How Children's Reading Habits Are Changing & Six Ways to Support them

The National Literacy Trust in the United Kingdom has just published its annual report on children's literacy and there are some encouraging signs. The trust is the only national charity dedicated to raising literacy levels in the UK.

1. The report highlights

The 2014 report (released in 2015) of 32,026 children in grades 3 to 11 suggests some interesting trends:

• Levels of enjoyment have risen with 54.5% enjoying reading quite a lot.
• Daily reading rates have increased substantially with a 28.6% increase in children who read outside the class on a daily basis.
• Twice as many children read outside the class for fun each day (now 29.6%).
• Except for magazines all forms of reading increased, with musical lyrics (50.3%), text messages (72.6%), websites (60.2%) and social networking being the highest (53.6%). Interestingly, 46.7% of all children read fiction at least once a month outside class.
• The majority of children said they have a favourite book (61.0%).
• Girls continue to be the most devoted readers
• Girls and boys read different material outside school - more girls than boys read computer-based formats.
• Children who enjoyed reading are three times more likely to read above their appropriate level than children who do not enjoy reading (34.9% compared to 10.7%).

2. Six Tips to Help Children to Grow in Enjoyment for Reading

Once again, results of this kind show why it is important for parents and teachers to work hard to increase children's enjoyment of reading. Here are six tips that will help to make a difference:

#1 Work hard to connect children with books that they will enjoy - try to supply books that match interests, that are at an appropriate level, and provide time and space in their lives to read.
#2 Help children to manage their time so that they have time to read - this might require us to restrict screen time for activities those activities that offer only limited reading opportunities.
#3 Provide opportunities for children to experience many forms of reading - books, careful use of social media for class, group and exchange with students in other places. Create varied opportunities for reading magazines, graphic novels, books, music, non-fiction, poetry, cultural texts (e.g. advertising, news, political posters).
#4 Show interest in the things children read - talk to them about their reading, ask them to share what they are reading and why, engage with them concerning the content of their reading and their interests.
#5 Encourage opportunities for children to share their reading interests - try discussion groups on specific texts or genres, one-on-one reading conferences, 'dining room table' discussions with small groups of students (as developed by Nancie Atwell).
#6 Help children to become writers as well - reading feeds writing and writing feeds reading. Get children excited about both by allowing them to take greater control and by supporting them at every step. Encourage them to write for real readers and try to establish ways for others to read their writing as well.

Other related posts on giving children READING SUPPORT

Developing Comprehension in the Preschool Years

Introduction

I've written a number of times about comprehension on this blog (see previous posts here), written a two books about it (here & here) and published a monograph in recent times for the Primary English Teaching Association in Australia (PETAA). In these publications I describe comprehension as the ability "to understand, interpret, appreciate and critique what they read, view, hear and experience." This might not sound like the things you see a 2-3 year old doing when they pick up a book, and in one sense it isn't.  Young children begin to make sense of their world and all that is in it from birth, but comprehension as we know it in school emerges over time in these early years.

As distinguished literacy researchers Ken and Yetta Goodman said many years ago (in 'Learning to read is natural', 1979):

"The beginnings of reading often go unnoticed in the young child".

For the young child meaning making occurs from birth, but reading comprehension as we recognise it emerges over the first 5 years of life, and in fact, for most children begins before they can decode print.


Emergent Patterns

Caitlin McMunn Dooley wrote an excellent article in The Reading Teacher (Oct 2010) in which she described her observations of a group of children aged 2-5+ years in an early childhood classroom over a three year period.  Her observations suggested four broad phases in their emerging comprehension. These are not neat stages (hence the use of the word phase):

Book as prop (<2 to 3) - When choosing books children pay minimal attention to the topic and content of the book and instead use books a prop and treating them like other play things. The book symbolises story time or is used to simulate reading.

Book as invitation (2+ to 3+) - Eventually, children begin to consider the book holistically as a complete unit of meaning. They begin to recognise the topic of the book mainly through images, colour, shape etc. They start to bring books to adults and expect them to read them. They might also volunteer to 'read' the book to others.

Book as script (3+) - Eventually, children begin to show an understanding that text carries meaning, as do the many features of the book.  Dooley found that many 3 year olds begin to treat the books more like "..scripts, memorising and calling out the texts in books..".  They point to the print and attend to text content, images and sound including voice intonation and inflection.

Book as text (4+) - Most four year olds begin to attend more to the print, pointing to the words and recalling (generally from memory) word by word what is on the page. They are still just as interested in content, images and sound, but there is an emerging sense of integrated comprehension where the reader can see consistencies and inconsistencies between print and other elements such as image and sound.

Comprehension emerges with other people

What needs to be understood about emergent comprehension is that the ability to make meaning as children encounter books, films, objects and experiences, develops as they try to make sense of their world. It also happens as an extension of their relationships within families and in other learning situations both informal (play with others) and structured (a preschool classroom or playgroup).

The following description of a preschool class gives some sense of what I mean:

Even when the teacher was not initiating reading or writing, the classroom was filled with literate behaviour. In the dress-up corner several children were including story reading in creative play. Children took turns as mother reading to her baby. Genevieve was asking her pretend mum to explain why the dog in I'll Always Love You (Wilhelm, 1985) had such a sad face (this is a book about death). Mum was doing a wonderful job explaining the relationships within the story. Another group playing shops was using a receipt book to record purchases. Receipt books were often referred to in the home corner. 'Mum' and 'Dad' were reading the newspaper and later flicking through the pages of the telephone book (Cairney & Langbien, 1989).

In is in varied social settings that children make meaning and begin to acquire a more sophisticated understanding of how written language works. Over time, the foundations of comprehension are laid.

What parents can do to help comprehension emerge?

Here are 10 simple tips.

• Read regularly (at least daily) to your children and talk about the things that you read.
• Try to read the book with emotion, with invented sound effects, with different voices for characters and the narrator, changes in voice volume and tone - much meaning is communicated this way.
• Support their emerging understanding of what they read or hear by encouraging them to look at pictures and images and relate these to the words that you read. Emphasise key words or repetitive patterns in the book “But don’t forget the bacon”, “But where is the Green Sheep?”
• Encourage them to relate ideas, language and knowledge that a book introduces to other areas of learning or life – “You’ve got a teddy too”, “His puppy is like Darren’s puppy”, “We saw an elephant like this one at the zoo”.
• Encourage them to draw, sing, talk about, act out, make things, dress up and so on, in response to the things that you read to them or they read themselves (creating meaning in response to books).
• Encourage them to use other tools to make meaning (playdough, toy animals, dress-ups, Thomas trains, drawing, craft etc) and relate these as appropriate to books (creating meaning leads to books).
• Encourage them to memorise and learn things from the books they read or listen to. You can’t read “Wombat Stew” without reciting over and over again “Wombat stew, Wombat stew, Gooey, brewy, Yummy, chewy, Wombat stew!”
• Encourage them to make connections between the things they read, view and experience – “This story is like in the television show Shaun the Sheep when he…..”.
• Read varied books – different story types, factual books as well as fiction, poetry and prose, different forms of illustrations and so on.
• Watch TV shows, videos and movies with your children and talk about them, explain things, try to make connections with stories they have read, encourage response with art, drawing, play dough, puppets, dressing up, acting out and so on.

Summing Up

Comprehension is ultimately the highest goal of reading, we read to understand things, to work things out, to make meaning.  Its foundations are laid in the first 5 years of life, not through structured activities, but through the use and experience of language and in particular, story.

Comprehension emerges over time as children are encouraged to encounter and use written language and to integrate this with other avenues they have for making meaning.

Other blog posts related to this topic

'Teaching and Supporting Children's Reading Comprehension' (HERE)
'Reading to Learn Using Text Sets' (HERE)
'Improving Comprehension: Sketch to Stretch' (HERE)
'Improving Comprehension: Map Making' (HERE)
'Improving Comprehension: Advance Organisers' (HERE)
'Why Kids Re-read Books' (HERE)
'Making Books Come Alive' (HERE)
'The Power of Literature' series (HERE)
All posts on 'Children's Literature' (HERE)
All posts on 'Comprehension' (HERE)


References cited in this Post

Cairney, T.H. (2010). 'Developing Comprehension: Learning to make meaning'. Sydney: e:lit (formerly Primary English Teaching Association).

Cairney, T.H. (1995). 'Pathways to Literacy', Cassell: London.

Cairney, T.H. (1990). 'Teaching Reading Comprehension: Meaning Makers at Work', Open University Press: London.

Cairney, T.H. & Langbien, S. (1989). Building Communities of Readers and Writers, The Reading Teacher, Vol. 42, No. 8, pp 560-567.

McMunn Dooley, C. (2010). Young children's approaches to books: The emergence of comprehension, The Reading Teacher, 64, 2, pp 120-130

Goodman, K.S and Goodman Y.M. (1979) Learning to read is natural. In L.B. Resnick and P.A. Weaver (Eds), Theory and Practice of Early Reading (Vol 1),  Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p 137-154.

* This is a revised version of a post I wrote in November 2010

A search for meaning, the heart of literacy

The title of this post is one that I am using for a keynote address that I will give to an Australian Literacy Educators' Association conference in Adelaide South Australia on Friday 16th April. This post is an introduction to the address and is a way to organise the various posts that relate to my talk as a resource for the attendees at the conference. Hopefully, it will be of interest to other readers too, especially those who are early childhood or primary school teachers interested in reading comprehension. The post covers one of the 5 sections of my address and draws on ideas from my book Pathways to Literacy (1995).

Helping young readers with comprehension

The foundations of reading comprehension occur in the first 5 years of life when children learn language as they relate to other people. Language learning occurs in rich social contexts as an extension of their relationships with others.

Research conducted with one of my students in the 1980s into the way language is socially situated (Cairney & Langbien, 1989) illustrates just how deeply embedded early literacy experiences are within the social relationships that they experience at home and school.

The following description based on field notes from Susan Langbien's classroom give a rich sense of what was going on one typical day in this Kindergarten in the Queensland Canefields.

Susan was reading to her children. Nineteen small four-year old faces were looking up at her as she chatted with them about the story, 'The three little pigs' (in Jacobs, 1969). The children were sitting cross-legged on a large carpet square at the front of the room, the venue for news, music, discussion, sharing ideas, and last, but not least, stories. The group had been asked to comment upon the story and was responding enthusiastically. Ideas flowed quickly as the comment of one child stimulated other responses. The discussion moved from one part of the story to another. Different characters were mentioned, and favourite parts shared. Sometimes the comments related closely to the story, at other times they were more egocentric. Their attention turned to the big bad wolf and Robert announced:

I've got a big bad wolf and I put him in hot water

Louise replied:

My bad wolf got shot with hot rocks

Christian responded with a somewhat deeper and more emotional thought:

The wolf got hurt because he tried to hurt the pigs

These young children were part of a small learning community in their Kindergarten (we'd call it a preschool in New South Wales), where language was important to them. They were delighting in the sharing of reading and writing. There was a nature table in one corner, large and small building blocks, easels, paints, clay, and a reading corner that was physically appealing. The reading corner included a brightly covered divan, a few cushions, a variety of books, newspapers and magazines. A sign was hanging on the wall asking "Have You Read Any Good Books Lately?" Artwork displays also showed the influence of literature, and group craft efforts to depict characters from books were proudly on show.

Above: A preschool classroom (this is NOT Susan's classroom)

The teacher in this classroom had been actively attempting to develop a community of readers and writers. Observations of the room showed that literacy was an important part of the world of this class. Each session of the day included the reading of a piece of poetry or prose. Frequently, these sessions were followed by lively discussion. Daily independent reading time was provided on the carpet area. News time frequently involved the spontaneous sharing of books. Opportunities were provided for response to reading, and this took many forms - drawing, writing, dramatic re-enactment, mime, and singing.

Even when the teacher was not initiating reading or writing, the classroom was filled with literate behaviour. In the dress-up corner several children were including story reading in creative play. Children took turns as mother reading to her baby. Genevieve was asking her pretend mum to explain why the dog in I'll Always Love You (Wilhelm, 1985) had such a sad face (this is a book about death). Mum was doing a wonderful job explaining the relationships within the story. Another group playing shops was using a receipt book to record purchases. Receipt books were often referred to in the home corner. 'Mum' and 'Dad' were reading the newspaper and later flicking through the pages of the telephone book.

This classroom was living evidence of the complex social nature of literacy. A teacher and her class were talking, listening, reading and writing as parts of a dynamic community. Literacy was being learned as children related to each other, meaning was being jointly constructed and negotiated within a complex community of relationships.

Susan's class was being introduced to the world of literacy in an environment where it was valued. Reading and writing were being shared and enjoyed, as an extension of close relationships (teacher-to-child, child-to-child). Whether inside the classroom, or in the playground, reading and writing often found their way into the language of the group. For example, at recess Christian began to chant:

Wombat stew, wombat stew, crunchy munchy for my lunchy,
wombat stew

This was obviously inspired by 'Wombat Stew' (Vaughan & Lofts, 1984), a book that Susan had shared.

Other children soon joined in and pretended their morning teas were lizards' eyes, a cane toad, mud and slime and a crocodile's tooth. A new and complex 'socially' constituted wombat stew was created. As they played they not only relived the experience of the book, they learned about language.

The linguist Michael Halliday Meaning demonstrated to us in the 1970s how language is constructed and used in social contexts (Halliday, 1975; 1978). Catherine Snow (1983) a little later showed how language learning is dependent upon social relationships. Snow examined the language interactions of parents and children in the preschool years. A particular focus of her work was the role of adults in children's language development and she noted that teachers and parents frequently facilitated language development in a number of ways:

First, adults often continued or elaborated topics that the child introduced.
Second, they reduced the uncertainty in the language task by structuring the dialogue.
Third, they constantly encouraged the pursuit of the task or the language interaction.

Homes and classrooms that create, sustain and encourage opportunities for rich language communities like Susan's classroom, will be places where literacy is stimulated and comprehension develops.

Other blog posts related to this topic

'Teaching and Supporting Children's Reading Comprehension' (HERE)
'Truth and the Internet' (HERE)
'Reading to Learn Using Text Sets' (HERE)
'Improving Comprehension: Sketch to Stretch' (HERE)
'Improving Comprehension: Map Making' (HERE)
'Improving Comprehension: Advance Organisers' (HERE)
'Children as Bloggers' (HERE)
'Why Kids Re-read Books' (HERE)
'Making Books Come Alive' (HERE)
'Online Reading is Different' (HERE)
'What Rappers can Teach us About Language'? (HERE)
'Getting Boys into Books Through Non-fiction' (HERE)
'Great Science and Technology Books for Children Aged 3-12 years' (HERE)
All posts on 'Children's Literature' (HERE)
'The Power of Literature' series (HERE)
'Juvenilia: The Study of Writing from Youth' (HERE)

Books I've written that are relevant

Cairney, T.H. (1990). Teaching Reading Comprehension: Meaning Makers at Work, London: Open University Press.

Cairney, T.H. (1991). Other Worlds: The Endless Possibilities of Literature. Portsmouth (NH): Henemann.

Cairney, T.H. (1995). Pathways to Literacy, London: Cassell.

References cited in this Post

Cairney, T.H. (1995). Pathways to Literacy. London: Cassell.

Cairney, T.H. & Langbien, S. (1989). Building Communities of Readers and Writers, The Reading Teacher, Vol. 42, No. 8, pp 560-567.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1975). Learning how to mean. London: Edward Arnold, 1975.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning, Baltimore: University Park Press, 1978; London: Edward Arnold, 1978.

Snow, C.E. (1983). Literacy and language: Relationships during the preschool years. Harvard. Educational Review, 53, pp165-189.

Improving Comprehension: Advance Organizers

The need for 'deep' reading

As I said in my previous posts in this series on 'Improving Comprehension', we need to encourage ‘deep’ reading. For the reading of literature we want children not only to be able to read the words and follow a basic narrative plot, we want them to grasp the richness of characterization, the devices the author uses to create mood and tension, the intent and purpose of the writer and the language devices employed; all the while being moved by the text and able to reflect and respond critically to it. When reading non-fiction we want readers to be able to understand what it is that the author is seeking to communicate, to learn from the reading of the text, to use the text for varied appropriate purposes, and to be able to critique the accuracy and truth of its content.

The importance of prior knowledge

In any act of reading prior knowledge is important. Research on Schema theory in the 1970s by Richard C. Anderson and his colleagues and students at the University of Illinois taught us a great deal about the way in which the interplay of prior knowledge stored in memory and new knowledge given prior to reading can help reading comprehension. The origins of Schema Theory can be traced to the work of Frederic Bartlett and his classic work 'Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology' (1932).

Schema Theory suggests that readers require prior knowledge to comprehend a text. This knowledge is organized within memory and needs to be accessed during reading. Information and knowledge is stored in schemata (the plural for schema), which readers access as they seek to relate what they know about a topic to the things that they are encountering and learning from a text. In essence, the brain creates frameworks to store knowledge and information that is related.

In simple terms, if we were wishing to understand a short passage on cricket (the game) you would need to possess certain knowledge sets that help to make sense of it. To understand the sentence, 'He bowled a maiden over', the reader would need to have knowledge of the game sufficient to help them know that to 'bowl' is to take a small ball and propel it along a strip of grass in an over arm fashion to a batsman without them scoring a run from a number of balls. As well, the reader needs to know that an 'over' is the way we describe a set of 6 successive deliveries of the ball (being bowled). That a 'maiden' is the technical term for an over where no runs are scored and so on.

Schema theory suggests that such related knowledge is stored in a specific schema or more likely related schemata that relate to games, cricket, sport etc. Our brain has at least two main types of schemata for reading: content schema and textual schema, including knowledge of discourse structure and conventions. It also seems that schemata have a number of functions including: a) helping us to assimilate new knowledge; b) helping us to judge what is important; c) helping the reader to make inferences; d) enabling us to summarize information; and e) assisting our searches of memory for relevant background knowledge.

Comprehension of texts not only requires the reader to be able to read words, understand word meanings, and possess complex understanding of how language and texts work, it also requires them to possess knowledge of the world and successfully use it by activating relevant schemata. It is probably self-evident that if the reader possesses sufficient background knowledge and can access it efficiently, then comprehension will be aided.

Researchers like Bransford (1979) have spent considerable time exploring how schemata are used as part of the reading process and offering insights into how they can be activated by readers increasing their ability to comprehend texts.

The Advance Organizer

One of the most commonly used strategies for priming prior knowledge with readers is the advance organizer. An Advance Organizers is simply a device that helps the reader to access efficiently relevant knowledge (stored as schemata). The term was coined by Ausubel (1959) who believed that the most important determinant of learning is what the learner already knows or brings to the task.

A number of preliminary strategies have been developed to help students relate new information appearing in a text to existing knowledge. The design of many of these reflects Ausubel's strategy of creating a specific mindset prior to the reading task. Here are a few examples:

(i) The use of structured overviews

The structured overview is one way to organize or rehearse information and knowledge to aid understanding. Used prior to reading a non-fiction text, the structured overview is a helpful way to aid comprehension. It may be used in many form including webs, concept maps, or outlines. The strategy can be used across the curriculum where reading and writing, learning and remembering are required [Example opposite courtesy of New Zealand Ministry of Education Online Learning Centre].

(ii) Spoken and written words - One of the simplest ways to offer an advance organizer is by talking about the possible content of a book. When we get children to look at the cover, read and discuss the title, and discuss the content that the story might be about, we are using an advance organizer.

(iii) Diagrams and charts - examples of this approach include Venn diagrams and 'KWL' charts. Venn diagrams are overlapping circles (as used in mathematics) that can be used in reading to provide a content overview before reading. KWL charts ask the reader to outline prior to reading what they know about the topic and what they want to know. After reading they then complete the chart by writing what they learned. The KWL chart was first used by Ogle (1986) and can be useful when starting a new book or any unit of learning. Once students have been taught to use diagrams and charts in a group, they can be encouraged to use them with other students or independently.

(iv) Discussion of related extra-textual material (e.g. photographs, music, video) - Another way to prime background knowledge and schemata is by using related material in addition to the text. This could include photographs that relate to the content, objects, music or even videos. The showing of a video version of a text prior to reading is one simple way to do this. This is particularly helpful if children are reading difficult texts that might normally be just beyond their developmental and language capabilities. If you are doing a unit of work on insects with grade 2, bring in a box of insects and allow them to observe them and talk about them prior to commencing reading and writing about insects.

(v) Using drawing prior to reading - I have already suggested in a previous post how powerful drawing or sketching can be prior to the reading task. The 'Sketch to Stretch' Strategy and 'Map Making' are two examples that can act as Advance Organizers (as well as doing other things).

Related Reading

Useful introductory article on Schema Theory from ERIC (here)

All previous posts on comprehension (here)

Literature as Relational Glue

In my last post on ‘Making Books Come Alive’ Jo responded with a comment that ‘Looking For Crabs’ is a favourite book for her family. She commented, “We can often be heard saying, "There are no crabs at our beach...", after we have been looking for a while. Her family’s comment is an echo of the book which tells of a family outing to a beach where the children look for crabs when it’s too cold to swim, only to be frustrated that they don’t ever seem to find any. But of course, there are crabs hiding everywhere just under their noses, disguised as rocks, hidden amongst the rocks. The book ends with the children leaving the beach saying “There are no crabs at our beach” while the crabs wave from their hiding places.

The comment by Jo indicates something that may be obvious but which is foundational to understanding some of the secrets to building rich literacy environments at home and school. Reading involves social relationships among people - teachers and students, groups of students, parents and children, and between an author and his or her readers. The stories that books communicate teach us new things about our world and language and help to build common ground between people. They contribute to enriching our daily lives together and help to be some of the cultural glue that binds us together as families, class groups, friends and so on.

What Jo’s example demonstrates is that books become an extension of relationships and a means to enrich them and express how we see one another and feel about one another. One of my favourite examples of this at work occurred one night as I tried to encourage my youngest daughter to go to bed (who I think at the time was 5 - see picture opposite). She had asked for some dessert just before bedtime and I’d said no. When I went in to read stories to her she was rubbing her stomach. I asked, “What’s the matter Darlin’?” To which she replied, “I was just thinking of how Wilbur couldn’t sleep, because when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's hard to fall asleep." Louise used the words about Wilbur from 'Charlotte’s Web' (E.B. White) as an extension of our relationship. She knew the words would connect with me and make me smile; and perhaps, even get me to change my mind.

Such use of language is not restricted just to families of course. In my book ‘Pathways to Literacy’ I talk about the way you can create classroom environments that do just this. I share how one of my postgraduate students had created an environment like this in her Kindergarten. In Susan Langbien’s classroom, reading and writing were being shared and enjoyed, inside the classroom and in the playground. Reading and writing were often finding their way into the language of the group.


For example, at morning tea Christian began to chant: “Wombat stew, wombat stew, crunchy munchy for my lunchy, wombat stew.” This of course is from the book ‘Wombat Stew’ (Marcia Vaughan, 1984), a book that Susan had shared). Other children soon joined in and pretended their morning teas were lizard’s eyes, a cane toad, mud and slime and a crocodile's tooth. A new and complex 'socially' constituted wombat stew was created. As they played they not only relived the experience of the book, they learned about language.

The playground in Susan's Kindergarten was often the setting for much child initiated drama and dramatic play. Little birds looked for their mothers in the playground as they acted out the plot of ‘Are you my mother?’ (P.D. Eastman, 1960). A group of children became the Three Billy Goats Gruff and the troll,and used a balance beam as their bridge. Another group played 'house' and whenever Genevieve set off for the shops she reminded herself ‘Don't forget the bacon’ (Hutchins, 1976).

For reading and writing to assume this important place in the lives of families and classrooms we need to do a few basic things:

1. We need to flood our homes and classrooms with books. You don't have to buy the books, public libraries are a wonderful resource.
2. We need to read these books often and encourage them to read (books will hopefully be amongst their most precious things).
3. Parents and teachers need to be readers themselves and love reading to their children not because they know it’s good for their children, but because it gives them and their children great joy and it stimulates creativity, laughter and inquisitiveness.
4. We need to talk to our children about books – asking questions of them, contributing ideas and insights about them, structuring conversations about them and encouraging our children to respond to the books. Not to test their understanding, but to encourage reflection and appreciation of story and language.

One final comment. While my focus above has been on literature, non-fiction books and online reading can also lead to lots of discussion and dialogue as readers reflect on the things they have been learning, the questions that are provoked and other areas of discovery and learning they might have experienced separate to their experience of the books. Of course this is another post.

Related Posts

My series on 'The Power of Literature' (here)

All my previous posts on children's literature (here)

Encouraging Kids to Read Print in Their World

My last post was titled 'Getting Boys into Reading Through Non-fiction'. In that post I explored the use of magazines, the Internet, factual books, joke books, 'make and do' books, graphic novels and comics. In a sense, what I was doing was stressing that there are pathways into literacy other than narrative-based books. In this post I want to focus on a few non-book pathways to literacy. Most could be labelled 'environmental print'. In a book I wrote in the early 1990s - 'Pathways to Literacy' - I considered the alternative pathways that some families use to usher their children into literacy. I pointed out that while narrative is critical to literacy development, that introduction to many literacy practices, especially concepts of print like letters, words and symbolic representation of language comes for many children (at least initially) through non-book pathways. For example, my father used an enamel plate that had the letters of the alphabet around the rim to teach me letter names and sounds as we ate breakfast.

While parents read books, tell stories and relate life experiences in narrative forms right from birth, they also begin to draw attention to print and the functions of literacy using many varied sources of written language in the child's world. In this post, I thought I'd mention just a few such non-book sources of early literacy learning and how we draw children's attention to it. This is another area where we can help boys to get a start in literacy using everyday experiences.

Environmental print - children (especially boys) love to explore space. We can use time spent outside for reading purposes as well as fun and exercise. Give a boy an oval and he'll run around every square inch of it, climb every object and crawl under and over every fence. Wherever children are exploring it is easy to draw attention to print and symbolic representations on signs, food wrappers, digital displays, clothing and so on. Point to words, trace the letters, explain what the sign means etc.

Use writing - another valuable way into reading is via writing. Encourage boys to write in varied forms (letters, numbers, their name, words etc). You might get them to dictate labels for a drawing, a caption for something they've made, a letter or email to one of their grandparents or a friend, label their toys, or shelves in their wardrobe, the words on a birthday card and so on. My grandson Jacob (aged 6) is an avid reader; the example opposite shows his drawing of some things he saw on holidays and his labelling of them. From a very young age his parents draw attention to print in his world and encouraged him to write.

Television - from about 2 years on most children will enjoy watching television. As parents you will no doubt moderate the amount of TV viewing (see one of my previous posts on this here), but most children will watch some television. For the young reluctant book reader, television can be a good springboard to various forms of reading. Programs that require children to do more than just watch are best. Programs like 'Playschool' in Australia encourage children to listen, watch, sing, dance, move, repeat actions, read simple words etc. Once again, as part of the child's viewing, interact with them directing attention to words, talking about symbols etc. Don't turn this into a lesson; instead use it as an accompaniment to the viewing.

Computers - digital representation of language and numbers (e.g. automatic teller machines, digital displays on appliances, computer games, electronic signs) are now one of the most prevalent sources of print in most children's worlds. Children will very quickly notice the words and numbers that light up before them, that move, change colour and are often associated with sound and images. As children observe parents using computers, watch you punching in passwords at the supermarket, observe the dashboard display on the car etc, it is natural and easy to draw their attention to the symbols and talk about what they are for.

Summing up

I could go into other non-book forms of literacy but I think the point is simple. Look for print in your children's world and draw their attention to it. Take the time to:

• Point to the letters and numbers
• Offer simple explanations of what they are (e.g. these are numbers, this is a word, Mummy has to press these buttons to phone Daddy, that's how I this is your lunch box, it says Sally etc)
• Encourage children to point to words and letters
• Show them how words and numbers related to concrete objects (e.g. that says STOP)
• Look for natural ways to draw attention to print, teach them letter names

Remember that the above practices are still relevant after your children have learnt to read and write. Look for new ways to teach them new words, unusual uses of language, devices used to convey meaning, connections between the language and texts they read, write and views. There are endless opportunities to do this in the midst of everyday life and activities. This is how we stretch our children and help them to learn new things about language and their world.

Related posts

Here are some previous posts that are related to the topic of this post.

'Ten Ways to Encourage Preschool Writers' (here)
'Guiding Children's Learning' (here)
'Teaching and Learning Moments in Everyday Life' (here)
'The Language Experience Approach' (here)

Getting boys into reading through non-fiction material

I wrote a post on 'The Challenge of Boys and Reading" in July in which I commented that boys are more likely to be attracted to books and reading when:

".....the books and the reading event (whether at school, or reading with mum and dad) offer opportunities to discover, experiment, explore, learn new things, make them laugh, consider the curious or unusual, help them to play, see how things work, share trivia tricks and facts with other boys, explore the unknown, and generally do interesting things."

For many boys (like girls) the narrative form is the best way into literacy, but some boys are reluctant to read narratives. Our aim as parents or teachers is to develop boys who can read every imaginable genre when it is appropriate to their needs. We want them to read in a sustained way written text presented in traditional print forms (e.g. books, magazines, letters), electronic forms, or in fact text found anywhere within the child's world. So we should seek to explore any textual form available to introduce them to reading and then gently push them to explore other forms of reading, as well as to read in more sustained ways and for all imaginable purposes. I've tried below to offer a range of ideas for boys aged from beginning readers to young teenager. All are meant to offer an alternative pathway for pushing forward reluctant readers. They are roughly in order of increasing difficulty and age appropriateness, but some examples are relevant across all ages.

Introduce them to magazines - boys will love to flick through the pages of magazines on topics that interest them. Something like National Geographic is ideal (or a children's version of this type of magazine like 'Kids Almanac'). If they are expendable (e.g. old National Geographics), let them cut out interesting pictures and get them to make a book by sticking them in and then labelling them. Later you can write words for them that they dictate or you can encourage them from a very early age to try to 'write' (see my previous post on 'When do children start writing' here) words that go with the pictures.

Explore websites together - from about 3 years most boys will love to explore computers with you. Choose some simple websites (I list a few on the sidebar of this blog site), National Geographic Kids is worth a look. The Australian Museum has a great site called 'Wild Kids' where lots of facts and pictures can be found about animals - great fun to explore (and it's reading!). Show them how you open the site. Then explore the pages of the site pointing to and reading words. Don't make this a reading lesson, the text is peripheral to the exploration, images etc. But you are 'warming them up' to print. There are some greats sites to explore on sharks, reptiles etc.

Explore factual books together - boys love to learn new things. Borrow factual books from the library about space, dinosaurs, cars, trains, reptiles, sea creatures, insects, how things work etc. Boys will flick pages and look at pictures for ages. Sit with them and selectively draw attention to words. Perhaps use the book as a springboard to other activities (e.g. craft, drawing) and encourage the use of writing to label or supplement drawings. A brilliant example of this type of book is 'The Way Things Work' by David Macaulay (the author's website is also worth a visit here). This book explains with words, diagrams and pictures how things work, for example, electricity, pulleys, microscopes, smoke detectors etc. This can be flicked through or read. It isn't a simple book but is ideal for an older boy who isn't keen on stories but may respond to a more difficult factual book that will encourage him to read for more sustained periods. And this is one of our aims, to give them reading 'stamina'. Another great example (again) is 'Nat Geo Almanac 2010'.

A sub-category of this approach is the use of 'key fact' books. Many boys will love books that offer a mix of drawings and pictures with facts about things that fascinate them. Some of these books use extended text but others use short 'sharp' statement with good accompanying graphics or images. Popular topic areas with boys include:

• Egyptology
• Jet planes
• Weather
• Animals of all kinds
• History
• Sport
• Science
• Engineering
  

Here are a couple of examples:

1001 Unbelievable Facts, by Helen Otway (there is a whole series of '1001 Fact..' books, 'Backpack Books' published by DK)
100 Things You Should Know About Ancient Rome, by Fiona Mcdonald
Dinosaurs (Pocket Series), produced as part of a series of non-fiction books by DK Publishing
My Panda Book, by Stuart P. Levine. This is one of a series of books published in partnership with the Smithsonian.

A wonderful recent example of a fact book that my wife bought for me (and which I've shared with my grandson) is 'One Small Step'. This was produced to commemorate the first moon landing on July 20th 1969. The book is a replica of a scrapbook put together by a 12 year old boy whose grandad was working in the Houston Control Room on the day when man first made it to the moon. It’s a collection of Moon-landing memorabilia (e.g. space menus, certificates, transcript of the first steps exchange etc), photographs and so on. It also has more recent space science information, including the future of space travel.

Joke books - There are numerous joke books that boys will use for hours with family and friends. For some reluctant readers joke books are the place that they will drift to in order to avoid sustained reading. The aim isn't to allow this to happen, but these books if managed well can be a way to get boys reading more difficult material. There are lots of books of this type, the follwoing are just a couple of examples.

Knock Knock Who's There: My First Knock Knock Book by Tad Hills is a great introduction to humour in books with answers under flaps.
The Everything Kids' Joke Book, by Michael Dahl offers Jokes for upper Primary children (aged 7-12 years) plus a second section on how to write jokes.
The Family Joke Book, by Brad Taylor

Books that encourage boys to make and do things - there are many examples of books of this type. They show boys how to make simple things, conduct science experiments and so on. Places like the National Geographic stores can be a good place to look for books of this type. A well-known recent example is The Dangerous Book for Boys. This book offers a range of ideas for making and doing things. For example, how to make the greatest paper plane in the world, building a tree house, all about dinosaurs, making a G0-cart, how to go fishing, juggling, all about Australian snakes, skimming stones and so on. This isn't a simple book (about grade 4-5 standard) but the content will help boys to 'stretch' themselves. It is also a great book for boys to read and 'do' with an adult.

Graphic novels and comics - While this category often uses narrative, there are many good examples that are non-fiction. It seems the Graphic Novel is making a comeback in this digital age. A graphic novel uses a combination of text and art. They can include biographies, narratives, memoirs and journals, classic story retellings etc. For example, there are now graphic-novel editions of the works of Shakespeare, and many classics such as The Red Badge of Courage, Beowulf, Greek myths, The Adventures of Robin Hood, even The Canterbury Tales. Some people lump comics and graphic novels together but they are slightly different forms. Whereas the graphic novel uses more extended text mixed with illustrations and images, the comic makes use of the speech balloon and is usually restricted to narrative forms. There is still a place for comic books (see my previous post on this here). What the graphic novel offers is a carefully crafted interplay of image and word with many other devices used to draw attention to print (e.g. different fonts, sizes etc).

It is not a new form, for example, well-known children's author Raymond Briggs has used the format to powerful effect with works like 'When the Wind Blows' (1986) that tells of the impact of an atomic blast on an elderly British couple who approach the impending disaster as if they were simply trying to survive the Blitz of WWII. He was also responsible for the very confronting picture book The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman which is a political satire about the Falklands war (this is at best a young adult book).

A final comment on literature

As I've stressed above, while it isn't essential for children to begin reading via books or fiction, there is a critical place for traditional forms like children's literature because of the importance of narrative to people. What I'm saying is that while boys might start reading in many different ways, they shouldn't be allowed to avoid the narrative form. As I commented in the third part of a series of posts on the 'Power of Literature' (here) I believe that while it is possible to learn to read without a rich tradition of books and literature, I would argue that it isn’t possible without a foundation of narrative and story. Why? Expert in narrative Harold Rosen offers the perfect answer to my question:

Narratives in all their diversity and multiplicity make up the fabric of our lives; they are constitutive moments in the formation of our identities and our sense of community affiliation.

We spend most of our lives telling each other stories. Yes, I know that there are countless language genres with their own structure, purpose, modalities and so on, but we build our relationships with one another, we share our humanity through the stories we tell about our own lives and those that we have heard from others. So our aim in using factual forms of reading isn't meant to be an alternative to reading literature. Eventually, we should aim to have our boys loving literature too.

Related posts

Key themes in children's books: Humour (here)

All my posts on boys and education (here)

The benefits of repeated reading of literature

1. Re-reading books

Re-reading is the practice of reading a book more than once. Some readers will read a favourite book over and over again. I am not speaking of boring repetitive reading of simple readers designed only to teach words or sounds, but rather repeated encounters with books that have given us pleasure and which offer us familiarity and predictability. As an aside, I'm not criticising the best examples of books with repetitive rhyme and simple vocabulary, of the type that Dr Seuss mastered. These can also give enormous pleasure and can be helpful for beginning readers.

The desire to re-read books, or to hear books again, emerges very early, as the preschool child discovers that books give pleasure when re-read. Every parent has experienced the toddler's desire to hear their favourite book many times. We see this in the three year-old who wants to read every Berenstain book several times at a sitting, or the 12 year-old who reads her favourite Betsy Byars' book over and over again. This return to the same story can bring amusement, joy, suspense and challenge each time it is read.


2. Book series

The attraction of reading a complete series of books by the same author, is linked to the pleasure of having read a book within the series, and the prospect of reading another similar one. This is the desire to read (for example) the next Harry Potter story to see where familiar characters take us. Or, the fun of discovering what new adventure might just happen to be at the top of the Faraway Tree.

It seems that there is a book series for every child, with limitless options for children of all ages. To name just a few, we have Enid Blyton's 'Faraway Tree' books, Stan and Jan Berenstain's 'Bear' books, Lucy Boston's 'Greene Knowe' series, Jeff Brown's 'Flat Stanley' books, Walter Farley's 18 'Black Stallion' books, Allan Garner's 'The Stone Book' quartet, Ursula Le Guin's 'Wizard of Earthsea' trilogy, 'The Chronicles of Narnia' by C.S. Lewis, Hugh Lofting's 'Dr Dolittle' series, Lois Lowry's 'Anastasia Krupnik' series, Emily Rodda's 'Deltora Quest', J.K Rowling's 'Harry Potter' series, Donald Sobol's 'Encyclopedia Brown' series, Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Ingalls family' series, or Patricia Wrightson's 'Song of Wirrun'. I could list dozens more but for a wonderful list you can consult online, go to one of my favourite libraries (where I used to take my children when living in Indiana), the Monroe County Library in Indiana (here).

3. Making sense of the desire to re-read or read series of books

What is it that makes us want to re-read a well-loved book, or read a complete series of books? This seems to be counter to the modern tendency to constantly search for the new and the novel.
These two different types of reading reflect similar needs in the reader and have related benefits.
How do we explain this? What makes a child want to hear the same picture book over and over again?

In a recent feature article in the New York Times the non-fiction writer Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote that:

The love of repetition seems to be ingrained in children. And it is certainly ingrained in the way children learn to read — witness the joyous and maddening love of hearing that same bedtime book read aloud all over again, word for word, inflection for inflection. Childhood is an oasis of repetitive acts, so much so that there is something shocking about the first time a young reader reads a book only once and moves on to the next. There’s a hunger in that act but also a kind of forsaking, a glimpse of adulthood to come.

Klinkenborg has put his finger on part of the reason that children (and adults) like to revisit books; children grow up enjoying the repetitive in their play as well as in their language. It is one of the ways they learn. It is also one of the ways they become easily bored in later life so it isn't a panacea. There are many reasons why children re-read and want you to re-read. Here are some of them:

• They desire a repeat of the pleasure that they've just had.
• With repetition the task of reading becomes simpler and faster due to the familiarity of characters, plot and language.
• The reader/listener can see new things when freed from the restraints of the new or the novel.
• Re-reading offers the opportunity to reflect on and savour the language, the richness of the characters and the events that these characters have experienced.
• Repetition creates 'more space' to engage at the personal level and become 'lost' in rich intertextual experiences as they relate the events of the book with those in their own lives, and other books, films and television that they have experienced.

All of the above are good reasons for re-reading books, or for reading book series. All these benefits have a positive impact on the developing reader; and arguably (as Klinkenborg suggests) even for adult readers. There is also great benefit in extensive experience with varied authors and genres, but there is a downside if children move too quickly in their reading experiences. A balance between variety, and the benefits of re-reading and the increased certainty of the book series, seems to be beneficial for most children. Teachers and parents have a key role in guiding young readers as they experience the joys of literature. This role includes helping them at times with book choice (see my previous post on this topic here) and encouraging them to enjoy the pleasure, comfort and predictability of repeated readings or book series.

Related Links

You can read Verlyn Klinkenborg's article in the New York Times here.

Previous posts on children's literature here.