Reading to Children

squidoo.com — As a parent, you should see how the unexpected turns of everyday life can creep in and take over your life. Sometimes, you just want to find a quiet space and disappear. But, if you look at the glass as half full, rather than half empty, you can have it all. Sitting with your child to read a book IS like having a quiet space. Even with 15 minutes, you are getting yourself back on track AND making a crucial investment in your child's success.We can never forget that children are creatures of pleasure, just like us. If they enjoy something and have positive experiences with it, they tend to continue to do that activity. If they don't like it, they will avoid it. In fact, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2000 national reading assessment of fourth-grade students found that reading for fun had a positive relationship to performance on the NAEP reading scores. The 87% of students who reported reading for fun on their own time once a month or more performed at the Proficient level, while students who never or hardly ever read for fun performed at the Basic level. Students who read for fun every day scored the highest.Children who have been read to several times a day as a young child, did substantially better in kindergarten than youngsters whose parents read to them a few times a week or less often. The group of children who were read to on a daily basis were 1.6 times as likely to be rated by their teachers as being near the top of their kindergarten class in learning skills, and 2.3 times as likely to be near the top of their class in communication skills. These relationships hold true regardless of the income of the child's household and the education of the child's mother.The average kindergarten student has seen more than 5,000 hours of television, having spent more time in front of the TV than it takes to earn a bachelor's degree. [Our children need balance.]Eighty percent of college faculty members report that entering freshman cannot read wel Feb 26, 2011 View in Crawl 4