Read aloud to your children

The most important thing a parent can do to help their child do well at school is to read aloud to that child. And not just every once in a while, but regularly. Maybe do it as part of your bed time routine.

Reading aloud to our children has been my husband's responsibility ever since our oldest was very little. One of the interesting side effects of reading to the children has been their very large vocabulary. People used to comment, especially when my youngest was really little (age 3) at the really "big words" he used. I was just reminded of this fact when reading one of the brochures on Jim Trelease's site. He said in Ten Facts Parents Should Know About Reading:

LISTENING comprehension comes before reading comprehension. You must hear a word before you can say it or read and write it. If you’ve never heard the word “enormous” in a meaningful way, you won’t understand it when it’s time to read or write it. There’s a kind of “word reservoir” in a child’s brain and one of the jobs of a parent is to pour so many words into it that it overflows into speech and then reading and writing. By age four, high-income children have heard 45 million words from their families and low-income children have heard just 13 million. That’s a 32 million word difference equalling one year’s head start for the advantaged child.

Related Link: The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease