Is there a parent who hasn’t at one time or another longed for a list of sure-fire suggestions for raising successful, healthy and well-adjusted children? The reality is that such a list doesn’t exist and much of parenting is creative trial and error. However, there is one thing that will help kids become better learners now and throughout their lives. Want to know a tried and true secret to school success? It’s reading!

Believe it or not, something as simple as reading can make a huge difference for children academically. But there’s a catch. It has to happen on a regular basis and has to be something children have learned to value and enjoy rather than endure.

Students today are being asked to tackle more and more learning, with the goal of helping them find their place in an increasingly complex world. Preparing students to meet this challenge is what underlies the higher standards that New York State is implementing at all grade levels. And a key component of these higher standards is literacy - i.e., the ability to read and write at very sophisticated levels.

Reading during the junior high years

The junior high grades coincide with children’s greatest physical, emotional and hormonal changes since infancy. As a result, interest and even ability to focus on academics can sometimes wane. Unfortunately, as expectations increase, a hiatus from learning is not a luxury that children can afford to indulge in their junior high years.

Increasingly, junior high schoolers are being asked to take what they have learned through reading and to analyze it in writing or apply it to another learning task. These skills are crucial not just in English class but also in science, social studies and even math. At the end of eighth grade, they all must take a series of state tests designed to find out if they are ready to meet the challenges of a high school curriculum, and these tests rely very heavily on literacy skills.

What families can do to encourage reading

Reading is an activity that improves with practice. The New York State Board of Regents recommends that all K-12 students read at least 25 age-appropriate books per year. Here are some suggestions to help your children enjoy meeting this challenge:

• Make your home a good reading environment. In The Read-Aloud Handbook, author Jim Trelease encourages parents to make sure their children have good lamps for reading in bed and an assortment of reading materials. Subscribe to newspapers and magazines. Buy your children books as gifts and encourage them to use a portion of their own spending money for books. Also, set aside time in the evening for family reading (alone and together).

• Share your reading experiences with your children. Adults who are readers tend to have children who like reading. So it’s important for your children to see you reading. It’s also good to talk with them about what you are reading and why you are enjoying it.

• Help your children find books they will enjoy. Libraries, bookstores and the Internet are all wonderful sources of what’s new in literature for children in the middle grades. Generally, pre-teens will choose books with characters a few years older than themselves as a way to find out how others have handled the awesome developmental tasks of adolescence and to dispel some of their questions and fears about growing up.

• Read to and with your children. Becoming a Nation of Readers, the groundbreaking report by the Center for the Study of Readers, states, "the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children." This applies not only to very young children but also pre-teens. Jim Trelease suggests trying different types of writing — excerpts from magazine articles that interest you both, a poem or verse that hits on a topic you have been discussing, or a couple of jokes to lighten a tense mood. Trelease also suggests re-reading favorite picture books from your own childhood or from your children’s younger years.

"When we go back as adults to the books we enjoyed as children, we often bring to those books a perspective that was missing earlier and discover new dimensions," says Trelease. And academics aside, reading together can open much needed communication between you and your pre-teens about their daily lives and concerns.

Booklists on the Web:

• www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/

• www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/youngadult.htm

Books for Families:

• Read All About It: Great Read-Aloud Stories, Poems, and Newspaper Pieces for Preteens and Teens

• The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

• Parents Who Love Reading, Kids Who Don’t by Mary Leonhardt

• Read To Me: Raising Kids Who Love To Read by Bernice Cullinan

"How do we improve vocabulary, spelling and writing? By reading, reading, reading...The more a child meets words and sees how they are used in sentences and paragraphs, the greater the chances he will spell words correctly. Conversely, the less you read, the fewer words you meet and the less certain you are of spelling and meaning." — from The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

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