7 Steps to Get Your Child Reading

by Louise Park, Nelle May Pierce (Illustrator)

Louise Park has spent decades watching children working away at this reading thing. As a teacher, children's author and leading educational consultant, she knows better than anyone how the goalposts have shifted over time. The road to literacy has never been smooth, but now there is the added challenge of digital distractions. Louise will show you how to make the most of both digital and traditional forms of reading, as well as setting out commonsense plans for making a reader of your child.

Based on scientific research and presented in a friendly, accessible style for time-poor parents, the seven simple steps will lead your Generation Alpha child to an irreplaceable love of reading.

Genres: Parenting

241 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Louise Park is one of Australia's leading children's authors, publishers and educational consultants. She has had over 20 years experience in teaching, publishing, seminar presenting and writing both fiction and nonfiction.

Louise is the author of the top-selling fiction spy series for boys, Zac Power Test Drive and the co-creator and author of the hottest new boys fiction series Boy vs Beast. Her new `tween fantasy adventure series, Star Girl, is set to take girls reading to a whole new dimension.

Reviews

[Kristie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Easy to read and digest and well constructed. Explained the different philosophies around learning to read in a balanced way. Reinforced the limited knowledge I had in this area and provided some really great ideas and practical suggestions. I liked the graphics as well. I trialled a few new ideas with my daughter and found them helpful. My daughter is a bibliophile and hasn't needed any additional support or encouragement to read but I had an interest in improving my knowledge as you often hear about the reading wars and phonics vs whole language etc and I really enjoyed this.

[Brona's Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an early childhood teacher with 18 years experience, there was nothing new for me to discover in Louise Park's 7 Steps to get Your Child Reading. The only good and encouraging thing I learnt was that since my teaching training days, thirty years ago, they have finally realised that just teaching the whole language approach is a mistake.

When I was at Uni the whole language way was drummed into us relentlessly. Yet, I had very vivid and fond memories of my own kindy teachers taking us through the phonics approach. I loved learning about the sounds and their blends and how they went together.

The whole language approach is great for kids who already know how to read, or who are well on the way to reading independently. But if you still can't make sense of the all those squiggles on the page, you need some phonics to get you going.

I made the slightly daring decision to teach both methods when I started my career. Within a decade, Jolly Phonics made its first appearance into NSW classrooms, followed by the Reading Eggs program, and I felt vindicated.

However, Park's book is much more than an educational evaluation of the various teaching methods. This is after all, a book for parents, despite it's rather juvenile cover.

In particular, it is a book for the parents of Gen Alpha. Gen A includes those kids born from 2010 onwards. They are the first generation of kids to be fully immersed in a world of ipads, smart phones and apps for learning. How on earth do you get your fully switched on, modern data kid to interact with such an archaic thing as a book? How can you make reading a book as fun and as interesting as a colourful, noisy app designed to capture your imagination?

This book is full of bite-sized facts and figures and tips and tricks to do just that.

But the main thing everyone needs to know is quite simple really - read to your children, early and often, for as long as you can.

Pick books that you love, with colourful pictures and interesting content and language and start reading from the day they are born. Be prepared to read the same books over and over again (which is why I always stress the bit about picking books you love too). Your love and enthusiasm will spill over onto your child too.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/searc...

[Shreedevi Gurumurty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Generation Alpha is the swiper, pincher, tapper cohort, the first to grow up with devices in their hands. They are breaking new ground as a result of technological advances, while you, their parents, are having to navigate these uncharted waters.Literacy is the single most important thing we can teach kids. If they can read, all other learning will follow. Learn how to future proof your child's literacy in a rapidly changing world, and give them the best chance of success.Based on scientific research and presented in a friendly, accessible style for time-poor parents, the seven simple steps will lead your Generation Alpha child to an irreplaceable love of reading. There was so much to learn and unpack from this wonderful book.Children who begin school with little to no literacy skills can struggle to catch up with their peers, and they might never catch up unless they're identified and supported asap.Our brains are not evolved for reading and writing.They're wired for speaking.We repurpose areas of the 🧠 to learn to read.To teach our brains to read, we should build the neural pathways by activating them consistently and regularly with quality reading instruction. The super skills are alphabetical and phonological awareness, encoding, letter and sound knowledge, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. The 7 steps include talking and reading their way to literacy, linking writing and reading, digital minimalism, harnessing the power of book ownership, embracing the 2 major reading philosophies, and finding the right books to suit any age.The 4 types of ✏️ grips: Palmar Supinate, Digital Pronate, Static and Dynamic Tripod.When it comes to digital IQ, the 8 key skills are: digital citizen identity, screen-time management, cyberbullying and cybersecurity and privacy management, critical thinking, digital footprints and digital empathy. Phoneme (sound) and Grapheme (spelling). Synthetic phonics teaches reading, spelling and writing simultaneously, thus making it more effective.There are beginner,struggling,competent and enthusiastic readers. Help your child develop reading resilience,by encouraging reading growth by giving them a variety.

[Kian.ting · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a consensus that reading is an all encompassing activity it’s not just phonics and that teachers in school will teach them phonics, but we as parents need to make the reading activity fun for them. It is easier for them to read if they have more vocabulary of words, so as parents I think we need to allow them to describe stuff more. The book is good in that the author gives examples on how a parent can interact with the child when doing reading activities and even asking a child to guess what the book is about just by looking at its covers. I was wrong to keep focusing on phonics and remembrance of spellings. Will do things differently from now on.

[Taylor Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got some good ideas for my teaching programme from this book, but I teach older students.

I think this book would be useful for parents who want the best for their kids and need a bit of guidance in how to go about getting their kids into reading. I think for me a lot of this was common sense or things I knew from the privilege of my upbringing and job.

Definitely a good read for the right audience. I just don’t think I was it.

[S · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cannot rate favourably a book which continues to push the debunked whole language theory. Save yourself a whole lot of time and struggle, and make sure your child has access to a quality synthetic phonics program like Multilit.

[Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this book five stars, but the author refers to her guided writing meditation blah blah but doesn’t explain it. I assume it’s for sale separately. Gross and tacky.

[Aj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely and informative book. I liked how clearly the information was set out and how it was not alarmist, like many books about the rise of tech are.