Rota conference underscores what children need to know about books

In order to read, children must know conventions associated with the text they will be reading. A reading specialist with Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, Susan Andrews, worked with teachers this week at the Pacific Educational Conference in Rota to help them assess what children need to know about printed text before they could learn to read.

Andrews encouraged teachers not only to work with children, but with their parents as well. “By reading and interacting with their children, parents can ensure that when their children reach school age, they will already understand print concepts and be ready to learn to read,” said Andrews.

What should parents do when they read to their children, to help them understand print concepts?

Andrews made the following suggestions:

· Before you start reading, point out the title of the book to your children, on the cover and on the title page if there is one.

· Ask your children how to hold the book properly, so they can tell which is the front and the back and whether it is right side up or up side down. You can make a game of this by pretending to try to read up side down.

· Talk to your children about the pictures. Have them explain what is happening, or relate what is happening to a personal experience. For example, does a girl in the book have the same sort of toys as your children? Or is a boy going fishing in a different way than your children might fish?

· Start reading. Do your children know where to start reading the book? Can they point to the first word in the line of text? Do they understand that the print conveys the message?

· Show the direction of the print by pointing with your finger to the words as you read them. Your children should realize that print goes from left to right, top to bottom. When you reach the end of the line, show them how you return and start on the next line. Encourage them to turn the pages for you.

· As your children get older, show them that there is one-to-one match between a word in the book and the word you are saying. They can learn that spaces show where a word starts and ends. They may also start to recognize frequently occurring words in their favorite books.

· Encourage your children to learn the alphabet and identify words that start or end with certain letters. Again, you can make a game of this by asking questions such as “Are there any words on this page that end with the letter T?”

· Point out capital letters and show your children how they are used to start sentences. Also show them punctuation marks. They can learn how a period ends a sentence, or that quotation marks show what a character in a story is saying.

Andrews stressed, though, that the most important reason for parents to read to their children is mutual enjoyment.

“Although reading to children can be a learning experience for them, it is more important for it to be fun,” she said.

More information on reading aloud to children is on the PREL website at http://www.prel.org/products/pc_/read-aloud.htm. Stories in various Pacific languages are available at http://www.prel.org/palm/languages.asp. Chamorro and Carolinian language stories are not yet available, but are being prepared for the Internet at present. (Nancy Lane)