you can in your child’s life is to listen to them reading aloud for 20 minutes a day. By doing so, you are setting them up for a happier and more successful life, with many more choices open to them.
FURTHER INFORMATION.
For more information on raising a reader, the following links will take you from birth to when reading becomes established. There is information on both reading with your children and children reading to you:
Check out the Facebook page: Aa is for Alpacas.