Anyone who knows me knows I am one of those rare oddballs who actually enjoys parenting books. It’s true. I have an entire shelf full of them. I love thinking about parenting. I love hearing new ideas and tips and stories about child rearing. I love learning new things about child development. With all that in mind, I’d like to do a series of posts for the BABS blog about parenting books that have truly altered my life.
This first one was recommended to me by my mom. A retired teacher, my mom seriously values education and she successfully raised a child who loves reading. The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease was first published in 1979 and is now in its seventh edition. In this book, Trelease explains in plain English why reading aloud to your children matters. He tells you how to do it. And he even gives you suggestions for books to read.
Trelease basically shows that the main thing you need to do if you want to raise a reader is simply spend time reading to them, early and often. One of the most fascinating parts of the book was in the first chapter. Trelease writes about the Basic and Common Lexicons and “rare words.” The Basic Lexicon are the 5,000 words we use most frequently. Beyond that you have about 5,000 more words which, added onto the Basic Lexicon, make up the Common Lexicon. And then beyond those 10,000 words you get into the “rare words.” He has this chart of where these “rare words” occur. Very few occur in conversation between an adult and a young child (9 rare words per thousand words). Even adults only use 17 rare words in every thousand words we say to each other. But books? Books are where these words happen. Even a children’s book has over 30 rare words per thousand. That’s more than three times as many as they would get in a conversation with you and almost twice as much as your conversation with an adult. Astounding!
Beyond just convincing me that reading aloud to my kids is majorly important, Trelease gave me solid tools and ideas for how to do it. He talks about where to find the time. He gives tips for handling situations like a child asking a lot of questions, or reading to a mostly pre-verbal child. He argues that the most important thing is to read books your child and you both enjoy. It doesn’t matter if they seem fluffy or silly. The most important thing is to instill a love a reading and if your child wants to read a million and one books about how fire trucks work or nothing but Fancy Nancy for two months straight, you should just go for it (not that I know any children who are like this).
Finally, the best part of the book may be the very end. Trelease has created this lovely “Treasury of Read-Alouds.” Not only does he give you suggestions for books by age and subject, but he even tells you what the books are about so you can better select which ones you might enjoy reading with your child. I often look at the list and write down a call number or two before we go to the library. I let my child pick out as many books at he wants and then I throw a couple of Jim’s suggestions in the mix, too. This has been tremendously helpful to me because we have an amazing library and it’s a little overwhelming to even know where to start in picking out books for a young child!
So, that’s it. A book that changed my life. I hope you’ll consider checking it out. Maybe it will change your life, too.
