There's an issue raging round the playground and in the meetings we have with the school at the moment about reading with our children. It's not just a dad issue, but I thought I'd ask here.
Here's the problem. The school is saying "learning is a partnership between the school and parents, and you need to make sure, particularly for young children, that you read with them. Every day." Some parents are saying, "why should we? We have busy lives, and teachers are paid to teach our kids to read."
As it happens, in our family we read lots with our children, and I know that there's research to show:
a) that kids need to practice, practice, practice to get their reading sorted &
b) that reading with family members (particularly dads!) really helps them.
So, what I'm looking for is:
1) links to this research;
2) ways of putting the arguments to other parents which acknowledges that teachers _are_ paid, but that we still need to help;
3) examples of stuff that works.
Thanks, guys!
-Mike.
I agree teachers are paid to teach, but kids need practice and if they do that in school time, then they'd be sacrificing time when they could be being taught other stuff.
Easy argument - how many people do you know who can drive? When they had lessons, they paid an instructor to teach them, but I will bet that most of them then went out with their dads to practice between lessons 🙂
Personally, I have to admit that I wasn't particularly good at reading to my kids. However, they were always sent to bed at a reasonable time and they knew they could either go straight to sleep, or could read for as long as they wanted (within reason) - strangely, they always chose to read 😆 with the result that all three of them are avid readers and have always been far and away above their reading age at school.