Reading to children vitally important
Reading is ageless; a mother-to-be is encouraged to read to her unborn child between 23 and 27 weeks at this time the baby starts hearing the different sounds. The stories you read to your baby wakes up certain emotions in him/her and introducing a sense of voice tone. Reading to a baby in the womb helps grow early language learning and promotes language growth and early literacy skills.
Reading aloud is one of the most important things parents can do with their children no matter the child’s age. Reading aloud builds many important early skills, hosts vocabulary, offers an ideal of confidence, expressive reading, and helps children understand what reading for pleasure is all about.
Reading aloud to children has clear cognitive benefits. Hearing stories strengthens the part of the brain associated with visual imagery, story comprehension, and word meaning and also strengthens children’s social, emotional, and character development.
When parents read with children they learn to use words to describe feelings that are otherwise challenging and this helps them to better control their behavior when they have perplexing feelings such as anger anxiety or sadness.
School-age children are familiar with AR books (Accelerated Reader). But many parents have little knowledge of the importance of this program.
AR books are books that have been assigned a point value, and a grade level. Your child chooses a book at his/her own level and reads it at his own pace. Then when finished, your child takes an AR short quiz on the computer. Passing this quiz indicates that your child understood what was read. The AR quiz gives teachers feedback based on the quiz results, which the teacher then uses to help your child set goals and direct ongoing reading practice
Children choosing their own books to read, rather than having one assigned to them makes reading a much more enjoyable experience as they can choose books that are interesting to them.
Librarians and parents can help children visiting the Weimar Public Library find and choose books at an appropriate reading level that are challenging but not over the child’s reading ability, ensuring that your child can pass the quiz and experience success.
Weimar Public Library has each AR book labeled, with AR level and points and each book has been assigned a colored sticker assist in the easy of find books at each level. Parents and children can refer to the AR color coded guide available at the library to quickly find the color coded books that meet the child’s reading level.
Another great resource to identifying a book on the AR book list is to visit. http://www.arbookfind.com/.Once on the site select your title, click submit, you will be taken to the Accelerated Book Finder page.
Once there, type in the title of the book and click search. If no item is found, be sure to closely check your spelling of the title. If the item still cannot be located search by the ISBN number of the book. The ISBN number of the book can be found either on the back of the title page or sometimes on the back of the book located at or near the barcode used to purchase the book. An ISBN could be compared to our Social Security number, just as the SS number represent you your entire life so does the ISBN number of a book.