WITH ITS NEW POLICY, recommending the promotion of reading books aloud to children, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is confirming what PJ Library has known for a long time — that early literacy begins with family reading.
The AAP’s new policy, “
Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care Pediatric Practice,” states that “reading regularly with young children stimulates optimal patterns of brain development and strengthens parent-child relationships at a critical time in child development, which, in turn, builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that last a lifetime.”
In Motoko Rich’s
New York Times article “
Pediatrics Group to Recommend Reading Aloud to Children from Birth,” Orangeburg, NY pediatrician Dr. Alanna Levine is quoted as saying, “The reality of today’s world is that we’re competing with portable digital media.” She adds, “So, you really want to arm parents with tools and rationale behind it about why it’s important to stick to the basics of things like books.”
PJ Library Book Selection Committee chair and Jewish educator Chris Barash agrees. “Technology plays a part in almost everyone’s life these days,” she says, “but nothing can take the place — for either the child or the adult — of reading together and turning the pages of a great book.”
READING ALOUD … REPEATEDLYNot only are the benefits of reading books aloud extolled by many early childhood educators, but re-reading the same books is also seen as beneficial.
Early reading expert (and PJ Library consultant and speaker) Diane Frankenstein is a long-time supporter and advocate of re-reading books to children — an activity for which many children clamor and with which many parents are familiar. As she explains in her blogpost, “
Discover the Pleasure of Rereading a Favorite Book,” children come to understand nuances and various aspects of a story after hearing them read aloud multiple times.
“Nothing demonstrates how personal reading is more clearly than rereading,” she says.
START A READING STREAKJim Brozina certainly values the benefits of reading (and re-reading) aloud to children. As reported by the
New York Times in the Michael Winerip article, “
A Father-Daughter Bond, Page By Page,” Brozina managed to hold a 3,218-night read-aloud streak with his daughter. He read aloud to her until her first day of college.
While that much consecutive-day family reading may be more than many PJ Library families can accomplish, PJ Library knows its gift of free Jewish children’s books encourages a reading streak in the homes of many of its participating families.
July 26, 2014