Daily Archives: November 18, 2009

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Reading Association of Ireland

http://www.reading.ie/tips/parents.php

Tips For Parents

About:

This page offers support and advice to parents on children’s literacy development.

Parents often ask for advice on how to help their children with reading. Here are some tips about using and choosing books for children. It is important that parents realise how important they are to developing a child’s reading.

Parents and young children reading together

  1. Setting aside time to read aloud to children helps them to learn that reading is a pleasant experience, that reading is something that you care about, and that reading opens up a whole new world of fun and adventure.
  2. Join the library and go regularly with your child. Everyone can have access to good books. Encourage your child to choose books. Ask the librarian for help.
  3. Praise your child’s interest in books and reading. To become a reader your child needs to read and be read to at home – it doesn’t just come from schoolwork.
  4. Discuss the pictures and the story with your child. Put your finger under the words as you read to give the child the idea of linking words with sounds.
  5. Young children love to hear the same stories over and over. When they become familiar, encourage your child to say any of the lines s/he remembers at the right time. Praise their early ‘reading’ even when it is from memory, because this is an important first step.

Children who can read independently

  1. Keep on reading aloud to your child – continue as long as you both enjoy it. Children love the cosy feeling of their parent reading to them, and it keeps them interested in books.
  2. Try to find books on their interests – librarians can help here. Ask in bookshops for particular topics.
  3. Try starting a new book together to help the child get ‘into’ it, and then see if it takes off for them.
  4. Try to encourage a varied reading diet – comics are fine as long as they are not the only texts read. Don’t forget how much some children like fact books and list books. Libraries have good selections of these. Also look out for remainder bargains and second hand books stalls
  5. Encourage your young reader to read to you or to a younger child and praise them. Talk to them about what they are reading, and respect their opinions. Tell them about books you enjoyed as a child. Make reading something to be proud of.
  6. Use books and comics as rewards instead of sweets.
  7. Show them that you enjoy reading also – the paper, magazines and books.
  8. Parents can also children to read simple Irish books sometimes and praise and encourage them.
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The Reading Lab

http://www.thereadinglab.com/

 

Welcome to the Reading Lab

 

The Reading Lab’s innovative products focus on expanding the world of reading for everyone. Whether we are providing a faster, more understandable way to skim the huge information stream we all encounter daily, or inventing solutions that are especially effective for people who find printed text difficult or inaccessible, The Reading Lab’s products embrace our common heritage: the rich experience of reading.

Assisted reading
One of our missions at The Reading Lab is to make reading both possible and pleasurable for people who have difficulty with print. While we love books and prize the place they hold in our culture, we realize that for some people, books just don’t work.  

We create reading experiences tailored for children and adults with ADHD, dyslexia, or other physiological barriers to absorbing print-based text. We also make Power Readers for people with arthritis, tendonitis, or RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), for whom the simple act of holding a book can be agony.

Speed reading
The Reading Lab explores innovative reading experiences for the general public as well, such as controlling dynamic (moving) text onscreen in unusual ways. For example, one of our readers allows doubling or tripling of one’s reading speed. You can see the Speeder Reader museum exhibit, which combined the compelling interface of a video driving game with the power of moving text,
here.

Multimodal reading
Some of our reading technologies explore the idea of multi-modal reading: books that combine text and sound with touch, or smell with moving graphics. For example, a reading experience can be deepened with the use of background sound to provide a sense of place, and to add affect to the experience of reading a book without interrupting the flow of the story. A good example is the
Listen Reader.

 

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Annette The Author’s Book Recommendation – Wolf Hall

Title: Wolf Hall

Author:  Hilary Mantel

Hardcover: 672 pages

Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd (30 April 2009)

Language English

ISBN-10: 0007230184

ISBN-13: 978-0007230181

Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.4 x 5.4 cm

Product Description

Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2009 ‘Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,’ says Thomas More, ‘and when you come back that night he’ll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks’ tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.’ England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey’s clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages. From one of our finest living writers, Wolf Hall is that very rare thing: a truly great English novel, one that explores the intersection of individual psychology and wider politics. With a vast array of characters, and richly overflowing with incident, it peels back history to show us Tudor England as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion and suffering and courage.

About the Author

Hilary Mantel is one of our most important living writers. She is the author of eleven books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Giving Up the Ghost, and, most recently, Beyond Black, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize.