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Reading
is the most vital skill children must master early
in order to be successful in their education, and
the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has focused national
attention on the importance of ensuring that every
child learns to read well. One goal of the legislation
is to have all children reading on or above grade-level
by the end of third grade.
Although the newspaper is typically thought of as
an adult medium, even young children can benefit from
exposure to the newspaper to build the strong language
and pre-reading skills that will set the tone for
educational success.
Read the newspaper with your child, following the
tips below to help him or her develop the five fundamentals
of reading.
- Phonemic
awareness is the understanding that individual
sounds work together to make words. Hold your
child in your lap and point out the sounds
in simple words such as dog, dish or door.
Practice finding large words and breaking
them down into their smaller parts, reading
and sounding out each part until you’ve
read the entire word. Read the newspaper aloud
to your child, then have him or her “read”
to you, making up stories, rhymes and songs.
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- Help
your child understand phonics, or how letters
sound, by pointing to letters in a headline,
and having your child repeat the sounds of
the letters. Have your child cut and paste
letters from a newspaper to make up his or
her name, labels, colors, titles and products.
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- Help
your child develop a strong vocabulary by
having him or her find new words in the newspaper.
Simple words like car, bike, house, or baseball
can be circled, or cut out and pasted on a
piece of paper.
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- The
ability to read words accurately and recognize
what that word means
at the same time is reading fluency. Read
aloud daily to your child, and have him or
her read aloud daily to you.
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- Comprehension
is the ability to understand what you are
reading, and beginning readers need a big
spoken vocabulary in order to understand what
they see in print. Help your child develop
reading comprehension by having the newspaper
serve as a print resource to reinforce images
the child sees elsewhere. Scan the newspaper
for words and images, then discuss where else
the child may have come across these words
or images.
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Source:
Newspaper Association of America Foundation’s
“Reading First, NIE!” teaching supplement,
developed by education experts in response to the
No Child Left Behind Act.
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