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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Word Play: Kathy Boyd reads 'The Three Bears' to a group of children during Friday storytime at the Willow Glen library.
A Storybook Beginning
Reading aloud to kids can help them develop a lifelong love of books and learning
By Chantal Lamers
It's 10:29 a.m. on Friday at the Willow Glen Library. Children's librarian Kathy Boyd picks up four books off her desk and heads over to an old rocking chair near an empty fireplace. She steps carefully over teddy bears, baby blankets, Dr. Seuss books and about 30 boys and girls who are anxiously awaiting their weekly, half-hour dose of storytime.
Meanwhile, a 30-something father sits on the floor among children's sized bookshelves. Three toddlers surround the father who's holding an oversized paperback titledThe Napping Book. After he's finished reading, one of the boys looks up and pleads, "Read another one."
But Boyd begins singing the ABCs and the children's' whispers and giggles are cut short. Tiny voices manage a somewhat harmonious ABCs tune.
It's exactly how storytime has always been. The librarian, whose voice never crackles or pauses, recreates the voices of the papa bear, the mama bear, the baby bear and of course, Goldilocks.
Nearly two decades age, the National Commission on Reading published a report called "Becoming a Nation of Readers." Today, parents, teachers, reading experts and even our local librarians stand by what the report had to say: "The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children."
Jim Trelease, author of the Read-Aloud Handbook, says that parents should begin reading to their newborns as soon as they begin talking to them.
Boyd has been a children's librarian in the San Jose Public Library System for the past 25 years. She's read Goldilocks and the Three Bears to two and a half generations. Every week, close to two dozen regulars made up of father and mothers and nannies rarely find an excuse to miss Boyd's weekly storytime. "I have one mother who's going back to work, two days a week," Boyd says. "But she's arranging her schedule around my storytime."
But the benefits that come from a half hour of reading last beyond preschool-aged children.
A U.S. Department of Education study found the most powerful predictor of future reading phonemes (the speech sound that corresponds to letters) is closely linked to exposure to reading in the home. Reading aloud is also an important factor in vocabulary development, writing skills and conceptual growth.
"I can tell the difference between a child who's been read to as a young one--other kids come in [to the library] and want to talk to their friends," Boyd said.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Bookworms: Four-year-old Hanna, and Josh, 8, get cozy while mom Beryl Grace reads them a story.
The American Library Association says the way to raise a good reader is to introduce books early to children, read together everyday, turn off the TV when reading, bring books along for drives and build a home library. The ALA also stated that once children become old enough to read to themselves, the benefits of reading continue. Perhaps the benefits might include the local bookstore, instead of the television, becoming a favorite haunt.
Not long after Beryl Grace's son was born, the Willow Glen resident discovered Hicklebee's Children's Books.
"We've pretty much lived there ever since," Grace says. "Whenever we go into Hicklebee's everyone who works there says, 'Josh!," Grace says about her 8-year-old bookstore regular.
Grace says Josh and her 4-year-old daughter Hanna feel comfortable in the bookstore's colorful environment. She and her husband make it a point to spend 30 to 40 minutes each night reading to their children. Even before Hanna was born, while Grace worked full time as an engineer, she still made a point to read to Josh before his bedtime.
"My son developed a passion for books at a very young age," Grace says. "He has a strong love for people to read to him."
In fact, his mother says Josh likes reading so much that he knows he's in trouble when storytime is taken away. "Punishment is to take reading away from him," she says.
But through opening the pages of a Curious George book, Grace learned how a children's book can make sense of an adult world.
When Hanna needed surgery, Grace wasn't sure how to explain the procedure to her daughter. So in addition to describing to Hanna what would happen at the hospital, she read her Curious George Goes to the Hospital.
In the book, the curious monkey swallows a puzzle piece and needs an operation to have it removed. Grace says George's story not only helped Hanna understand, but gave them a platform to begin a discussion.
"It took me back, it was an emotional time," says Grace, whose mother read her the same book when she was young and about to go into the hospital.
Grace hopes after her two children graduate from buying children's books at Hicklebee's, they'll continue to be avid bookworms. But for now Grace seems to be on the right path, the same one Ann Vlkovic took when her children were born.
Vlkovic grew up in a home packed with books, and she's raised her 12-year-old twins John and Danielle the same way.
"They're at the point where I go into their rooms at night, and find them [reading] with a flashlight," Vlkovic says.
Since they were 5 years old, Vlkovic has been taking her twins to meet the authors of their favorite books at Hicklebee's.
Today, their home library boasts hundreds of books, including about 100 signed by authors.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Twice as Nice: Twins John and Danielle, 12, still enjoy being read to by their mom, Ann Vlkovic.
Vlkovic didn't push John and Danielle into reading early, but just taught them to appreciate books and everything they could learn from them.
"I don't know anything about the scientific aspects of reading, it just made sense to expose them to books early," says Vlkovic. "For us it just came as a natural instinct."
Vlkovic says even though her children are growing up, she still finds occasional times to read to them.
"I don't think they mind at all," she says. "Sometimes I even see my husband in the other room, and I think he's listening."
At the Winchester Boulevard Barnes and Noble, community relations manager Lorraine Antonucci schedules two storytimes a week. Inside the children's section, young readers are greeted by a mural of Alice having tea with the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter.
Antonucci says parents like storytime for a number of reasons including the social aspect, in which children sit with other children, preparing them for school years soon ahead.
Ann Thurman, a kindergarten teacher at Willow Glen Elementary, has been teaching for 46 years and believes it's never too early to begin reading to children.
"The most important thing a parent can do is read to their children at a very young age," Thurman says. She says the children who are able to read in her class are the ones who are read to at home on a regular basis. Reading at home not only jump-starts a child's ability to read in school, but teaches them about books. She says many students come to school without knowing how to hold a book. "They're the children that are struggling," Thurman says.
Teachers at WGE have been focusing on additional after-school reading programs to get parents and students reading together at home. Parents were encouraged to lap-read to their children and keep a month-long list of books. Students who bring in the list at the end of the month are given a prize. Canvas bags with two hardback books were supplied by the San Jose Unified School District. Before leaving school, children take one of the bags home each night so parents can have books to read to their children. Thurman says parents have responded enthusiastically to the take-home book-bags.
Thurman says parents who want their children to read should become visible readers themselves. "For one thing, children are apt to value what their parents value."
But reading aloud shouldn't be a chore. Thurman said children will develop a love for it and for the time spent with parents and siblings. "Reading together brings that warm, fuzzy feeling for the child and the parent."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
