Food for Thought: Reading Nonfiction

Encouraging your child to read nonfiction now can have a big payoff later in their childhood.

Reading nonfiction is a big deal. Think about what most of us, as adults, read now. I read (and write) almost exclusively nonfiction. And I'm not talking just books - it's magazines, reports, the newspaper, etc., etc. Unfortunately the majority of reading material that our kids get is fiction. Girls, in particular, usually excel at reading in the early elementary years when most children are reading fiction, but then begin to lag behind boys as the learning focus shifts to content areas like science, math, and history. That statistic describes my experience exactly; I did well in reading at the elementary level but then had a horrible time in science and history when I needed to read something that didn't have a story line. Though you might argue that history does have a story line, the way it is presented in history textbooks is not similar to what most of your children will be reading for pleasure in junior high.

The point of this post is to encourage all of you to get nonfiction books and texts for your young children. I subscribe to Your Big Backyard for Isadora and celebrate its arrival when it comes in the mail. I also try to check out nonfiction books when I can. Gail Gibbons is an excellent author for nonfiction that appeals to preschoolers (It is her book on Monarch Butterflies that I have in the upper corner of this post). But I have to admit that the pickings are slim, and about 80% of what Isadora has on her bookshelves in fiction...even knowing what I know.

The spring and summer is a great opportunity to dive into nonfiction as your child becomes fascinated with bugs and bicycles and sandboxes and trips to the beach. I am going to challenge myself to try to actively seek out nonfiction books/magazines/websites for Isadora that I think she might be interested in and I'll share them with all of you. If you are reading this (if anyone reads this at all - besides my husband of course - I force him) please share any non-fiction materials that you find to be successful with your preschooler!

Food for Thought: Invented spelling

Using invented spelling can strengthen your child's spelling and reading ability, while opening up fun ways to write letters and stories.
Lately Isadora has enjoyed writing notes to her friends. I think this stemmed from the activity we did with the Valentine's letters, because she now will list friends from preschool that she wants to write letters to - although I know it is just a ploy to break out the glitter and go crazy with the glue! In any case, we don't write a lot on them at all - just the names of her friends in fact. Instead of me writing the name for her though, I'm having her help me sound out the words using invented spelling. Invented spelling is where Isadora can sound out her friends name Koen, and write "KON" on her paper. When we wrote her friends name Eloise the other day, it looked like LOES. Before students can make sense of conventional spelling, they can use the sounds that they do know to construct words. This also helps them strengthen their ability to sound out words using phonics. Here is a great video clip that helps illustrate the strategy a little more. Although it is a video clip with first graders, you can easily see 1) how you can use invented spelling with your own preschooler, and 2) how you can gradually transition your child into conventional spelling as they become better able to sound out words.

Why phonics?

What do you think has the biggest impact on your child's ability to read? Take a look at the list and see if you can find the top two...

• The ability to tell you the sounds in words (like sun begins with an 's')
• Knowledge of letter names
• Kindergarten teachers' prediction of reading success in first grade
• Performance on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (a measure of oral English Vocabulary)
• Parents' occupational status
• Library membership
• Number of books the child owns
• Amount that parent reads to their child
• Gender

All you Freakonomics readers probably guessed the amount that parents read to their children, or the number of books the child owns, but they're both wrong. Give up? They're already in order! A study by Share, Jorm, Maclean, & Matthews back in 1984 found that the top two factors that have the biggest impact on your childs ability to read is their PHONEME SEGMENTATION ABILITY (or their ability to tell you the first sound in the word sun) and their knowledge of letter names.
What does this mean for you and your child? PHONICS, PHONICS, PHONICS!! And while reading aloud to your child is wonderful, it is not enough to teach them to read.

Making the most of reading aloud

There are entire books written about reading aloud to children and teachers take seminars just about reading aloud. But there are lots of little things that you can do at home without making it feel like they are in school. I'll talk about a few of them:

1. Starting with the cover, make sure you read the author. They'll start to recognize favorite authors after a while, and you can point it out as well. Also, the pictures on the cover at this age are a dead give away for what is going to happen. I always ask Isadora what she thinks the story is going to be about. It's all stuff we do as readers - we grab books and make predictions about what the story is going to be about based on the cover - it's just getting those habits started early.

2. As you read a story, draw their attention to the illustrations and ask them questions. For example, I was just reading a book to Isadora entitled Martha Doesn't Say Sorry. Many of the characters were unhappy with the things that Martha was doing, although the text didn't explicitly say that. So I drew her attention to the pictures, asking Isadora how she thought they were feeling.
Good readers tend draw on multiple sources for comprehension, and check their understanding as go along. As Isadora gets older, the goal is that she will sound out words and then automatically check her understanding to see if she is getting conflicting messages. One way of checking is by reading more text (as most of us do), but we can also look at other sources of information that is available to us, like pictures. If she sounds out the word "jeep" and there is a sheep in the picture, I hope that she will pause, realize that there is conflicting information, and then sound out the word again.

3. If you are reading nonfiction, always read the table of contents (if it has them)! Too often we skip over that and then our children do too. They are a wonderful tool that your child can use as they get older. It helps them understand that non-fiction texts do not have to be read the same way as a fiction text.
I recently purchased the cookbook Pink Princess Tea Parties, which has a wonderful Table of Contents at the front. So before we begin looking through it (and she wants to look at every single page because there are photos of each sugary confection) I have her look at the table of contents and ask her if she wants to look at the drinks, cookies and cakes, sweets and treats, or sandwiches and snacks. She decides and then we go from there. Nonfiction, in any form, is great!