Children And Reading

CHILDREN AND READING ARC * 501(c)(3) 95-3855901 Nonprofit Public Service Educational Caring/Sharing AssociationRenaissanceCreators@yahoo.com Complimentary Mentoring As Able © 5/31/2012 One skill that trumps all others is reading. And it is a love of reading that will enrich every aspect of your life. I was blessed with a mother, who although she only had a seventh grade education, believed in sight reading and loved learning. She got polio when she was a young girl on a farm in PA back in the early 1900s. There was no transportation. Unable to walk on tortured crippled feet, her elder sister carried her piggy-back the mile plus it took to get to school. She got too heavy for her by the age of twelve. I was sight reading by five. We had just moved into a new neighborhood. At the end of street was a library. Mom wrote permission slip for me to check out books. I was in the adult section by eight. Why was it so enjoyable for me? Every book was like meeting a fascinating new person or going to an exotic new country. In addition to my two children whom I taught to read, (they are avid eclectic readers), I taught countless others for twenty years in the Children’s Schoolhouse that I ran. The norm was twelve enrollment at a time: ages were from birth to twelve; mostly between four and eight. It was a full challenging day from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and oftentimes would help overnight and on the weekends. I truly was a surrogate mother to hundreds over two decades. I became well known in the community for raising children with strong positive skills of reading, discipline, respect, attitude. One day, doorbell: frantic mom with screaming child. Her normal arrangement fell through - heard about me. Within minutes, daughter admitted; she was off. Parents, grandparents, teachers, child-care: all are part of `it takes a village’ to raise a child. Books are `gateway’ to world!!! I began with the basics: fairy tale books with pictures on every page. My mom’s formula was to point at each word and the child would learn to chime in at the last. A child was never forced to `think’ about the word; the finger would gently and slowly go under the word sounding it out. Dramatizing the story is so important. Imagine watching a movie and the same `tone’ was used by every actor in every line? It is the `emotion, intonation, inflection’ that brings to life the written word. So if I was reading: The lion roared…that word roar would be an exuberant roar!!! We would graduate to me reading one line, the child the next. On re-reading, I would read the whole page with dramatic inflection, pointing to each word; then the child would read same page. It didn’t take long for excitement and skill to accelerate and expand like a cake rising in an oven. Another phenomenal lesson taught by my mother was: one is work; two is play. When I would help her make her bed, she would exclaim this axiom with a smile of gratitude and words of praise. Children have short attention span. Usually fifteen minutes to a half-hour is maximum. And it is crucial to alternate between `relaxed to energetic learning’. So, if reading was a half hour, it was followed by half hour of dance or outdoor exercise. As a child matures, solitude needs increase; but they illustrate dramatically the adage…people who need people are the luckiest in the world. They naturally `know’ and gravitate to the `warmth of love’ which is exponential in benefits of health, social, intellectual, and spiritual blessings. `When two or more are in my name’… A technique that I taught myself was showcased in a college course: PAIRING. I was mom’s go-for…from seventeen months when she put newborn sister in my arms, I was little mother, cleaner, retriever, bottle washer (literally) and what not. How to find time to read? How to not resent other jobs? I devised a plan that I would devote 15 minutes to the `job’ that I wasn’t crazy about, reward myself with 15 minutes reading. Voila…the time raced by and lo and behold, I was `loving’ the `other too’. Yep, actually love to clean!!! So, the success here is to `reward’ - couple what you are `weak in’ with what you are `strong and passionate’ about. But it is crucial to `present both’ as desirable: you love chocolate cake but are acquiring a passion for carrot cake too. Please Care/Share+God Bless