| What factors are necessary in children’s early experiences to ensure that they begin kindergarten with the set of skills they need in order to learn to read successfully? Children who live in homes where reading and writing are common and valued usually experience success with reading as they begin school (Halsall & Green, 1995). Young children need experiences that foster motivation for reading and that provide exposure to books. They need opportunities to learn letters and to learn about the internal structure of spoken words (National Research Council, 1998). They also need the opportunity to build their vocabularies through rich verbal interactions.
One aspect of the home environment that has received much well-deserved attention is parents’ reading to children. Shared book-reading affects emergent literacy and reading skills at older ages. Other important factors are the number of children’s books in the home and the number of trips to a library (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Bus, van Ijzendoorn and Pelligrini (1995) conducted a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence related to the amount of parent-preschooler reading, and found that shared book-reading is related to such outcomes as language development, emergent literacy and reading achievement. However, parent-preschooler reading has a larger effect on emergent literacy than on subsequent reading achievement. The authors suggest that parent-child reading is necessary for the start of reading instruction in school, but that other factors (such as the quality of reading instruction within schools) becomes more important over time.
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