Why We Read

Throughout our lives, we read directions or instructions to perform a task, we read newspapers, magazines, and other publications to be informed and we read stories, poetry, and plays for the literary experience. Students are now required on state exams to have solid reading skills and children who do not master “reading for different purposes” may have difficulty completing job-related tasks or reading for enjoyment as an adult.

As students become more sophisticated readers, their reading behaviors become more analytical and their thinking more abstract. Children in elementary and middle school begin to dissect words and word parts for meaning and continue to expand their vocabularies. Also, the older students become, the more they read for enjoyment in areas of personal interest.

The more students read, the more enjoyable reading becomes and the more those skills are used in real-life situations. Additionally, these skills transfer to classroom learning and, ultimately, lead to higher standardized test scores.

To help parents nurture their children’s reading behaviors, the experts at Sylvan Learning, the leading provider of tutoring to students of all ages, grades and skill levels, recommends that parents spend at least one hour per week – 10 to 15 minutes a day – engaged in a language arts activity with their children. Sylvan offers these tips and ideas for encouraging “reading for different purposes” and increasing comprehension:

• Encourage children to read a variety of texts, including books, poems, magazine and newspaper articles, instructional manuals, cookbooks, and comic books.
• Look at every reading opportunity as a chance to strengthen reading and comprehension skills.
• Identify a purpose for reading anything that includes text, ranging from a menu, to an advertisement, to a recipe, to a science textbook, to a full-length novel. Is the purpose to entertain, inform, describe, or persuade?
• Actively engage your child in the reading process. Ask open-ended questions that require students to be active readers. For example, if your child is reading a short story, ask him or her to tell you about the main characters, plot, conflict, setting, or lesson. If your child is reading a magazine, point out an advertisement, ask him or her to explain what the ad is trying to accomplish. If you're setting up a computer or television, ask your child to take part by reading the instructional manual and summarizing the steps for you.
• Ask your child to summarize or paraphrase what they learn from everything they read.

The Internet also provides opportunities for children of all ages who are looking for new reading materials. Book Adventure is a free, Sylvan-created interactive, reading motivation program that can be found at www.BookAdventure.com. Parents can help children choose books from more than 7,500 titles, take short comprehension quizzes, and redeem accumulated points for small prizes. Book Adventure also offers teacher and parent resources and tips to help children develop a lifelong love of reading.