Magaly Lavadenz: Reading with your children is really important because it model the importance of reading and modeling is such an important way that children learn.
Sandra Menendez: I think that the parents are the first teachers sand they are the ones who are going to make it the most interesting for them.
Magaly Lavadenz: They try to imitate what they see in their environment.
Sandra Menendez: And then they get it from the school as well. So that's going to be something that the children are going to initially believe that that's very important because they see it from their home and they see it at their school.
Magaly Lavadenz: Also it becomes part of the daily routine, then it's also more likely then they will do it on their own.
Sandra Menendez: The parents have to show them what reading is all about and as well as in the school they must hear it, but the parents showing it to them is greater, because they are learning from the parents from the moment they were born.
Magaly Lavadenz: And it doesn't necessarily have to be a book. It could be a newspaper, it could be a laundry list.
Sandra Menendez: Reading the signs while they are walking, telling them what each sign means.
Magaly Lavadenz: A grocery list, writing letters to family members, thank you notes.
Sandra Menendez: And cereal boxes, the kids love to read what is that.
Magaly Lavadenz: Going to the pantry and asking a child to get out the box of jello or get the milk out of the refrigerator and point to those letters, helps them make that connection between what they are saying and the printed word and all of that is really important for beginning reading.
Sandra Menendez: This is extremely important for their parents to show them how important reading is in their family, how important literacy is in their family and that may go even if the parents do not know how to read. They can get a book and they can make up the story. They can tell them folk tales, they can sing to them and all of those things will help with reading.
Magaly Lavadenz: Things that parents can pay attention to, to make sure that they develop a love of reading is finding out first, just having a conversation about what are the things that they would like or would like to learn more about. What kind of reading would they like to spend at home, doing? So, would they like to read comic books? Comic books actually have a very high reading level. There is been numerous studies that say that average reading level of a comic book is between fourth and fifth grade, reading level.
Sandra Menendez: I can tell you what with my daughter. She is nine years old and she is in the third grade. So, everyday when she comes, we do reading together but with her more now, because she knows how to read, it's timing her. We have -- how many words per minute can you read? So, we work on that and she reads a story and then we count how many words you read per minute and then we keep working on it and then she gets even higher and higher in the words that she reads.
Magaly Lavadenz: Well, good reading environment is whatever makes the child comfortable and more likely to read. So it takes a good parent to know what their child's interests are. So for example, for myself, I always did my homework in front of the television. The important thing is that you get it done. The important thing is that they read and setting a comfortable environment for that child to read is part of how you can make reading more fun and enjoyable as opposed to making it another task or another chore or like homework.
Sandra Menendez: Absolutely. Establishing the habit for them to come home and for them to spend at least, like I would say, 20 minutes minimum reading or going over some stories, or whatever it is that they can do.
Magaly Lavadenz: Making reading and books available in the home is really important. There is a lot of research that has supported the number of books in the home is very highly correlated to academic achievement and to high reading levels in children. So, having books in the home and books can be anything from magazine, it could be religious articles and religious materials that families use in their daily lives.
Sandra Menendez: For a school age, I would say, it's based on their interest and you go with what their like, that's the book that you get because that's the one that they are going to always go to.
Magaly Lavadenz: Very young children can be more likely to write if they also have things to write with and it could be just crayons, a box of crayons. Very young children, pre-schoolers, for example, will scribble on pages and that scribbling means something to them and they can read it back to the parents. So, that's a literacy event, right there.
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