The Importance of Reading at Home

Plenty of research shows that parental involvement assists students in a number of ways in their school lives. There are many ways for parents to become involved in their child's school life: Parent-Teacher conferences, volunteering for field trips and becoming a part of an in-school organization like the PTA. However, students don't always need such hands on involvement to feel the benefits of their parents' interest in their school life. It can be as simple as reading at home.

During my time as an EFL kindergarten teacher, I started to implement some of these home involvement aspects with my students. Upon reflection, I realized our students were reading a lot at home but because some of their parents weren't great at English, students' reflection and analysis of what they read in English was not as strong as it could have been.

In order to create some interest in reading at home and to incentivize students toward reflection and analysis, my co-teacher and I created a 'book report' type of assignment that required students to choose one book per week and make a poster about their favorite one of the month. Students were given a log sheet to help teachers and parents informed about the reading progress being made. Of course, we used stickers to incentivize and keep students motivated :)

Parents were given supplementary materials in both English and Korean to help prepare them for their responsibilities. Parents were instructed to ask more critical and 'deep' questions pertaining to the stories read at home rather than asking for surface details, such as the order of events or the setting.

For example, when reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears, parents could ask about Goldilocks' personality, and what her choices mean rather than focusing on the series of events in the story. As teachers, we ask these questions in class, but since we are faced with dozens of students, time prevents us from listening to and exploring every student's answer. Additionally, due to curriculum standards, we often have to focus extra time on elements of literature and grammar. For these reasons, it is extremely beneficial for students' growth if parents ask these questions at home, as there is more opportunity for deep reflection from students.

Additionally, these types of questions, whether asked in English or Korean, will allow students to contemplate what they are reading, thus enabling them to make connections from literacy in their native language to  English literacy. Making connections between skills learned in a native language and the English language is a very important skill when attempting to foster bilingualism in our students (as is the goal at our school).

Parents can make a huge difference in the success of their children's education. It doesn't take someone with a lot of spare time or enormous intelligence to help, either. The easiest way to start is to sit down and read a book together and ask your child what they think about the characters' actions. Try it out!