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THE HOPE CHEST: Ideas and Inspiration for Home Education
Issue #41 part 2 / May 2001
Mother and Reading
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This is part 2 of 3.

POET’S PEN: When Mother Reads Aloud
(Author Unknown) from Favorite Poems Old and New
Commentary by Virginia Knowles
BOOK REVIEW: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Book by Mildred Taylor, Review by Virginia Knowles
BOOK REVIEW: Any Child Can Read Better
Book by Dr. Harvey Weiner, Review by Virginia Knowles
BASIC READING INSTRUCTION by Virginia Knowles
A DOZEN WAYS TO ENTICE YOUR CHILDREN TO READ
by Virginia Knowles

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POET’S PEN: When Mother Reads Aloud (Author Unknown)
Commentary by Virginia Knowles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Mother Reads Aloud
(From the anthology Favorite Poems Old and New, compiled by Helen Ferris)

When Mother reads aloud, the past
Seems real as every day;
I hear the tramp of armies vast,
I see the spears and lances cast,
I join the trilling fray;
Brave knights and ladies fair and proud
I meet when Mother reads aloud.

When Mother reads aloud, far lands
Seem very near and true;
I cross the desert’s gleaming sands,
Or hunt the jungle’s prowling bands,
Or sail the ocean blue.
Far heights, whose peaks the cold mists shroud,
I scale, when Mother reads aloud.

When Mother reads aloud, I long
For noble deeds to do --
To help the right, redress the wrong;
It seems so easy to be strong,
So simple to be true.
Oh, thick and fast the visions crowd
My eyes, when Mother reads aloud.

~~

This is a poem that begs to be... READ ALOUD! After you do that,
print out a copy for each child and
have them mark the sets of lines which rhyme with each other in each
verse. (The first line rhymes with
the third and fourth, the second line rhymes with the fifth, and the
sixth rhymes with the seventh. Thus it’s
an ABAABCC pattern.) Now, how about the rhythm pattern? (It’s dee DUM,
dee DUM ...) Are there any
words unfamiliar to them, such as “trilling fray” or “redress”? Next
have them circle the people, and
underline places, and put a squiqqle line under adjectives mentioned in
the poem. Do they understand
that the author is talking figuratively, not literally, about meeting
knights or going to the jungle? Ask your
children to recall the best book that you ever read to them. What made
it special? Can they retell the plot
and a few of their favorite details?

~~

Favorite Poems Old and New is a thick anthology of poetry for
children, published in 1957 by Helen
Ferris. I love the author’s introduction, entitled Poetry at our House,
in which she describes how her own
parents instilled a love of poetry in their two children. Here is a tiny
taste of it:

One night Papa came in to hear Mama read:
“Tom, Tom, the piper’s son, Stole a pig, and away he ran.”
“My dear Min,” he protested. Mama’s name was Minnie. “What are you
doing? the word is ‘run.’”
“Mama’s hazel eyes flashed. “Elmer Ferris,” she told him firmly,
“if you think I am going to expose our
children to bad grammar in this house, you are mistaken.”
“Better that than expose them to bad rhyme,” declared Papa no less
firmly.
It was a difference of opinion that was never resolved. But, as
with many such at our house, it
became a source of merriment. Every now and then when supper was ready
Mama would beckon to Fred
and me, and the three of us would tiptoe to Papa’s study, where he sat
reading the paper. Soundlessly
Mama’s lips would form the words, “Tom, Tom.”
Then she would claim: “Tom, Tom, the piper’s son, stole a pig and
away he---”
“Ran, ran, ran, ran,” Fred and I would shout, swarming over Papa to
the definite detriment of the
newspaper. Papa would throw back his head and laugh and laugh. And Fred
and I were never to forget
the importance of either good grammar or good rhyme.
Memory of the poems that accompanied and followed Mother Goose in
our bedtime hours is a
tapestry, lovely but with no set design. Later I was to learn that Mama
had an articulate theory about
reading poetry aloud to children, a theory not surprising for she was a
pianist. It did not matter, she was
convinced, if we could not understand all the words. We could enjoy the
beautiful sound of them. So it
was that for Fred and me Mother Goose flowed easefully into Alfred
Tennyson, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow into Shakespeare.

~~

When I had my hands full with both this book and fussy baby Naomi,
I decided to read some poems to
see if she would settle down to the “beautiful sound” (as Helen Ferris
would say). She did. Then my
toddler Micah, who doesn’t talk much at all, ambled over and climbed up
on my already squished lap to
join us for rhyme time. Later on, he actually brought me the book so I
could read more to him. Lydia, who
is six and somewhat reluctantly learning to read, was scoffing at the
idea of listening to poetry, but soon
she was edged up on the couch right next to me eagerly sounding out the
words to “Feather or Fur” and
“At the Garden Gate.” Ah, the power of poetry!

Back to the more general subject of “when Mother reads aloud” -- I
must admit we have sometimes had
mixed success with this. I do strive to make this time enjoyable, but it
takes a bit of flexibility to know what
will capture their attention. While I my “refined ideal” is to to have
my whole family savor books together,
practically speaking, the raw reality is that this SOMETIMES leads to
groaning, eye rolling, and worse. (I
shall spare thee further details...) Often I don’t even bother to read
to the older two girls as they have
enough literature on their academic plates already and don’t care to be
lumped in with the younger ones
anyway. Sometimes we start a book and don’t finish it, either because
not enough people like it, or
because they like it so much that they sneak off and read it by
themselves! Then we go on to another
book, or take a break for a few weeks. Nonetheless, I know I will
continue to press forward with the
abundant literary opportunities offered “when Mother reads aloud.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ROLL OF THUNDER, HEAR MY CRY
Book by Mildred Taylor
Review by Virginia Knowles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of reading aloud, let me tell you about THE favorite of the
year. When I picked up this book
off the juvenile paperback fiction rack at the library, I had no idea
what I was getting myself into. This is
one book that has succeeded in riveting my children’s attention -- so
much so that when we hit the
homestretch they made me read 80 pages in a row to finish it! In a
nutshell, this Newbery Award winning
novel is the story of the Logans, a black land owning family in 1930s
Mississippi. From the viewpoint of
nine year old Cassie, it tells of their struggles with racism and
bitterness. Although it has plenty of tender
family scenes and even humorous moments, this is not exactly a “feel
good” book. It does not present pat
answers to life’s problems, and the ending is melancholy. If you have
children who are quite sensitve, be
aware that there are some tense, frightening, and even violent scenes in
this book. You can read ahead to
see if these will be “too much” for your family. It did not present a
problem with those of ours who listened,
ages 6 - 12. Besides an education in an often neglected period of
American history, you will find a rich
source of topics to talk about with your children -- wise and foolish
choices, courage and cowardice,
sacrifice and selfishness, loyalty and betrayal. You’ll be chewing on
this one for a long time.

Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite. As a word of background,
Cassie has just been roughed up by
a white man because she didn’t show proper respect to his daughter, and
Mama is explaining that Mr.
Simms thinks he is better because he is white.

~~~

Mama relaxed her grip. I knew that she was waiting for me to speak.
There was a sinking feeling in my
stomach and I felt as if the world had turned itself upside down with me
in it. Then I thought of Lillian Jean
and a surging anger gurgled upward and I retaliated, “Well, they ain’t!”
But I leaned closer to Mama,
anxiously hoping that she would agree with me.

“Of course they aren’t,” Mama said. “White people may demand our
respect, but what we give them is
not respect but fear. What we give to our own people is far more
important because it’s given freely. Now
you may have to call Lillian Jean ‘Miss’ because the white people say so,
but you’ll also call our own young
ladies at church ‘Miss’ because you really do respect them.”

“Baby, we have no choice of what color we’re born or who our parents
are or whether we’re rich or poor.
What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we’re
here.” Mama cupped my
face in her hands. “And I pray to God you’ll make the best of yours.”
She hugged me warmly then and
motioned me under the covers.

~~

I haven’t read them yet, but there are prequels and sequels to this
book; most of them should be easily
found in your public library.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOOK REVIEW: Any Child Can Read Better
Book by Dr. Harvey Weiner
Review by Virginia Knowles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I checked out Any Child Can Read Better from the library because I
appreciated Dr. Weiner’s other
book, Any Child Can Write. At first I was put off by his touch of
condescension to home school parents,
since he states several times his opinion that reading teachers in
schools are best qualified to impart this
skill. However, I decided to eat humble pie with a grain of salt,
continued to read all the way to the end,
and actually found some areas of reading instruction to which I have not
given due attention. This is not a
book on teaching your children the mechanics of decoding words. Instead,
Dr. Weiner does an excellent
job of describing how to help their children get the most out of reading:
checking for comprehension,
finding out the meaning of new words (he does NOT recommend telling your
child to just “look it up!”),
understanding symbolic and poetic language, making inferences and
generalizations, doing prereading
activities, connecting text with graphs, charts and pictures, etc. In
this second edition, he has also given
an annotated recommended reading list, along with suggestions for
questions and such to accompany
each book. The material in Any Child Can Read Better is practical and
doable in the average home.
Check to see if YOUR library has it, and if they don’t, ask them to buy
it!

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BASIC READING INSTRUCTION
by Virginia Knowles
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In the August 1998 issue of the Hope Chest I described a teaching
method that I call tandem reading. I
would like to expand on this a little bit, and then next month I will
extend the concept into the area of
writing instruction. Tandem reading is basically participating with our
children in the reading process as
we transfer the skill to them bit by bit.

First, I teach the alphabet -- the names and sounds of each letter.
I know some people say that you
should teach only the letter sounds and not confuse them with the names,
but that’s how we do it. We
use a wooden alphabet puzzle and other methods during their preschool
years at a very unhurried pace.
When they are comfortable with this, we go on. To teach basic blending
and simple phonetic and sight
words, I use simple flash cards made from index cards with bright colored
markers. At first, I will only
bring out a few “same ending” like cat, rat, mat and fat. Then we might
move on to can, ran, man and fan.
Here they have to learn the difference between words that start the same,
like cat and can or mat and
man. We lay out several word cards on the floor and play games: find the
word cat, read this word, make
a sentence with a few of these cards, find the words that rhyme with pat.
Or the child might try to read a
small stack of the cards, perhaps arranged in phonetic groups. Again,
there is no rush with this. We
might bring it out, and then put it away for a week or a month. I really
try to go with my child’s interest and
readiness level.

Now we really get into the “tandem reading” part! When the child is
able to decode short words (at, in,
on, the), I might read an easy book to her and then pause and point when
we get to a word I think she
knows. She can try the word, and if she can’t get it, I read it and
proceed. As her skills progress, she can
read harder words, and MORE words. She does what she can -- at her own
comfort level -- and I do the
rest. Eventually, as her fluency improves and if a book is at the right
level, she can read almost all the
words, and I am merely there to listen and help out on the few she can’t
get. So there is a GRADUAL
transfer of the reading from me to the child. This low stress approach
creates a spirit of teamwork and
comradeship between parent and child. We don’t tandem read for every
session; sometimes we just
want to enjoy the story for its own sake. For a few of my children, my
favorite book for tandem reading
was The Early Reader’s Bible by V. Gilbert Beers, published by Gold ‘n’
Honey, available in Christian
bookstores. It is attractive, the 64 stories are short and simple, and
unfamiliar words are introduced at the
start of each story. We have also used Dr. Maggie’s Phonics readers (our
current favorite), Bob Books,
Dr. Seuss books, the Step Up and I Can Read series and even old Dick and
Jane books for this stage.
It’s an exciting time!

I have used tandem reading with all five of my school age daughters.
Some learned to read well at age
four, others were heading towards their seventh birthdays by the time
they had it down. I have at times
tried to use structured phonics workbooks and Teach Your Child to Read in
100 Easy Lessons, but they
never quite fit us. We have used Alpha-Phonics by Sam Blumenfeld for
short periods of time too, and I
like that better. But the real beauty to tandem reading is that it is
REAL READING, from the start! It never
pushes the child beyond what he or she is comfortable doing. The process
might take several weeks, or
several months, or even a couple of years, but it works.

I just have to share with you a recent blessing that we have received
through tandem reading. Lydia,
who is six and a half, is in the process of gaining reading fluency. She
can read easy basal phonics books
without much trouble, and occasionally will pick up a “real” library book
and attempt to read it on her own,
but she is not what you would call an truly independent reader yet. A
while back she was showing more
interest in the Bible, so we tried tandem reading John 1 together. She
enjoyed this, so we made a goal of
her being able to read the whole chapter with only minor assistance.
>From a reading instruction
standpoint, there are three types of words in this passage. First, there
are the easy read words like “and”, “us” and “God” that she could
recognize automatically. Then there are the medium hard words like
“take”, “world” and “might” that she could decode with a little help.
There are also some longer, more
difficult ones like “concerning”, “receive” and “decision.” I actually
made a practice list of all of the words
in the chapter, broken down into sublists by phonetic group and word
length, but that is not where we have
spent the bulk of the time. Most of the time, we just read the chapter
as it was written! She gets better
each session. We have gone through it together countless times, and by
now she has such a good sense
of the flow of the words that she has memorized the harder ones. There
is nothing wrong with this at all!
Not only is she learning to READ from this passage (so many of the words
are on the “common words”
lists that children NEED to know!) but she is SOWING SCRIPTURE right into
her heart! Do you
remember just after Easter when I shared that she had asked Jesus to be
Lord in her heart? I can only
imagine that this is in large part a REAPING of the weeks we spent with
verses such as, “Yet to all who
received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to
become children of God.” Can you
think of a more powerful motivation for teaching a child to read?

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A DOZEN WAYS TO ENTICE YOUR CHILDREN TO READ
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1. Let them see you read for both pleasure and information. Share
tantalizing tidbits.
2. Allow them to choose books and magazines related to their own
interests.
3. Provide activity supplies related to a book theme.
4. Visit the library often and show your child how to use the catalog.
5. Make a simple book bag for your child to carry library books home.
6. Set aside a special place (or places) in your home for books.
7. Grab a pile of books and have a “book talk” -- hold up each one and
tell what it is about in a way that will hook your child’s interest.
Otherwise, if it is stuffed on the shelf with so many others, he may not
even notice it.
8. Schedule a daily quiet reading time for everyone. Maybe after
lunch?
9. If the subject matter is challenging, explain key concepts or
vocabulary ahead of time.
10. Leave an interesting book out where your child can see it and browse.
11. Get other books in a series that your child has enjoyed.
12. Sit down and read a book that you want them to read. Giggle everyone
once in a while. Curiousity may get the best of them!