Book Recommendation for Young Parents: Homegrown Readers

 I'd like to introduce you to my friend Jan Pierce and her new book, Homegrown Readers. This book is an excellent tool for young parents and those who work with children, to help them learn how to read and ENJOY it for a lifetime.
  


Jan's experience in the field:
"I retired eight years ago from a long career in education. I taught all grades from kindergarten through fourth grade, but mostly first and second. So I had ample time to teach children to read. I earned a reading endorsement when I got my Master’s degree because I wanted to understand more about the nuts and bolts of reading. The last two years of my career I spent as a reading specialist."

      Jan's heart is to equip young parents:

"As I worked with children who struggled with learning to read I noticed recurring problems. Often these children lacked background knowledge in reading skills. They weren’t familiar with books and book language. They were discouraged. At the early age of six or seven they already felt like failures.

"I realized that many of the problems could be solved if parents knew what to do. And even more serious problems such as learning disabilities could be improved if parents knew how to support their child in reading.

"Many parents don’t have warm, fuzzy memories of learning to read. They may have felt embarrassed in reading groups as a child. They don’t want that negative experience for their own children. Homegrown Readers can help. And, parents can use the key ideas to brainstorm ways to solve reading problems for their children."



Special features of Homegrown Readers:
It’s written in everyday language and has resources in the appendix section at the back. It also offers Homegrown Readers Discussion Groups that parents can choose to take part in. There are key ideas for each chapter of the book plus ready to use questions for a discussion group.


Three Examples from Jan you can put to work immediately:

1. Number one will always be: read to your children. Start when they’re babies and never stop. Even middle school children enjoy family read-alouds.
2. Secondly I’d say to make reading fun. Let the kids choose the books part of the time. Keep reading sessions short, but do them regularly. Add small incentives such as stickers on a reading chart for independent reading homework.

3. A third suggestion is to teach children to ask questions as they read. You can model this to them as you read aloud. Reading is all about meaning. Children need to know about the characters, the setting and the basic plot.
Questions are also great prompts when your child gets “stuck.” Teach them to ask, Does it look right? Did that make sense? Or Does that sound right? Asking questions will always take the reader deeper into the meaning of the story.

You can read the reviews and order your copy of Homegrown Readers on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Homegrown-Readers-Simple-Child-Learn/dp/0990976408/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429829367&sr=8-1&keywords=homegrown+readers