Celebrating Children's Book Week

and Developing Good Reading Habits

(Published Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006 in Examiner-Enterprise)

Since 1919, Children's Book Week has been held the week before Thanksgiving. As the 87 th annual observance draws to a close, I would like to focus on a fundamental component of a good education for all students: reading. Without question, strong reading skills benefit students throughout their educational experience and in many other subject areas including history, geography, and world languages.

According to researchers, children w ho have poor reading skills more often:

• Receive poor grades
• Are easily frustrated
• Have difficulty completing assignments
• Have low self-esteem
• Have behavior problems
• Have more physical illnesses due to stress
• Don't like school
• Grow up to be shy in front of groups
• Fail to develop to their full potential

While these general characteristics can be true for poor readers, the opposite qualities can be attributed to strong readers. Good readers have more confidence in themselves, and are more apt to be successful at school and enjoy their education.

As this is such a critical component of a student's academic success, it is imperative that parents work alongside teachers to develop ing good reading habits, beginning with our pre-kindergarten students. According to researchers, the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children. Whether your children are three or thirteen, reading aloud together has proven to have a continued impact on improving reading skills.

In addition, parents can also do the following:

•  Make reading a part of every day. Spend time talking about stories, pictures, and words.

•  S hare conversations with your child over meal times and other times you are together.

•  Introduce new and interesting words at every opportunity.

•  Be your child's best advocate.

•  Keep informed about your child's progress in reading and ask the teacher about ways you can help.

•  Be a reader and a writer. Children learn habits from the people around them.

•  Visit the library often.

Bartlesville Public Schools continues to work diligently to help all of our students develop the strong reading skills they will need to be successful during their education and throughout their life. Currently, 92% of our third grade students are reading satisfactory or on the advanced level according to state criterion reference rest results (see accompanying graph). To help inspire students to open a good book, students at each site in our district have access to our school libraries and computer labs. Our school librarians have established reading incentive programs to help motivate our younger students to keep reading, and each has the uncanny ability to know exactly the right book to suggest to students who love mysteries, science fiction adventures, or need a non-fiction book for a report. Reading Facilitators, who are certified teachers, work at each elementary site to implement reading curriculum and to assist students to master their reading skills. Reading Specialists also tutor individual students who may be struggling with reading. Additionally, our reading curriculum begins in Pre-Kindergarten where our youngest students begin learning about letters, the sounds associated with letters and early writing . By the conclusion of Kindergarten, most of our students are classified as emergent readers.