Teaching Parents to Read

An innovative program aims to help adults promote early literacy

By Renea Arnold and Nell Colburn -- School Library Journal, 6/1/2004

Thanks to an innovative program called "Every Child Ready To Read @ your library," librarians have some exciting new research-based tools to help children develop the early literacy skills they need to become successful readers. Many preschoolers acquire these skills as they spend time with parents or caregivers who talk, sing, and read to them. But an increasing number of children are not growing up in language-rich environments. "Every Child Ready To Read @ your library" is designed to help librarians reach these children.

"Every Child Ready To Read @ your library" features workshops developed by three experts in emergent literacy at the request of the Public Library Association (PLA). The classes are based on research from the National Research Council that identifies six essential skills that children need before they enter kindergarten: print awareness, print motivation, vocabulary, letter knowledge, narrative skills, and phonological awareness. With the help of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), these workshops were field-tested at 20 libraries nationwide over the past two years.

Each session focuses on the development of the skills appropriate for children at three ages: babies or "early talkers," toddlers or "talkers," and older preschoolers or "pre-readers." All three workshops are fun, interactive, and practical. Each workshop demonstrates how to use picture books to promote the six specific skills, and shares strategies that motivate all children, even those with very limited literacy experiences.

The Early Talkers workshop (for parents of children newborn to age 1) teaches participants how to read to babies and demonstrates ways to talk effectively with infants. After attending a workshop, one mother said, "Instead of saying, 'No, no, don't chew that book,' I try to watch how I talk to him. I want him to like books." Participants also learn to encourage children's language development by pointing to the book's illustrations and talking about them. They learn to think of books as a springboard for conversation with their young children.

The Talkers workshop (for parents of children ages 2–3) emphasizes that children learn best when they are actively engaged in an activity. Participants learn how to use dialogic reading, a technique that encourages parents to pose thoughtful questions about the story and illustrations. Dialogic reading changes the way most adults share books with children. As one participant remarked, "I used to read the book to get through [it]. Now we ask questions. I am amazed by what he remembers."

In the Pre-Readers workshop (for parents of children ages 4–5), adults learn how to use language games to help children hear and separate individual words into their smaller parts, or phonemes. Games like these help children develop phonological awareness, which is closely linked to success in reading. A word game, Say It Fast, Say It Slow, invites children to break apart words, such as mon-key and hot-dog, and put them back together again. Another game, Letter Day, helps children distinguish words' initial letter sounds. Adults also learn how to encourage kids to make up their own silly rhymes, play alliteration games and sing rhyming songs ("Willabee, Wallobee, Woo"), and read rhyming books, such as Sheep in a Jeep (Houghton, 1986) by Nancy Shaw.

PLA and ALSC have made the scripts and handouts for all three workshops available for free on PLA's Web site (www.pla.org/earlyliteracy.htm). Site visitors may also purchase a new training kit ($295 plus shipping), which includes an instructional video or DVD and four excellent program videos. On-site demonstrations of the workshops may be arranged for librarians desiring further training.

Librarians have long supported parents in their important role as children's first teachers. The "Every Child Ready To Read @ your library" workshops give us some lively new strategies as well as an opportunity to support our work with solid reading research.