Straight Talk About Reading: How Parents Can Make a Difference During the Early Years: Amazon.ca: Susan Hall, Louisa Moats: Books

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From Library Journal

Hall, a concerned parent, and Moats, a Harvard-educated teacher, have written a well-intentioned resource for parents concerned about children who have difficulty reading. While they address the need to read aloud to children as infants, their book focuses primarily on the needs of preschool and elementary school children. The authors recommend early exposure to reading in order to aid children in their cognitive development and familiarize them with a wide range of vocabulary, the structure of printed words, and story development. A discussion of the phonics vs. whole-language approaches is provided. This work complements Lucy Caulkins's Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide (LJ 10/1/97) and Bernice Cullinan's Read to Me: Raising Kids Who Love to Read (Scholastic, 1992), among others. Recommended for public library parent/teacher collections and academic libraries with an emphasis on elementary education.?Lisa Powell Williams, Moline Southeast Lib., IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Today's parents are increasingly concerned about the reading and spelling skills taught in schools and are taking charge of their children's education. Full of ideas and suggestions--from innovative preschool exercises to techniques that older children can use to increase reading speed and comprehension--Straight Talk About Reading will instantly help any parent lay a solid foundation for their child's formative educational years.

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9 Reviews

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4.8 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars This book is amazing!, Feb 7 2010

By

P. J. Chapman (Vancouver, B.C. Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Straight Talk About Reading: How Parents Can Make a Difference During the Early Years (Paperback)

Straight Talk About Reading pretty much answers every question a new parent or an experienced parent might have about the process of reading. It is, indeed, a process as clearly outlined in the book. The authors have made the book very easy to read, they give examples and background information. It can be picked up and put down (for busy parents). The section on early warning signs is most helpful and down to earth. There are so many good things about the book - I need to go out and buy one for each young parent I know. I have no more time to talk about it...

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5.0 out of 5 stars What can YOU do to help kids learn to read? Here's how., Mar 3 2003

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Shana A. McTague "Shana M" (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Straight Talk About Reading: How Parents Can Make a Difference During the Early Years (Paperback)

This book was truly spectacular if you are interested in really understanding how kids learn to read and what you can do to help! I learned so much from this book, if I had the money, I would buy a ton of them and give them out to anyone who has kids, will have kids, or works with kids.

This book does an amazing job of developmentally (Pre-K through grade 3) describing the skills kids need to acquire in order to read. It fairly reviews the current debate on how kids need to be taught reading, what parents can do (tons of specific age appropriate activities & lists of good books based on reading level), and it describes the research based warning signs for a child who is at risk for reading difficulties.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Be proactive in your child's education!, April 4 2001

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Rocco B. Rubino "Rocco R." (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Straight Talk About Reading: How Parents Can Make a Difference During the Early Years (Paperback)

I am a teacher of children with mild to moderate specific learning disabilities who went through the teacher education program at Ashland University in Ohio. Like countless other teacher education programs, ours stressed only a "whole-language" model of instruction, to the exclusion of all others, especially those that stress explicit phonics instruction.

I bought this book at a symposium given by the International Dyslexia Association, and I am so thankful that I did. As a parent of elementary school-age children I needed to know the things in this book. Specifically...

*Why a book like this is necessary in the first place.

*What is this "great debate" that reading teachers, and educators keep talking about?

*How do children learn to read? Amazingly, this is not taught in many teacher education programs. Why? Because almost all of the research ever done on the issue, any research worth its weight in cotton candy points to the explicit teaching of phonics to be the way that most children learn to read. As the authors so beautifully, and succinctly point out "The English written code is a sound symbol code, not a word symbol code. That is the game."

Parents of school-age children especially need to carefully read this book. Although I myself am a teacher, I believe in a "parent as consumer" focus in education, and, given this, caveat emptor! Parents need to know what they are getting in return for their hard earned tax dollars.

Please email me if you would like to continue this discussion.

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Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Good points but it is not "Straight Talk."
I purchased this book because my younger child is exhibiting signs of having reading difficulty in the future. Read more

Published on Oct 9 2000 by Mitchie

5.0 out of 5 stars Parents Can and Need to be Part of Reading Education
In today's world, reading is an essential component in a very competitive, highly technological society. Read more