Read With Me

Image from Microsoft Word

We send home reading logs in my kindergarten classroom in which families record time spent reading together during the week.  We also send home a special folder with "just right" books for students to read aloud at home for practice. We know that time spent listening to reading and practicing reading increases reading success, so we support this practice at home.

But what about the students who aren't reading at home?

Graves, Juel, Graves, & Dewitz  write that "Children who grow up in homes where they are seldom read to, where they are not talked to a lot, or where English is rarely or never spoken are likely to have small English vocabularies when they enter school. And having a small English vocabulary is likely to adversely affect their success in school." (2011, Teaching Reading in the 21st Century, page 253) This suggests that the students who would most benefit from additional practice with reading at home are also the least likely to be practicing reading at home, right? So how do we reach these students with additional opportunities to read and listen to reading?

The Graves article recommends a vocabulary program based on the most frequently used words in the English language.  The list of the first 4000 words is available in a PDF, or their vocabulary program is available for purchase. But I am really thinking about authentic reading experiences: listening to stories and reading aloud to an older listener.

I am wondering how we can get these studnts more access to these authentic reading experiences. Here are a few of my ideas:

• Send home books for families to read that are in the child's first language
• Have parent volunteers read aloud with these students and add these times to the reading log (this would allow for the teacher to track time spent and allow the student to participate in an activity that other students are doing)
• Send home audio books (and check out the necessary equipment)
• Have older students read aloud to students (this could also help reinforce fluent reading for the older students)
• Storyline is an online site where students can listen to stories read aloud by actors - they look right at the screen when they read and show the pictures in the book. Here's the link: http://storylineonline.net/

What ideas do you have or have you seen to get students (especially those not reading at home or struggling with reading)  increased access to authentic reading experiences?