The two puzzle pieces

In general, learning to read well involves two pieces of a puzzle.

1. A child must be taught to read.  This includes learning phonics, fluency, comprehension strategies and critical thinking skills.  These are things teachers take seriously.  Reagan Academy teachers work hard to ensure that students are taught reading skills on their level and are continually progressing towards becoming better and better readers.
2. A child must be read to often and read and read and read and read.  It is this frequent experience of cuddling up with a good book daily that creates "a reader."

When it comes to this second puzzle piece what you do (and don't do) at home makes an enormous difference in the education of our students.  We have excellent families at Reagan Academy and we can tell that many of you do outstanding things with your children at home.  Thank you!

As a part of the Reagan Reads campaign we encourage every family to set a goal that builds on what they are already doing at home to become readers and enthusiastic learners.  (See the next blog entry for some possible goals that you might set.)

Why do we care about what happens at home?  Because we really care about student learning and we recognize the powerful influence of partnering with parents to help students learn all that they can.  For instance, one of the foremost indicators of a successful reader is the mere amount of time spent reading. (We will post research about this in future blogs.)  On this front we can only do so much at school.

How much time would you guess children spend at school yearly?  At Reagan Academy we get almost 1000 hours per year with your children. We do our best to use that time wisely. Those 1000 hours are used to teach reading, writing, math, history, geography, art, music, discipline, physical education, library and citizenship.  It is also spent going to recess and lunch and assemblies and field trips and fire drills and state testing. 

How much time does that leave? After taking out time for sleeping, students spend about 4700 hours outside of school every year.  Certainly that time is filled up with lots of relevant activities, but the parent who says, “Reading and learning is for school, not at home,” misses vital opportunities that all students need to learn and progress adequately.  (Sadly, they are also missing out on lots of fun too!) At the end of the year, school time alone is just not enough time to build “a reader". 

What is the bottom line?  Make sure that you find time at home when your kids can read and you can read with them. It makes a big difference!