Maria rousseau. So much of raising children these days seems to be about what we dont want them to do, keeping them away from dangers, both real and virtual, no dout this is a feature, perhaps and a bug of our helicopter in age but this attitude often fails to promote a sense independence in kids. Not only do they not know how to walk down the street by themselves but theyre also much and incapable of editing themselves completes without a device in hand. So for reasons both selfish, parents need a break, and selfless, we know this is important life skill for them, i think the Current Situation is untenable, our kids have trouble with any kind of unstructured activity that reading for pleasure is perhaps the activity i think a suffered the most, according to recent analysis of the american study, the share of americans who read for pleasure has actually fallen more than 30 since 2004. If there is way to reverse this trend i think it will have to start with our children and i can think of no one who can help us better to learn how to share the joy of reading with children than pamela. Before rising to her current position she was a Childrens Book editor at the New York Times. Just three children herself, it is also the author of six books and a host of the book review podcast. After pamela talks about her research under book, she and i going to have a conversation and then well open it up to questions from the audience. With that im going turn over to pamela. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I will start by telling a story that kind of runs against my instincts and temperament, which is its a kind of boastful strut about my kids. Im more of a type that generally really something terrible and embarrassing that my kids have done, but im telling for a reason. First of all this is something happen my last time in d. C. I came down for the National Book festival over Labor Day Weekend to help launch this book, how to raise a reader, and took the train done with my three kids, my husband. We were on the train and we got seated separately. So they were kind of scattered around but we were passing things to them, stacks and whatnot. It was clear they were mine but as i got up to leave the train and was gathering my family, there was an older couple behind me and the man stopped me and said, excuse me. Are those your children . Usually that fills me with there. What have they done . I said yes, a little bit attentively. And he said, i just have to say that i am so heartened to see that they were all reading their hallway down here, and they were reading actual books. So i kind of thought, okay. Then his wife chimed in and said, i was just reading the most interesting article in the New York Times about this very subject, and she pointed to a piece, you know when youre of a book coming out you will often write a piece to launch it and this is my piece for the oped section of the times called, i think its called noble store for reading, about not rewarding reading, but reading in and of itself as a reward and to reward reading is counterproductive. I couldnt resist. It was my kind of i have Marshall Mcluhan writer moment. I said i actually wrote that piece. So it is, in fact, true, my kids are all readers. They are now ten, 13 and 14. The reason i tell the story is not especially to show up about them but because i want to relate what i think naomi alluded to, which is people are really panicked about kids reading. A are freaked out, and i think the reason why people are so afraid of kids reading is because, not only the value of books but what it signifies both for themselves and for our culture and for society. For themselves, for kids themselves, i think it is unquestioned that reading is important. Theres a lot of research around it. We know reading is important to cognitive developers. We know it is high to academic success. We also research that shows reading improves executive function, that it is closely tied to a child social and emotional development, and my personal opinion is that it also just makes us better human beings. So now people are very eager to have the kids become readers. This really wasnt the case, i want to say in the 70s and 80s when i was coming of age. No one trotted out the kid and said she such a reader. If you think about the word bookworm, its not exactly a massive compliment. People were more inclined to show up about a gymnast or a violin player or someone was sort of basic court native skills on a playing field. None of which i had. But do people really do want the kids to be readers. There are all kinds of efforts on the local level to get kids to read, and yet as naomi suggested, the research isnt necessarily that strongly supporting that it has succeeded. I will talk about how mccain to write this book and then some of how i came so this book started off as a Digital Guide for the new times. When i was demoted as my kids sit from Childrens Books editor to address book review in 2013 and hired a new Childrens Book editor, maria russo. I was asked by a group at the time to create a guide for the website. We had done guides, other people have done guides on things like how to meditate, i guide i read several times in the dark yet to try to meditate. Other guys about now to live a better life, and they came to me and said what kind of guide can we do for reading and books . To me this was an obvious answer. How to raise a reader because its something i always wanted to do and do something in my position as Childrens Books editor and just as a parent of three kids under many parents wanted to do. Maria and i got together and created a Digital Guide and it went online and it went viral, as they say. The questions and comments from parents flowed in, and one of the most common was how do i print this out and turn it into a booklet you think a a guide about how to raise a reader would be a book and, in fact, thats what we did which was to expand on all of the research we had done and the advice we had and the recommendations for books. So we had for kids. We turn it into a book in short order. When i was a Childrens Books editor and even ongoing in this job now, i got a lot of questions from parents and a lot of what we wanted to do in the book was to address those questions. The questions can be very basic. A lot of times parents come to me and say my kid is into puppies but not sad stories, and he likes graphic novels and doesnt likes lots of tax and he hates photographed at what she read . Very specific request for suggestions but then there are big existential questions like what do i do if my kid doesnt like to read . Or when should my kid start reading . Or my childs Kindergarten Teacher says my child is two levels behind what is supposed to be and i dont know what to do. And once kids learn to read they worry about what my child is in choosing to read. What if he is a reading enough . What if she said reading is born . What if she only wants to be graphics novel . So what we perceived in these questions was the robot of myths out there around reading, about what makes a reader, there were a lot of myths yes, i will move to the slide shortly. Talk about some of those myths, and i will now do with a visual aid. First myth. Nothing as important to raising a reader as reading aloud to your child. This is the thing Everybody Knows they are supposed to do. And fact it is true. You should read aloud to your child and theres lots of ways in which, the dos and donts had a were read aloud to a child but another interesting statistic that is just as powerful as reading aloud to your child is a number of books in your home. This is important. Its not necessarily immediately obvious but is not hide income or education levels. This isnt just something people of lots of money and, therefore, lots of books in their home have in advance. This is something anyone can do because as we all know books, special use books, are incredibly easy to our online. Whats interesting is when you books in your home you are saying something about your family, about your family culture which is reading is prized. Its very hard and anyone here know who has children know one of the most of annoying things to her from a child is on board. Its hard to be bored if theyre constantly books around you. Books not only in a library in the home but books for each child if it are the own room, bookshelf in a shared room. Kids are inquisitive creatures. They like to collect and own things. They. They should have placement on books that they manage on their own. Book should also be throughout the house. Book should be in the parlor. They should be wherever the television is can wear the computers are. They should be in the kitchen, where cookbooks can be another books about food. They should be in the bathroom where everyone does a lot of reading if and not on the ipad. The former is better than the latter, so its really important to keep books in the home to show the books or something that matters to you and to give kids the opportunity to read. If you dont own the books come if you go to the library and take out 20 or 30 books week make sure if a constant rotating books in the. Kids dont always know what they want to read your they are still developing their interests so think about you and usher might interest them. Take a terracotta books, or visual, books that are subject that they may not be familiar with 2000 turn to a book. Earlier a child learns to read in findley, the better reader to be for life. This is a easy to believe because all parents think in terms of milestones. Its natural to think earlier them to something the benefit will be but then ill just like to think of his shoelaces. If a child learns to tighter shoelaces at the age of four illinois maker better shoelace tire at the age of 25 than if she did learn until she was ten. The same thing goes for reading. The age your child learns to read is not related to future reading or cognitive ability. This is something many countries in europe know very well. Germany, scandinavian countries dont even begin teaching reading until age seven or eight and they dont do that because the Research Supports it because kids brains are not necessarily all able to do the kind of complicated decoding reading requires. Moreover, if you do start to teach reading at a very early age, at three or four or five when a child isnt ready they become frustrated, i know what, it has negative feelings. They think this is just something im not good at. This is for me. Elites, many years of anxiety and frustration that again dont correlate well with the child who grows up and says this is something i want to do with my free time. There is zero correlation. I can say even just some personal experience of my three kids, the one whose reading the latest is a most ambitious and voracious reader of the three. Heres another myth. Reading the same book over and over means your child is stuck. I can tell it the number of parents who first it was harry potter was a guilty thing my kid just will not stop reading harry potter. She doesnt want to read anything else. Not which a document which peoe say its even worse. Terrible graphic novels. I have some reassurance on that front. There is a lot of good to reading over and over, and theres a reason kid to do it. It changes for every age but its true for adults. With babies and toddlers the benefit from your reading those books over and over again. They learn to recognize the words. Word recognition is a big part of reading. They learn to memorize the techs come another big part of reading. If your child is memorize board books, this goes to attend bos around, a family culture, when you go out and human error and you talk board books and you back so when in the inevitable moment that happens all parents with kids aboard a waiting around whether its on the line to the Grocery Store or at a doctors office, rather than do the easy thing apple of a phone and editor child can you take out some board books. Even if youre occupied if it memorize that book they can read it to themselves. That builds confidence and the feeling that i am a reader from a very early age. Older children benefit emotionally and cognitively from rereading books. For kids and i can say this from personal experience, having been a very bookish child myself, when you read the characters become your friends. They are your social life because of people youre familiar with. The world you live in whether they are realistic or fantastical, are places you want to be. Their comfort zones, places or a fantasy but also a feeling of belonging. Its good for kids to reread, and as any adult knows when you reread a book as an adult you get Something Different from it each time. If you reread at age 25 age 25u reread it at 41 she she had ben through many of the things thomas describes in the book, you actually have experienced some of that yourself. Parenthood and loss and the passing of generations that you might not appreciate when you were 25 and you get more out of it. If you think about a child who is developing at every moment, what they read six months of not if theyre rereading something were read in a different way than theyve privacy read it. They would get more out of the story, they will see new things and because theyre not only getting to know better but theyre in a different place themselves. Its really good for kids to reread and not worry that they are stuck. Another myth, parents should work with the children starting preschool to teach them out hoo read and help them progress yearbyyear. This again feels like an obvious, of course, is all here about parent involvement. We are supposed be our childs education and all that is true. We should be doing those things but school is where children learn to read. Home is where children learn to love to read. That is a very different job for parents. If you think about trying to get your kids to do something, to get them the mechanics to do something, thats different from getting your child want to do something, to choose to do something, to enjoy something. If your child is struggling to learn how to read in school, the last thing hes going to want to do is have that experience replicated at home. If hes feeling bad about the fact hes in group k and everyone else is constantly in group in and youre forcing him to go through those leveled readers at home, at again, its continue what might be a negative experience. While hes struggled strugglinn how to read at school, trust your teacher to do that job. If you have doubts about it you can always consult your reading specialist. What your job as a parent to do, you can offset is that the negative experience. You to make sure books are pleasurable, that is pleasure not pressure in your home. That when youre with your child at night, rather than have him read and struggle through those early leveled readers when youre trying to pronounce and so connect the dots in phonics, you can read a lot of picture to them. One thing thats important we will get to this and the next one, and a couple of minutes, children enjoy books in many different ways at the same time. I get to that in a moment before someone to talk about harry potter. A lot of people think one of the milestones of childhood is reading harry potter allowed to your kids. This is not your job. Its not the parents job. For a number of reasons. First of all not everyone loves harry potter. I happen to love it but a lot of kids dont like fantasy or the find the books frightening. Jk rowling wrote the first four books as middle grade books which means there for ages 812. The last three books in the series offer 12 and up. She decide to grow this year along with the readers ashes writing in realtime. Theres a turning point at the edge of book for one of the main characters i hope no spoilers here, guys and that the traumatizing thing for some children to process and thats the transition from Childrens Books to get an adult book. Not every child is ready for it. When my kids were little everyone was showing up like my kid read all seven harry potters in kindergarten and that was the big thing that people just want to show off about. If your kid wasnt there yet what do parents do . They read it aloud to make the kids felt like there were not being left behind. But harry potter is the desert. You do not have to feed harry potter to your kids. That is a goal, something to aspire, that is again without reading being the reward. If a child wants to read harry potter, wait until shes ready to read those books and lighter read them herself. That is again why would you give that away . Thats a motivator for her. There are a lot of series that are really not great reading for parents, and i dont know how many parents of Young Children that are in this room but if you are a parent of girl you probably know rainbow fairies that this is a great series for little kids. Its a terrible series for adults. There are about 70,000 of them, written by a nonperson named daisy meadows. She doesnt exist. Like girls who are four, five, six, seven, eight love them. Our torture for parent to read aloud. The magic treehouse similar to huge a long series. Kids them. Most parents have to read them aloud what to kill himself after the fourth but because they all start with simple look. I missing anything up bad about these books. They serve a function and the function they serve his kids love them and so they want to read in order to read this book. Those netbooks you need to read aloud tickets. This gets to the point which is once they are reading on their own, move on from picture books. This is not true. Picture books should stay in the picture all throughout childhood and beyond. Sure books have their own beauty and function, and if people didnt like looking at pictures well into adulthood, there would be no instagram. What picture books allow for a child to do is to appreciate a richer vocabulary to be able to absorb artwork, visuals visualo understand how to read pictures to follow that sequence of events through the art of visual storytelling here if your child is working on a book at school that says pat and the cat sat on the mat, chances are his or her brain is well beyond that in terms of what theyre interested in with storytelling. If you say as soon as youre reading this book on your own unbuckling reading more to come you are essentially punishing them for becoming an independent reader. For many give the special if ift grown up any home or reading about your child is a cherished them have it and pleasure, to sort of pull that out from underneath the method moment there reading on their own is really punitive. Moreover, it denies them the opportunity to