Thursday, May 29, 2008

Booking Through Thursday


What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books, audiobooks — which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be “reading” — why? If something isn’t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the sound of is in a format you don’t consider to be reading? Share your personal definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance.

(Two weeks late for Reading is Fundamental week, but, well…)

Readiing is:
A baby holding a book to chew on.
A mother holding her baby and pointing and naming pictures.
A toddler recognizing the "Taco Bueno" sign
An 18 month old singing the ABC's
A two and 1/2 year old recognizing their name in print
A three year old "reciting" a favorite book by heart while looking at the pictures
A four year has begun to associate sounds with letters
A five year old who recognizes sight words and is beginning to decode
A father who reads chapter books at night to his children even though the 2 year old has no idea what "Below the Root" is
A child has learned to read will be able to read to learn in 3rd and 4th grade.

Celebrate and positively reinforce anything your child picks up, hold, laughs at, cries with, sneaks to bed/bath tub, etc. I don't care if it's a western, romance, comic books, science fiction, fantasy . . . it needs to hook a young teen and teach them the mechanics of reading --- kind of like driving a car, we have to practice to improve.

After we learn to read and have practiced and have become adept ----- then all the rest (e-books etc) is gravy. It is still occupying yourself and activating the language part of your brain.

OOpppsss! Guess you can tell I am passionate about literacy!

2 comments:

Maree said...

That is so much more eloquent than my answer. My one-year-old has "chewing" books and "reading" books _ I give him the chewing books, so I can read to him. :)

(M)ary said...

BINGO! So far I have liked your answer the best (-: