Reading To Children Is Time Well Spent

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

At three years of age, I spent hours on my grandmother’s lap mimicking the nursery rhymes she read aloud.  Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, and the cow who jumped over the moon became my earliest childhood friends as she helped me trace the words and pictures on every page.  My dad tape recorded those expressive recitations.  The memories have endured for years.

I marvel at the influence of those early oral reading experiences. I was fortunate to have a family who appreciated reading aloud as a critical tool for developing literacy and for pleasure. Recently, a nationally representative sample survey of nearly 10,000 four-year-olds found that 25 percent are never read to, and another 25 percent have this experience only once or twice weekly. Yet the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly endorses the practice in early childhood because it “builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that last a lifetime.”

The joy and value of listening to someone read aloud is well understood by teachers, but in elementary school it gets crowded out by the “science of reading.”   Over the last decade 37 states have passed laws and policies that call for “evidence-based” literacy instruction. The term has become a slogan that applies to many different scientific elements of reading proficiency.  Few teachers are prepared to make field-tested measurement-driven methods work in their classrooms.

Our state’s current executive budget proposal includes $10 million for districts to train 20,000 teachers in the science of reading. Governor Hochul is embracing a politically appealing dedication to phonics instruction.  In other words, first teach children how to decode, that is to connect letters with sounds, and to translate sounds into speech. Spelling and word meanings play an important part.  The Governor is not wrong, but a balanced approach to literacy must also incorporate comprehension.  

Surely it is important for children to develop a vocabulary, but applying it calls for hitching it to knowledge and understanding of content. A child may be able to read words perfectly and not be able to tell you much of anything about the story behind those words. The skills and strategies of reading are strengthened when attention is given to comprehension which enables children to grasp meaning and fit it into new situations.   

We have many reasons to worry about children’s declining reading skills. The pandemic chronically disrupted classroom instruction. Reading proficiency scores hover at an all-time low. The same is true for math, for which reading literacy is also vitally important. Hours spent on screen time and segmented electronic content add to children’s loss of concentration and sustained reading stamina.

 Elementary teachers highly value the time they spend reading from books rather than so-called basal readers.   Instead of relying on packaged anthologies with disconnected exercises and workbooks, teachers who link their curriculum for science or social studies to oral book chapters of nonfiction find their students are more engaged and motivated.  With copies in hand, the children can read along with their teacher.  Often, they are inspired to find and read books on their own, something every school media specialist appreciates.

Parents and grandparents of preschool children can enrich their children’s almost intrinsic love of stories and their amazing absorption of vocabulary long before kindergarten.   Nursery rhymes were my introduction to literacy.    Years later, my wife and I spent many hours reading stories to our children from books like “Blueberries for Sal”, “Barbar the Elephant” and “Curious George,”. There is a reciprocal benefit to reading with your child or grandchild.  Not only does it grow their vocabulary and awareness of the world, but it reinforces parenthood in ways that last a lifetime.