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If I could endow my grandchildren with one academic ability, I would make them all good readers. Good reading skills make so much of life easier. Besides, I'd like it if my grandchildren could get the years of pleasure from reading that I have enjoyed. Like many grandparents, though, I've wondered how to make that happen. Susan Marx and Barbara Kasok, both reading professionals, have some ideas, and the short answer is, "Begin early." To that end, they have written this book, which they subtitle "The Practical Guide For Reading Aloud to Children During Their First Five Years."

Part I: The Basics

The first chapter of the first part is devoted to a brief discussion of early literacy concepts and skills. Some, like learning letters and their sounds, are the skills that most of us are accustomed to working with. Others are less intuitive. For example, have you explained to your grandchildren how text is arranged on a page, or pointed out the common punctuation marks? These strategies are part of a concept called "print concepts." Another less-familiar term, phonological awareness, consists of helping kids notice the sounds of words through strategies such as tapping the word parts or finding rhymes for words.

Once you've mastered the seven early literacy concepts and two key ideas, it's time for the fun part: finding something to read.

Have you ever been at sea when trying to choose a children's book? The children's section of a bookstore or library offers a confusing array of options. In this second section, the authors offer guidance about what to look for in a book for young kids, then provide a list of several dozen books for infants and toddlers and an equal number for preschoolers aged 3-5.

(The book also sports an appendix that lists hundreds more recommended titles.)

The list of recommended titles is followed by a Q&A section, covering such topics as encouraging reluctant readers and dealing with restless readers.

Part II: Applying the Concepts

Marx and Kasok next introduce two ways to help children get the most out of reading: Talkabouts and Follow-Up Fun. Talkabouts are just what they sound like, conversations about books, but each one is designed to focus on one of the early literacy concepts: vocabulary, comprehension, phonological awareness, print concepts or letters and their sounds. Follow-Up Fun is a term for book-related activities such as pretending to do something, singing a song or drawing a picture. In order to model the concepts more clearly, the authors walk you through the reading of six children's books and their associated Talkabouts and Follow-Up Fun activities.

Part III: Extending the Concepts
The final section of the book suggests eight topics that are popular with children. Five titles are provided for each topic, along with Follow-Up Fun activities that would work for all of the titles, or for similar titles that aren't listed. I like this section because it allows you to see the possibilities in titles that may already be in the library you're accumulating for the grandchildren. You are creating a library, aren't you?
The Bottom Line

Help Me Get Ready to Read is for all adults who read to children, but it may be especially beneficial to grandparents. Although we may do some of the strategies suggested without having had formal training, other strategies come less naturally. Grandparents who provide child care for their grandchildren especially owe it to themselves and to their grandchildren to read and digest this book, as they may be primary determiners of their grandchildren's attitudes about reading. I was glad to see that Marx and Kasok include a list of fingerplay and song books. The authors clearly appreciate that talk about key ideas and strategies can't be allowed to obscure one basic concept: Reading is fun.

Visit the authors' website.



Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.