Preparing Children for Reading Success - by Julia Irwin & Dina Moore (Hardcover)

About the Book

Preparing Children for Reading Success: Hands-On Activities for Librarians, Educators, and Caregivers will not only familiarize anyone who reads to young children with the essentials of promoting early and emerging literacy, but also contains more than 25 ready-to-go activitie...

Book Synopsis

Preparing Children for Reading Success: Hands-On Activities for Librarians, Educators, and Caregivers will not only familiarize anyone who reads to young children with the essentials of promoting early and emerging literacy, but also contains more than 25 ready-to-go activities that can be immediately used to foster this critical skill development. Following a basic overview of preliteracy skills that prepare children for reading success, the book contains field-tested, proven activities that promote success in alphabet knowledge, print concepts, book handling skills, phonological sensitivity, and expressive vocabulary.

Review Quotes

Much is known about teaching and remediation in the domain of literacy. It is critical given what can only be described as a national reading crisis, that evidence based practices are available to stakeholders. This book does a terrific job of meeting the challenge of translating "research to practice" and should become an invaluable resource to parents, librarians and educators.

The authors give wise guidance to parents and other caregivers showing how to provide young children with the experiences and skills that will enable them learn to read in a timely manner and enable them to benefit fully from school-based instruction. Their recommendations are thoroughly practical. They spared no effort to find supporting activities that will engage a child's interest at each of the successive steps toward achieving literacy. These activities are appealing to children and easy for parents and other adults to implement.

This guide will please concerned adults seeking guidance not only on how children learn but also on how to best support this critical skill building in daily life. Incorporating both the core information from research-based early literacy textbooks and the fun of preschool projects, this slim volume is easy to digest but rich in detail. Each chapter covers one core element of learning to read, including how and why children need to build specific skills (such as phonological awareness or vocabulary); goals for measuring success; how-to activities; book recommendations; and a bibliography. Recommended for both professional-reading and circulating collections, especially those targeting parents.

About the Author

Julia Irwin is a Senior Research Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, CT, a not-for-profit research institution with a focus on communication, language and reading. Dr. Irwin is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Southern Connecticut State University.

Dina Moore is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Southern Connecticut State University and a Research Affiliate of Haskins Laboratories. Her research examines individual differences in reading skill and the cognitive factors that underlie these differences