Dear Caregiver

Dear Caregiver,

As I watched this year’s class head out the door last Friday, I thought to myself, “I wonder if I have done enough to set them up for a weekend of reading?” I mulled on that for a good part of the weekend and then realized that of course I had not done enough to support the school-home connection. I hadn’t yet written to you and filled you in on what is happening at school and asked for your help at home. So this letter is my attempt to start the work of developing a partnership to support your child’s growth in reading across the upcoming school year.

Let me say at the onset that I am totally convinced of two things. First, reading matters. It is through reading that each of us takes in the world around us, becoming bigger than we were in the first place. And second, kids are still young—and impressionable. They can be turned around; they can be set onto a better path. And the very best way to do that is for the grown ups at home and at school to work together in a close partnership.

It is hard to stress enough the importance of young people reading at home. One of the most important goals for reading instruction in school is to help kids author lives as readers, initiating reading in their own lives. I’ll be working hard to make it likely that next summer, when school is long gone, your child will choose to read. If you join in this effort, I know our chances of success are far greater.

So what can you do? Start with talking about reading as if it is a treat, one of life’s greatest pleasures, rather than as if it is the dreaded homework that must be done. Try talking about reading like this: “Did you get any time to read in school today? You’re so lucky to have time to read! Can I see your book? Wow! How interesting. Who is this on the cover? And what’s he doing?” Try channeling your child to read like this: “I’ve got a book going too. Let’s sit around and read for a bit before we get started in the stuff we have to do.” Or, “It’s bedtime. I know you are probably dying to stay up and do some more reading. I was the same way when I was your age. Great books do that to you. Try to get some sleep though.”

You may have been rolling your eyes, thinking, “I can’t talk like that with my child. I know full well he hates to read.”But I want to remind you that life is a play, and every one of us has a role to play in that play. You do not want your son or daughter’s role to be that of a reluctant reader. If your child has resisted reading before, help the child understand that was before, how things used to be. This year will be different. Chalk it up to, “You are the kind of reader who doesn’t just like any book, you really like to read good books, and then you read up a storm.”

If your child seems reluctant still, then one of the best ways to lure him or her to read is for you to ask if you could read the book too, and just start reading it aloud. If you read it aloud, read at a brisk pace, and don’t call on the kid to read this or that hard work. Just read, read, read for engagement, to get pulled into the storyline. If you do that, and the book doesn’t pan out as engaging for your child, then by all means we’ll need to put a different book into his or her hands.

In school, I will work hard to learn how to set your child up with books that he or she will read easily, smoothly, quickly, and with interest. Research is clear that kids profit from a ton of high-interest accessible reading. It is actually detrimental to a reader to stumble through books where more than one in twenty words pose difficulties and reading feels robot-like. You’ll see that if I find a series or an author that your child likes, I’ll channel more and more books from that series or that author to him or to her.

You’ll see that for now, mostly children will be reading fiction, They’ll learn to self-assess whether the book is just right for them and to make informed decisions, putting down books that are too hard. They’ll learn to talk about books, using the character’s names (not ‘This guy, he. . .”) and to be able to retell the story with an attentiveness to the story elements. Who are the main characters? What are their names? What is this one (the main character) like as a person? What does he mostly want? What motivates him? Why does he want that? And then what? Does something get in the way? Does he encounter difficulties? Is the character in some way tested? And what does he do in response? What does the character learn, or how does he change, through all this?

Thanks for your support. Be sure to contact me with questions. I’m eager to hear from you.