Parents, Kids & Books: The Joys of Reading Together; PBS Copy

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... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... red to far exceeds what it appears to be. Number one, the child has this uninterrupted, very, very ethereal time with a human being that they care about, that they again can snuggle in, literally hear their heartbeat and their voice, hear the words, experience a book, and because of the attitude of the adult they're with, realize that reading is something that opens up an entire universe to them.

Six pale sea shells hanging down. What? What? What? You? Yes. What is this? That's a sea shell. What is this? That's another sea shell. What is this? That's a different kind of sea shell. And what's that? The cat, the cat, this cat. That's right. I remember vividly feeling transported from my, our apartment in New York City to this far away place that was being described in this book, in that journey was special, but it was, the specialness of it was heightened by the fact that I was sharing it with, with my father or, or my mother, for that matter. There's an apple, and a banana, mmm, yummy. It's never too early to start reading to children. Look, there's a little doll. Even infants, when they're read to, will be engaged in the storybook reading activity.

Here are fallen cheating. They can do lots of things, and you can do lots of things too. Ooh, good turning in the page. They're like sponges. I mean, you read the books, and they obviously are hearing what you're saying and paying attention to what they're looking at. So, I think that's probably the most amazing thing to me. At his age, you open a book and you read, and he understands that you're reading from that book, and he's looking at the pictures and trying to associate. You don't know what at what point they associate the worst of the pictures, but they obviously do. If you watch a storybook reading over time, and you watch a very young child being read to, what you'll find is that the parent does basically all the work. The parent will say, oh, what's that? Or say, is spot under the bed, or is he in the closet? And not only will

the parent ask the question, but the parent will answer the question too. Is he in the box? No, no, no. There's a three, three, one. As kids get older, as they're read to more, and as they experience certain books over and over, the children actually begin taking over parts of the interaction until they get to the point where they can actually read the book all by themselves. You can see the process that was at first something that the parent had to almost do by himself or herself becomes something that's internalized by the child. That's one of the reasons why repeated readings and doing the same thing over and over again is very important to children because

really it's not the same thing over and over again. You may think it is, but the kids experience something different every time they're read a book. The duck fetched the cow from the field. You see the farmer right here? The farmer calls out the window and he says, how goes the work? One thing that isn't necessarily obvious to everyone is that when you read to children, you want to try to make your voice very expressive and to have intonation patterns that engage kids. Why is a chicken a bird? Another thing that's very powerful for children in terms of things that parents can do to really get the kids involved is to ask children questions or make comments about the story as you're going along. It's not even round, is it?

Quick now, Ryan Grandpa called out to see if he began to chase the bee. It's been very important when we've read together for me to remember that we don't have to take it at a prescribed pace. We don't have to read this page in this amount of time and then go on the continuity because what I found with Evan likes to stop and check out the pop-ups or check out the pictures or even talk about a particular word or something. It's really important just to remember, lead the structure at the office. One thing that's important to point out about the conversations that are embedded in storybook reading is it's really great for children to start the talk. Don't think of it as an interruption. What it shows is that the child's actively involved with the book and that active involvement and talk about the book is really what makes storybook reading work.

What do you think they're going to do? Once the bee starts flying, yeah, they're going to run after the bees. If parents stop at appropriate points, it builds the suspense for children and gets them thinking about what is going to happen next. And kids are always predicting what's going to happen and they stay more engaged in a story like that. One of the things I always try to do when I read the book to children is to read to them not only the title of the book, but also to tell them who the author of the book is and who the illustrator of the book is. I think that makes books writing and the whole act of reading come more alive for children. I know in my family, like I say, my grandparents were story tellers as well as wonderful readers. And I remember always when they finished a story, we would lean into the grandmother grandfather and say, is that a true story? And the grandmother would look back and

say, God sees through, but it may not have happened. And when you think about it, all stories are true. They're all true. They all have an element of the heart. Whether they happen or not, almost doesn't make any difference. So when stories are presented especially to very young children, they deal with the universe and elements of life that are within their imagination. This is the part of them that you're bringing to life. This is the fire. I was able to get to school and I feel like I would have read more at the child. It would have helped me do even better. I did real good in school. I was commended highly. But although, like I said, you never know enough, you can always learn more. And I see that now and going to school that you need to read, especially the children, because right now you can get their attention later on. It's going to be hard. You need to train

on whether you're young. That's true. There are lots of different kinds of children's books that are available. Probably at the heart and soul of all these books are just good stories. Reading has been a great source of comfort to me on those days when I would come home. And like I said, it'd be too tired to know what to do. I know to read. And it's fun. It's imaginative. It's joyful. That's loud. It's a calm. And the rough-faced girl said, his bow, why is it the great curve of the rainbow? So we read a lot of Indian books and books about heritage, because I find it endears them to something stable and a base. And we do go to the powels and things like that. So it's kind of fortified and they feel part of it. Because I think it's important that everybody

have a base, whatever it is. In all these ages, like until four or five, I don't really teach them like ABC, they are exactly reading or letters. I don't teach them really. But I try to structure their thinking that what is good in life, what is good in life. So I'm using the books to show them. Now you can pass the money. You feel it? You feel it? That's a good money. There are little soft messages in the books and but happy messages. I think the importance to me is that they're fun and light and happy and that they really leave the child feeling good.

Rhyming books really set the stage for and they are the first step in learning how letters and sounds relate to each other. Because in rhyming, what you're doing is playing around with words and taking them apart and putting them back together. And that's the kind of thing that kids need to learn about. So rhyming books play a very, very important role in helping kids learn to read. But a nice thing about rhyming books is that there's so much fun. The kids just love them too. Kind of book that's especially useful for younger children. And I mean kids anywhere from infants up through two and three years old, although even older children like them too, is what we call concept books. Any of those kinds of books that have very few words but just get kids kind of looking

at and noticing different things in their environment help to build a foundation of vocabulary and concepts. There's a kind of book that we talk about that's a predictable book. Predictable books have repetitive language patterns to them. Frazes that keep reappearing and reappearing in the story. Those are the kinds of phrases that after you've read it once or after you've read it twice, then the child can read it. A to B and B to C. I read two of the top of the coconut tree. And where's the coconut tree? The joy that I have with reading with Andriana is her excitement and going through the book and especially going through it if I read through it once and then to have her come back

and put a word in or to go over the alphabet or to name the animals or to know that she got some of that. Bread, bread, bread. People eat bread all over the world. Information books are something that 10 years ago we didn't nearly have as many of us we have now. So to a large degree I think that information books for preschool kids are just coming into their own right now. Morgan, can you fly like a bird? Can you swim like a fish? Yes. One of the things that really makes books come alive for children is to see connections between the world of the book and the world the child lives in every day. We got to do that when it's snow, okay? She said, red light means that you have to stop the lightest red.

That it gold and lightest green. And to help bring out reality and help her adjust to the real world as to what's going on. So there is a great value in joy because I can see things being transparent to her and every day life just from reading. Right now children's book publishers are publishing more books about different cultures and social groups than at any other time in history. And what I would do is encourage parents to look at these books and to bring books home and read them to your children not only about people who are like you but people who aren't like you. What's that? What's that? What's that? Apart from just acquiring skill of reading, the more they read, the more broadly they read, the more they'll enjoy it. They'll understand their role, their place, where they are in the world.

They'll understand the contributions that people like them have made, they'll understand the contributions that their family members have made. They'll understand the contributions that other people have made to society and that they are people of the world. You want to do with Jibiya? House. I don't feel I read a book enough, but sometimes many times I feel if I read a book a lot more early age, then I may be more enjoying it a lot of good thing in the world, not necessarily just being successful in the world in many sense, but just there's so many things we can really find precious treasure out of a book, same thing in music too. It takes some dedication.

Once you know how to push you into the kind of dedication in any subject, then you can I think you can do it some other things too in the later in your life. Another message about storybook reading that I think is really important goes out to parents who are native speakers of languages other than English. And that message is that one of the greatest gifts you can give your child is to read books in Spanish or Japanese or Korean or whatever the native language is. We know from research that children's thinking is actually enhanced if they speak more than one language, so I always encourage parents to read to their children in whatever language they feel comfortable. And if they want to read some books in English and others in another language, that's great. I kind of lost my touch there with my cultural background when my children were growing up.

So I'm trying to reinforce it now with my grandchildren. And I do try to sing to him in Spanish, the few songs I know, and I'll try to speak to him and I'll read to him. But I didn't do a lot of Spanish reading to my own children. And I found out that I lost something there. Moli said, if you could have anything in the world, what would it be? One of the things that parents sometimes have difficulty with this, they feel, well, how do I know what a great children's book is? If you feel like you're not really sure, there are lots of resources that are available to you. Many libraries have children's librarians. Go into bookstores that are children's bookstores. Also there are books and lists that are put out by either publishing companies or libraries that talk about the best in children's books. There are two things really that make a good children's book.

One is the story or the information that's there in the words. And the second thing is the illustrations. And in the best of children's books, the illustrations work in conjunction with the story, with the words that are there in the book, to create a whole new thing. It's neither the words nor the pictures, but it's this experience that's created in bringing those two things together. One Moli pop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one sausage. These don't just use books during storybook time, or they don't just use books at bedtime or something like that. But if the books are available to them all through the day, then what you often see is that children begin to incorporate books into the different kinds of things they do during the day. Our guest bathroom is just a shower, you know, the ceramic shower, and they'll go in

there with their towels and their books, and they all sit down, and you know, more in is reading to them or conducting school, and it's pretty, it's pretty, you don't need to watch. As we talk about creating environments for children, as we talk about having books available for children, one of the things to keep in mind is that books cost money, and they're not cheap, and there are a lot of families in this country and in other countries who can't necessarily afford a lot of books, and I think by talking with either community leaders or people in the library or people in churches that many times, there are actually books out there for parents, and available either at low cost or at no cost that parents can borrow or can use on their phone. So now who's doing all the work?

I guess what I would hope that parents would take away from all of this is if they are reading to their children to keep up the good work, and don't quit, the other thing is that it's important to read aloud to 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18-year-olds, just like it is to 2, 3, 4, and 5-year-olds, and even younger children. You guys candy. For parents who aren't currently reading to their children, I guess what I would hope is that they would rush right out and begin doing that, because it is such valuable and important and wonderful part of family life. 7 empty shoes in a short, straight row. Do you have shoes? Yes. That's right, and sometimes we put them in a straight row and sometimes we don't, right? Right.

You know, when they're very little, I think they just enjoy this close one-on-one time, and then as they get older, they start to get very interested in the story, and when they get older yet, they somehow apply that story then to their own lives. And if you're lucky, when they grow up, they'll share the same tradition with their own babies. And you can smile knowing, you know, that the tradition goes on. Grandpa took Mary Ellen and inside, away from the crowd, now child. I'm going to show you what my father showed me, and his father before him, he said quietly. He spooned the honey onto the cover of one of her books. Taste, he said, almost in a whisper. Mary Ellen savored the honey on her book. That he's much sweetness inside of that book, too, he said thoughtfully.

Such things, adventure, knowledge, and wisdom, but these things do not come easily. You have to pursue them. Just like we ran after the bees to find their tree, so must also we chase these through the pages of a book. Then he smiled and hugged her. From that day on, Mary Ellen never again complained about her reading. She found it to be every bit as exciting as a wild chase through the Michigan countryside, and as sweet as the honey from a bee tree. I love you, I love you, I love you too, I love you dem. Come on, next day when you break free.

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