From: Hopkinson, Deborah <Deborah.Hopkinson>
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:18:42 -0800

While I have some specific books to suggest, I also have some thoughts on this not as a reading expert or librarian, but as a parent.

My son was adopted at age six from Russia, and had an early speech disability. Reading and the desire to read have always been issues. We pursued several strategies over the years, in addition to the help he got in school. One of the most important was to keep reading aloud to and with him -- all the way through high school -- stopping often to discuss (because then you see where there are sometimes surprising gaps in concepts or understanding). For books to meet outside reading requirements we looked for obvious things: short chapters, high interest, humorous, action (Holes, Lost on a Mountain in Maine, Because of Winn Dixie all were favorites).

But as a struggling reader Dimitri also missed out on the sheer pleasure of reading -- the underlying rhythms and sounds and pleasures of good, sophisticated literature and storytelling. So we also pursued audiotapes in the car selecting books with rich language (Richard Peck's A Long Way from Chicago, The Moorchild). I can imagine Al Capone Does My Shirts or The Sea of Trolls would be great.

Whenever I talk to parents I make a huge point about encouraging them to keep up with and read children's literature themselves, and develop sort of lifelong book clubs with their kids. I think this is even more important with cuts in school libraries. Sadly, after elementary school neither of my kids ever had a public school teacher who recommended books or even seemed to have heard of the award-winning books my kids were doing reports on for outside reading.


Deborah Hopkinson Director of Foundation Relations Oregon State University Foundation






  
Received on Thu 02 Nov 2006 02:18:42 PM CST