Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Did you know?

Posted by Abby at 10:22 PM

This morning I actually waited For Heidi to wake up. When I finally heard her voice, I went to check on her and could hear her reading to herself. She didn't come out of her room for another twenty minutes. Sometimes when I ask her if she would like me to read to her, she tells me that SHE wants to read.

Here are some fun things I learned from a parent meeting tonight about reading:


Politicians have said we should hold teachers responsible for teaching our kindergartners for every minute they teach during the kindergarten year.


Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook commented that he was fine with that as long as we held the correct teacher responsible. He pointed out that by the time children finish their first year of kindergarten, they have spent 700 hours in school. In contrast, from birth to the end of their kindergarten year, they have spent 5,200 hours with their family.


Look at how much influence we have as parents!


Our presenter then quoted some mind-boggling statistics:

  • 30% of adults are voracious readers - they read ALL the time and can't be without it
  • 20% of adults can take it or leave it
  • 50% of adults do not read - they know how, they just don't choose to spend their time reading
AND similarly:
  • 30% of TEACHERS are voracious readers
  • 20% of teachers can take it or leave it
  • 50% of teachers DO NOT READ (of course just like the 50% of adults, they know how...)

And while we hope for our children to always have the best teachers, we know that's not possible. BUT, we as parents have an amazing amount of influence over making our children readers!


And here's another shocker (or not....shocked or not it's very interesting)

80% of prison inmates are high-school drop-outs
60% of prison inmates don't know how to read


Our presenter, who is the director of our local library, gave us three ways to help our children love to read.

  1. Read aloud to your child everyday (no set time, consistency is the real key here).
  2. Have books & magazines around the house.
  3. Let your child see YOU reading everyday.


 

1 Comment:

  1. Rae said...
    March 10, 2007 at 1:52 PM  
    I love this entry--mostly because of the emphasis on the importance of our roles as teachers to our children. I think that too often it's left up to the teacher to not just fill in the gaps, but to be a pseudo-parent. That isn't fair--not to the child, not to the teacher, and not to the parent. Very interesting point, very interesting post, Abby!

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