Dr. Diana Sharp served as the reading consultant for ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo. Her website is www.dianasharp.com.

Dear Dr. Sharp:

My son’s first grade teacher has been teaching phonics, and he can sound-out words. But he’s very reluctant to go the next step and read sentences, saying it’s “too hard.” I get the easiest books I can find at the library for our reading time, but he thinks they’re boring, and he keeps asking to go back to our “regular” books – the ones where I read to him. What should I do?

Congratulation!  Keep Reading to your Child

The first thing is to congratulate yourself for getting your son off to a great start. He loves  being read to, and that’s terrific! Give yourself a gold star.

Next, be glad that he knows how to sound-out words using phonics. Research shows that good readers look carefully at all the letters in a word and match them to sounds, while poor readers tend to look just at the first letter – or first and last letter of a word – and “guess” the word. Give your son’s teacher a gold star.

Reading Sentences is HARD

But the biggest gold star goes to you for recognizing that “Houston, we have a problem.” Knowing how to sound-out words is just the beginning, and it’s super-important that your son get over his reluctance to read. Why? Because the best thing a child can do to become a good reader is — read! Not do worksheets, not play word games, but read.

And your son is completely right – there’s a big difference between reading a single word and reading sentences. It’s hard work, and he’s perfectly sensible to expect a payoff for it. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think those easy-reader books provide that payoff. Some kids love them, and that’s great – those books will be their pathway into reading from the word “go” (or sometimes the words “Go dog Go”).

But other kids need a different first path: one with a different payoff that convinces them the work is worth it. Good teachers understand this, and so do researchers – well, some of them. A big-deal research report came out in 2000, by the National Reading Panel. http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/report.cfm

Getting Kids to Want to Read

It spent a great many pages on the benefits of phonics – and I agree with the value of phonics skill. But buried in the back of the report was this sentence, which I wish had gotten as much press as the phonics part:

The teacher’s job is to create or allow situations where children want to read and are willing to work hard at it.

BINGO! This is the missing piece for too many readers! They never see enough payoff, so they just read the minimum time with the minimum effort they can get away with, and that’s not enough.

OK, now to your question – what exactly should you, the parent, do at this point? Keep in mind my advice in an earlier blog entry about using children’s interests to increase the payoff for easy books. But also:

Think outside the book

What kinds of short, easy sentences could entice your son into reading? It’s OK to be   sneaky here. Try the little trick of Treasure Hunt clues. Think of things your son wants – and hide  them. When he comes home from school, say “Guess what! I made your favorite chocolate-chip cookies! But you have to find your snack, and here’s your clue.” Then hand him a message with a very simple sentence like “It is on a bed.” Help him sound out any word he needs help with. (Word of warning from experience: Make sure you don’t have a chocoholic dog in the house who might find the snack first.)

Use clues like these often, repeat words often, make the whole thing fun, and gradually expand the length of clues and difficulty of the words.

At the same time:

Think inside the book

As you’re reading those “regular” read-aloud books that your son loves, keep an eye out for simple phrases and sentences that he should be able to read with just a tiny bit of help, especially if these phrases or sentences occur at exciting moments in the story – or, for non-fiction, next to really cool pictures. Be sensitive to just how often you can ask him to do this work and still have your reading time be something he loves. Maybe it’s just once at first. Gradually expand as you go.

Think inside the game

And try ItzaBitza or ItzaZoo. It’s a dastardly sneaky way to entice children into the hard work of reading, because it’s just so darn fun. It gradually expands what it asks kids to read, and it always makes it easy to get help. It’s another pathway into reading that’s outside the book. And it might be just what your son needs to get over his aversion to sentences, build confidence, and be a better reader, so you can help him get inside books he truly loves.

Dr. Diana Sharp served as the reading consultant for ItzaBitza. Her website is www.dianasharp.com.

Dear Dr. Sharp:

In your last posting, you described your #1 piece of advice for preschool parents who want their kids to love reading. What’s your #2 suggestion?

My next suggestion is: “Do the opposite of Advice #1.”

OK, let me explain. In my last posting, I talked about using children’s sparks of interest in the world as the starting point for connecting them to books:

“If a child gets interested in a bug on the porch, or a puppy next door, or drawing rockets in ItzaBitza, say things like ‘That is SO COOL! We have GOT to get some books about (bugs/puppies/rockets)!’ “

But you can also make this world-and-books connection by starting at the opposite point: books. Don’t just pick out books for your children based on their interests. Mix it up! Grab a random bagful of books at the library and see what you get. If you see your child show a spark of interest in something in the book: bring it to life. Go out into the world and see/do/smell/taste what you read about together.

There is something inherently powerful about seeing something from a page – or screen – become real. Look at how enchanted children become when they see that miracle happen with their drawings on ItzaBitza or ItzaZoo. Carry that same enchantment into your children’s relationship with books, even before they learn to read on their own.

The year before my daughter went to kindergarten, I started reading her the E.B. White novel, Trumpet of the Swan. I chose it because it was a book I had loved. (Never assume there is only one “right” way to choose a book!) Part of the adventure takes place in the Boston Public Garden, where they have boats shaped like swans. By coincidence, while we were reading the book, my cousin invited my daughter to be the flower girl at his wedding – in Boston.

“Oh!” I said to my daughter. “We have GOT to ride the swan boats! Just like in the book!”

And we did. What we read about in the book became real in the world, in our lives. It was a lovely thing…

…unlike the book-world connection proposed by my daughter a short time later. We were reading a book about unusual foods that people eat. Including insects. There was even an Internet link to recipes.

“Oh!” my daughter said. “We have GOT to make chocolate chip cricket cookies! Just like in the book!”

This was not the kind of sweet follow-up to the swan boat adventure that I had imagined. But she was so excited. I called a friend of mine who was always up for unusual entertainment options for her preschool twin boys, and always quick to recognize the potential for a good story. She jumped – like a cricket – at the idea. (Everyone needs a friend like that.)

The next day we were at the pet store, buying live crickets. The cashier smiled at my daughter. “And what kind of pet are you feeding with these, dear?” My daughter happily explained the crickets’ purpose, while I pretended to search for something in my purse.

We read additional information on the Internet about how to prepare the dry-roasted crickets before adding them to the cookie batter. Apparently crickets develop a nasty taste if they die before being roasted, so you have to put them in the fridge until they are in a kind of stupor. Then you place the zombie crickets on a cookie sheet and – feeling like the witch in Hansel and Gretel – pop them in the oven.

It’s very macabre. The children were utterly delighted with the entire process. The cookies had a slightly nutty flavor. The worst part for me was having a roasted cricket leg get stuck between my teeth.

It’s all for a good cause, I kept telling myself. Later that year when my daughter went to kindergarten, she shared the experience one day at circle time. I heard that the other children were fascinated. “I told them we got the idea from a book!” my daughter said.

Reading can matter to your children, especially if you sometimes bring books to life. What could make a trip to the library more exciting than knowing it just might lead to a real life adventure?

How much did experiences like these help my daughter – now 13 – love books? I can’t answer that. I do know she loves them, and when I ask her what she remembers about being a flower girl in Boston, she says, “Not much. Except the swan boats.”

Now, if you want a cricket cookie recipe, here’s one from the Iowa State University Entomology Club:

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectsasfood/chirpie.html

Or you could ask Rachel Ray.

Boom-di-yada, boom-di-yada!