A neat house may help your kid with reading.
A study suggests household order, though not your home’s noise, is associated with early reading, though only where mom is an above-average reader.
So, mothers looking to enhance their child's early reading skills should be encouraged to grab their organizers and even their brooms, as keeping an orderly home may have an even greater impact on our children than we previously thought. – Study Links Household Order to Children’s Early Reading Abilities.
While the study has limits – kids with moms of average reading ability don’t enjoy the same association – it offers fresh ways of thinking about early literacy. For example, the study of kindergarteners and first graders “found no association between how often the child is read to and early reading skill. The researchers note that most previous studies on the topic were done with preschoolers (not kindergartners/first graders), suggesting perhaps that shared reading impacts the reading skills of preschool-aged children, which may then contribute to later interest in reading.”
When mothers read at an average level, the amount of time a child spends alone with books and how many books he or she has appear to help with early reading.
These findings may seem obvious, but researchers stress their report holds important lessons.
"Our results highlight the potential promise of approaches for enhancing early literacy growth in the home beyond shared reading, which until now has been favored to the exclusion of other possible strategies," Anne Martin, a scientist at the National Center for Children & Families within Teachers College, said in a research summary . "Encouraging child-directed activities such as making books available in the home and allowing children to amuse themselves with books may be equally important and effective approaches to improving early reading."
The study was conducted by experts at Columbia University’s Teachers College and Ohio State University.
Other news:
The House Education and Labor Committee approved legislation that contains $8 billion for early learning in the form of Early Learning Challenge Funds, Early Ed Watch Blog reports. See legislative summary.
Remember to tune into this evening’s webinar: “Will You Know High-Quality Child Care When You See It? How to Assess Child Care Settings.”