Raising Confident Readers

August 1, 2010
Childrens first teacherstheir parentsget first crack at nudging them toward becoming readers. Drawing on 30 years experience as an educator and literacy expert, Gentry offers sound advice on how parents can develop strong reading and writing skills in children starting at birth through age seven. He provides plenty of activities through five literacy learning phases, from a childs early attempts at scribbling to handling early-reader books alone. Gentrys advice ranges from the well known (reading to children at an early age and talking to them at length and in an encouraging manner to help develop vocabulary) to the more neurological based (understanding the importance of drawing as a preparation for learning to read). He tackles the debates on reading theorieswhole language versus phonics-based. Using age-specific vignettes, he describes capabilities and methods of teaching reading and writing, focusing on a childs individual development, and advises parents on how to monitor development and test for progress. An abundance of graphics add to the value of this useful resource for parents.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)