Raising Kids Who Read

by Daniel T Willingham

  If your child is a habitual squirmer, consider asking her to act out the actions described in the story. That may provide an outlet for movement while keeping her mind on the narrative.

  If he wants to hold the book or turn the pages, let him, even if it makes it hard for you to read. He’ll probably focus more on the page turning than the story, but this will be a phase that won’t last long.

  If you get into a book and feel it’s too hard—long descriptive passages, lots of unfamiliar words—edit as you read. You can also stop and summarize something for your child. Or ask her if she understands what just happened.

  Use a dramatic voice. Ham it up. Don’t be self-conscious. Your child is not judging you (figure 3.6).

  Figure 3.6. Ham it up. If you don’t seem enthusiastic about and interested in the story, why should your child be?

  Source: © Gail Lovette.

  Electronic Books for Read-Alouds

  Is a read-aloud any different with an electronic book? Studies have compared children listening to an audio version of a book with reading a paper version or e-book with a parent. The outcome measures might be story comprehension, or improvements in hearing speech sounds, or better knowledge of letters. Some studies show e-readers superior to paper, some show them inferior, and some show no difference. Some studies indicate that parents and children interact differently when reading an electronic book together, although the impact is not consistently good or bad for the child.

  Why are the data all over the place? Very likely because e-books for kids can take so many forms. For example, suppose that when the child touches a picture of an animal, its name is spelled on the screen. That might boost letter awareness if the letter-sound pairs are simple (“dog”) but not if they aren’t (e.g., “jaguar”). This interactive feature might contribute to story comprehension if drawing attention to the animal helped the child make sense of the narrative. If not, it might be a distraction that detracts from comprehension.

  •••••••••••••

  There’s just one problem with all the advice I’ve been offering about reading aloud. I’ve been assuming that the idea pleases your child. What if he’s not interested? It’s time to turn our attention to the question of motivation.

  Keeping It Simple Summary

  Don’t simplify your vocabulary too much.

  Answer questions.

  Pose questions.

  Read aloud.

  Notes

  “Infants as young as 9 months show this response”: Junge, Cutler, and Hagoort (2012); Parise and Csibra (2012).

  “children mirror the type of talk that they hear”: Weizman and Snow (2001); Zimmerman et al. (2009).

  “I’m suggesting that you pay attention to how you talk to your kids”: Landry et al. (2012).

  “two-thirds of the questions that kids around this age pose are meant to elicit information”: Chouinard, Harris, and Maratsos (2007).

  “it’s between four hundred and twelve hundred each week, depending on the child”: Chouinard et al. (2007).

  “you’re showing your child that the purpose of language is the acquisition of new knowledge”: Tizard and Hughes (1984).

  “question-asking parents tend to invite conversation even when they tell their children what to do”: Lareau (2003).

  “read-alouds help toddlers gain broader vocabulary and understand more complex syntax”: Hood, Conlon, and Andrews (2008).

  “it appears only around grade 3 or 4”: Dickinson, Golinkoff, and Hirsh-Pasek (2010).

  “consider using another technique, dialogic reading”: Arnold and Whitehurst (1994); Zevenbergen and Whitehurst (2003).

  “more likely that kids will learn new vocabulary and more complex sentence syntax from read-alouds”: Justice and Pullen (2003); Mol, Bus, de Jong, and Smeets (2008).

  “e-readers superior to paper”: For research concluding that e-readers are superior to paper, see Korat, Segal-Drori, and Klien (2009); Segal-Drori, Korat, Shamir, and Klein (2009).

  “some show them inferior”: For research showing them to be inferior, see de Jong and Bus (2002); Matthew (1997); and Trushell, Burrell, and Maitland (2001).

  “some show no difference”: For research showing no difference, see de Jong and Bus (2004); Korat and Or (2010); and Korat and Shamir (2007).

  “parents and children interact differently when reading an electronic book”: Parish-Morris, Mahajan, Hirsh-Pasek, and Golinkoff (2011); Segal-Drori et al. (2009).

  Chapter 4

  Seeing Themselves as Readers before They Can Read

  Raising a reader arguably begins and ends with motivation. If the child lacks decoding skills or the background knowledge to support comprehension, she’ll gain them through reading, and if she’s motivated, she’ll read.

  In chapter 1, I noted that motivation is fueled by positive attitudes and a concept of oneself as a reader. But the catch is that your child needs to read (and to enjoy reading) to develop a positive attitude and a solid reading self-concept. In this chapter, we examine two strategies: ways you can improve reading attitudes and self-concept without your child reading and ways to get your child to choose reading as an activity.

  Indirect Influences

  Emotional attitudes—whether I like or hate fruitcake, for example—seem self-evidently to be a product of our experience. We taste it, we react, and there’s our attitude. Self-concept too is driven by experience. If we repeatedly choose to eat it, “proud fruitcake eater” may become part of our self-concept. Your child’s attitude toward reading and learning new things is likewise shaped by direct experience with books and learning. But attitudes and self-concept are subject to indirect influences as well.

  Indirect Influences on Attitudes

  Direct experiences can’t be the only source of emotional attitudes. If they were, how could you explain the attitudes of people who say they love Coke but hate Pepsi? Really, does anyone drink Coke and think yum yum, but should he drink a Pepsi by mistake think, Good God, this is vile!? (If you need proof, you’ll like a study in which experimenters put Coke in a Pepsi bottle and vice versa; it turned out that people picked their “favorite” beverage based on the bottle label, not on the content.) The emotion in these attitudes comes not from experience of the products but from emotional reactions to other objects that become associated with the product. Think about what Coke emphasizes in its advertising: that it tastes good, sure. Even more, the ads seek to create associations between Coke and things that consumers already like: young love, cute polar bears, Santa Claus, and (of course) attractive people.

  When you spell out the psychological mechanism behind these ads, it sounds kind of creepy. It’s the same as the one in Pavlov’s famous experiment with the salivating dog. The dog salivates when it eats. If you ring a bell just before you feed the dog (and repeat this a few dozen times), the dog will come to salivate when it hears the bell. Advertisers are not interested in salivation but in positive emotions. A cool, funny, muscular guy in a towel prompts positive emotions in many viewers. Pair that guy with Old Spice enough times, and Old Spice becomes associated with positive emotions. It seems blatantly manipulative, and we think it wouldn’t work on us, but it does.

  Reading attitudes are fostered in part by these sorts of associations. When I see a childhood favorite in a bookstore, I feel the warm glow of nostalgia. Winnie-the-Pooh or Horton Hears a Hoo makes me think of my mother reading to me at bedtime. Seeing Mrs. Piggle Wiggle or a Beverly Cleary book reminds me of the pride I felt in getting my first library card and being allowed to walk to the library on my own. That warm glow is a Pavlovian response. And indeed, research shows that positive childhood experiences with books are associated with later reading.

  I’m not going to suggest you have a muscular, funny guy in a towel wander about your house, reading Homer, and muttering “fascinating . . . fascinating.” But the idea of reading being associated with warm bedtime snuggles seems practicable. So does arranging a cozy reading corner (figure
4.1). How about setting aside a time that the family reads together for fifteen minutes, each member with his or her own book? Maybe this reading time includes indulging in a special drink, which changes with the season.

  Figure 4.1. Reading corners. My youngest daughter has a dormer in her room, which makes for an ideal reading spot. Her older sister lacks a dormer but makes up for it with the child-sized armchair.

  Source: ©Daniel Willingham.

  One of the best ways to cement this positive attitude toward reading and learning about the world is through family traditions—things that your family makes a point of doing time and time again. Family traditions reveal what you value enough to repeat, and—if done with love—build warm, happy associations. For example, my parents kept a dictionary in the kitchen and the encyclopedia a few steps away. It was a rare day that one or the other was not consulted during a kitchen table conversation. Teenaged me would sometimes roll my eyes at my nerdy parents. Doesn’t “enclose” mean the same thing as “envelop”? Who cares whether Lincoln ever served in the Senate? But I got the message: words matter, knowledge matters. And, yeah, I keep a dictionary in my kitchen now.

  Here are a few other examples of family rituals:

  The family that went for a walk on the first day of each new season, rain or shine, even if it had to be brief. They would note, discuss, and appreciate the changes in nature.

  The family that read the newspaper together every Sunday morning, reading aloud bits of articles they enjoyed.

  The family that ensured that every birthday (for adults too) included at least one book as a present. (New hardbacks are expensive, but there is a robust market in used children’s books.)

  The parents who, each New Year’s morning, let the children present a list of suggested spots for the next summer’s family vacation, with the proviso that every city named had to have a museum.

  The family that made weekly trips to the library, where the kids were allowed to read to their heart’s content and bring home as many books as they liked.

  The parents who, deciding that their kids had enough “stuff,” instituted a tradition that for birthdays, grandparents would record a book for the birthday child.

  Indirect Influences on Self-Concept

  In chapter 1, I wrote that our self-concept comes from our behavior. It’s as though we watch ourselves and note how we are different from other people: Gee, I seem to read a lot, compared to most people I know. But reading a lot is not the only way to build a reading self-concept, especially when children are young. Parents communicate to children what they value as a family—what’s important in life.

  I think these messages—“our family is like this”—are enormously important, and kids perceive and understand them early. Two-year-olds want to figure out how kids and adults differ. Five-year-olds perceive that families differ in their habits and practices. They discover that “finish your dinner before you get dessert” is not a rule set by adults; it’s a rule in my family, and Robert’s parents (God bless them) don’t follow that rule. Those differences prompt comparison—my house versus other houses—and so become another source of the child’s self-image.

  Sometimes the message is quite direct. I remember visiting a friend’s house when I was perhaps ten and, spying a decorative dish in the living room, I pointed out to him that it was empty and that it really ought to hold candy. He thought that was an excellent idea and brought it to his mother. She said with cool derision, “We are not the type of people who put out candy in dishes.” The message clearly went far beyond candy: “This is well-bred family, and we do not engage in behaviors that might indicate otherwise.” (The missing piece for me is why a public display of candy signals the hoi polloi, but I guess a well-bred person would know not to ask such a question.)

  So how can you show your child that reading and learning new things are family values? An obvious implication is that your child should see you reading. Telling your child to do something you neglect yourself won’t work (figure 4.2).

  Figure 4.2. Be a model. In one of Aesop’s fables, a mother crab chides her child to walk forward instead of sideways. The child responds, “Please show me how, and I will follow.” The thought is still relevant more than twenty-five hundred years later. You can’t tell your child “go read” while you are watching television or checking Instagram.

  Source: © Wenceslaus Hollar, via Wikimedia Commons.

  There are other ways to signal its importance. You can display books prominently in your home. You can ensure that your child has her own bookcase and collection of books, however modest. Once your child is old enough, you can insist that books be treated as objects of respect. It might be tolerable for a doll to be tossed on the floor when a more interesting activity beckons, but books must be put away with care.

  In addition to showing your child that you love to read, modeling means showing your child that you are interested in learning about the world and are always curious to learn something new. I touched on this when I pointed out that it’s not only important to answer your child’s questions thoughtfully, but also to pose your own questions to your child. And there are, of course, destinations meant to encourage curiosity—zoos, children’s museums, and the like. By all means, take advantage of them. And if you go, model curiosity by reading the information placards, not just looking at the animals or pushing the button to see the lightning bolt jump between the electrodes.

  Wonderful as such excursions are, I think it’s more important to model curiosity in daily activities so as not to compartmentalize it as a special event. See a new fruit in the grocery store? Try it. Watching a ball game? Wonder aloud how often double plays happen. See an interesting bug? Snap a picture on your phone and try to identify it when you get home. Traveling somewhere for business? Find out a little about the town, even if you know you won’t have time to see the sights.

  Getting Young Children to Read

  We’ve explored ways to promote positive reading attitudes and positive reading self-concepts other than having the child read. The motivation for doing that is a seeming conundrum: positive attitudes and self-concepts are prompted by positive reading experiences, but why would the child read if she doesn’t already have a positive reading attitude? In this section, we consider the idea that attitudes are not the only guide for what we do and what we refrain from doing. Other factors contribute, and parents can make use of them to get kids reading.

  How Do We Choose?

  When we think about getting reluctant kids on board with reading, our focus is often on finding a great book. We hope the appeal of the book will overwhelm the child’s indifferent attitude, and then, once the child enjoys the book, his attitude will change for the better. But any choice, including “Should I read this book?” is influenced by multiple factors, not just the book’s appeal. To give you some sense of these factors, have a look at these questions, and answer each in your mind as you read:

  Question 1: I offer you the choice of a 1.5 ounce chocolate bar OR $3 million. Which do you choose?

  Question 2: I offer you the choice of a 1.5 ounce chocolate bar that you are certain to get OR a lottery scratch ticket with a prize of $3 million. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 5 million.

  Question 3: I offer you the choice of a 1.5 ounce chocolate bar that you are certain to get OR a lottery scratch ticket with a prize of $3 million. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 5 million. If you pick the scratch ticket, you’ll get it immediately, but if you pick the chocolate bar, you’ll have to wait a month and drive to the next town to pick it up.

  Question 4: I offer you a 1.5 ounce chocolate bar. Do you take it?

  When I wrote these examples, my thought was that your choice would change between the chocolate bar and lottery ticket each time I added a new element to the choice. My point was to illustrate four factors that I’ll suggest go into choices, whether it’s picking a caterer for your wedding, deciding whether to walk the dog or watch TV, or choosing whether to
read a book or play a video game.

  The first question—chocolate bar or $3 million—highlights the anticipated outcome. If I make this choice, what do I think I’ll get? I choose to do things that offer outcomes I like, of course, and that’s what’s on our mind when we look for books that we hope our kids will like.

  But when people make choices, they don’t just think about the outcomes, because they recognize they may not actually get the outcome they anticipate. When I change the $3 million to a lottery ticket that’s potentially worth $3 million (but probably won’t win), we have an extreme example of this principle—very desirable outcome but very small odds of actually getting it—and so the modest but certain reward of the chocolate bar might hold greater appeal. Think of how a child might consider the odds when she chooses to read. Imagine an elementary school student who loved the movie Despicable Me. She’s with her father in the bookstore and he points out an early-reader novel based on the movie. She’s quite confident that this book would in principle offer a lot of pleasure. But she may doubt that she has the skills to read it. She views the book the way you view a lottery ticket.

  The third question (in which I said you’d have to wait a month to get the chocolate bar) underscores still another factor that goes into choices. Sometimes an outcome looks desirable and we’re pretty sure we’ll get it, but making the associated choice incurs a cost we’re not willing to pay. I’d choose a Cadillac over my Kia, but I don’t because of the cost. One rather obvious way that readers must “pay up” is in the attention the book requires, a function of the difficulty of the text relative to the reader’s skill. We want reading material that poses a modest challenge. Another cost is the effort I must expend to get access to the book (figure 4.3).