Have you ever heard of the Fourth Grade Slump? I hadn’t–at least I didn’t remember hearing about it before. This phrase was coined by Jeanne S. Chall and Vicki A. Jacobs in their research published in American Educator .It sounds like a horrible disease, doesn’t it? Fourth grade is the juncture when most students take the individual skills they have learned in school up to this point and apply them to whole paragraphs and pages. It is also where schools separate the readers from those who are struggling.
To keep our children from falling into this Fourth Grade Slump, Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook says “You need the combination of know-how and motivation.”

KNOW-HOW

Jim Trelease refers to the past thirty years of reading research to conclude that the more our children read, the better they get at it. He goes on to say, “Students who read the most also read the best, achieve the most, and stay in school the longest,” regardless of gender, race, nationality, or socioeconomic background.
I am a big proponent of teaching phonics. I think my understanding of the importance of phonics only grew when I began teaching English to English Language Learners, particularly those in China. When children have phonemic awareness, they are more willing to tackle new and bigger words. Breaking the sound code is a great advantage to readers, otherwise, there is this pressure they feel to memorize and remember every word (which does have some perks), but drives them away from attempting new and unfamiliar words. The U.S. Department of Education’s 1999 Early Childhood Longitudinal Study found that children who were read to at least three times a week had a significantly greater phonemic awareness when they entered kindergarten and those kids were almost twice as likely to score in the top 25 percent in reading.

Way back in 1983, the U.S. Department of Education funded a Commission on Reading because they were were alarmed by students’ test scores. The commission spent two years researching and one of its primary findings was:
“The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”
Gulp. I have some improvements to make! I used to be really good at making sure I read a book aloud to my children at least twice each day. My oldest three all lived with that routine for years. Now we still read at night, but instead of just me reading, we all take turns reading scripture verses. After reading the above statement about how reading aloud to children is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT activity for building the knowledge my kids need to succeed in reading, I have begun sitting my younger two down intentionally each day to read at least one book aloud to them. Even though my five-year-old gets a little time with me each day where he is reading to me, I am now making a more concerted effort to read to him.
Friends, don’t feel guilty—guilt is paralyzing. Feel empowered. We have been given valuable knowledge and now we can use it! If you don’t have time to read to your child, maybe incorporate reading into another activity you are already doing. If you need to run errands, maybe you catch a storybook hour at your local library while you are out. If you have older kids, maybe one of them can read to your younger child(ren). If you don’t have time to read to your child in a picturesque setting where you are lounging together on the couch and you have a stack of books to read (I’m giggling as I type this), maybe you can record a voice memo on your phone of you reading a book. Then when you are driving somewhere, you can play the recording in your car and your child can hold the book and follow along or just listen. I tried this out with my book A Nace’s Adventure. It took me two tries because I had a little interruption the first time (only one interruption is better than I expected), but in total, I was finished in 10 minutes. You could probably knock this out in one try if you did it early in the morning or late at night. In the meantime, feel free to use mine! I think I’ll do this for my Oggie book soon, too—please let me know if you try this out! I’d love to know!

To receive a free audio version of my book, just tell me where to send it:

MOTIVATION

As a mother to five young children who have not yet reached fourth grade, I have been thinking about ways to motivate my children to actually want to read instead of feeling forced to read. I try to keep a LOT of books in our home so that there is never a shortage of good books available for my kids to sit down and read. We keep shelves of children’s books well-stocked downstairs in our family room as well as in the playroom. My hope is that this sends the message that anytime is a good time to read.

We make regular trips to the library, especially with my younger children. I always choose a few that I know will be good (I justify this as “research” since I write children’s books, but I think it’s more because I really really love children’s books!) and I let them choose one or two each on their own. My five-year-old looks like he is on a treasure hunt as he scours the shelves looking for his next book. I pray he will always feel this way about books.
One other wonderful resource we have is our local bookstore. We have a great independently-owned bookstore nearby that sells new and used books and will give you credit towards future purchases when you bring in your used books. I love bringing some of our old books that the boys have outgrown and being able to let the boys choose “new” books (they are used, but new to us) to bring home instead. A trip to the bookstore is actually a reward they can choose on their star charts and more than once has been used to reward other good behaviors (like when all three school-age kids get the highest behavior color on their behavior charts all on the same day or if we’ve had a great Saturday cleaning). We went a few weeks ago and each of my kids got to pick a book and I grabbed a few books, and I paid $6! Buying books can get expensive—I know! This has been a beautiful way for us to keep our home library stocked without getting a second mortgage to do so! If you don’t have a used bookstore in your area, websites like eBay and thriftbooks are excellent ways to buy books at a fraction of the price (You can also sell your used books there as well).
Our summer read-a-thon was a great way to get our kids motivated to read. They re-discovered books they’d forgotten and built their own piles of books all over the house that were messy, but good for my soul!
If there is a movie out based on a book, I will tell our kids that they have to read the book before they can see the movie. We have had lots of fun, one-on-one movie dates where one son and I sit together (either at home or at the movies) and watch a movie together and talk about how the movie is the same as/different from the book. I love it! My boys all brag about it to their siblings, too, so it keeps the excitement going. When my oldest were three and four, I would choose books to read that I knew had movies (Pippy Longstocking; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; A Series of Unfortunate Events; James and the Giant Peach) and then when we finished reading the book, we’d celebrate by popping popcorn and watching the movie together.
Another important element I have been thinking about is talking about what your child is reading. When my boys are reading books on their own, I will try to read it, too, so I can ask him questions about it and bring up conversations about things that are related. Even if you don’t read the book with your child and have never read it before, there are so many online resources. Do a Swagbucks (or Google if you don’t like getting free stuff) search for comprehension questions and the book title and you may be surprised. If you are reading the book together, it may help to start with a little Do you remember what we read yesterday? question before you start reading each day, just to help with comprehension and to keep your child(ren) engaged.

WHAT ABOUT EBOOKS?

One more thing I wanted to share is that although paper books will always hold a special place in my heart, I acknowledge that carrying digital books is so so much easier when you are traveling or on the move. So let’s talk for a minute about e-books and tablets. I won’t pretend to have all the answers and I hope some of you will share some suggestions and ideas you have, too. Each of my boys has his own Kindle Fire. We try to keep a good variety of books downloaded onto their devices. Some of them cost, some we download when they are free, others are library books and they are available for two weeks at a time (if you haven’t tried ebooks through the library, you are really missing out—it is cost-effective, convenient, and often instantaneous–unless you must wait on a list because the book you want to read is very popular). We use the Freetime app at all times. It has a setting that requires my kids to read for a specified amount of time before they can play any games. I love the Freetime app because we can also set a limit for how long they can play games and how long they can watch movies. You can also limit how long they can access books, but I always keep that one “Unlimited.” Now when we are on road trips or they are home for a long weekend, they will finish their playing time and more often than not, they will read even more on their devices. I love this!  Many of the books on the Kindle even have an option you can select and the device will read to your child. I haven’t done too much with this, but I may look into it more for the future.  If you are in the market, I came across this deal:

I hope this information helps you want to read to the child or children in your life. Beyond the fact that reading brings academic success, it also has the potential to bring great joy into our lives. I hope your life is filled with more reading and, in turn, more joy.

What ideas have you had to help motivate kids to read?