The Word Is: Parents

It is often, I admit, the last thing I want to see and hear at the end of a busy, exhausting day: a 7-year-old with a book in her hand, asking--no, demanding--that Mommy listen to her read.

“The teacher says,” she reminds me each day, so before I turn out the lights at night, I crawl into bed beside my littlest child and sit wearily as she slogs through books like “Karen’s Sleepover” and “Clifford’s Big Day.”

I wish I could say it warms my heart to listen to her as she stumbles along, painstakingly struggling to conquer new words like “emotion,” “inspired,” “schedule,” “guide.”

But truth be told, it sometimes feels like nails on a chalkboard, the tortured sounds of a second-grader’s fledgling attempts to make sense of the written word.

It is a tough challenge for children, learning to read . . . one of the hardest things, scientists say, that the human brain must learn to do.

And it’s often a burden for parents too, called upon as we are, to squeeze into already crowded days the reading practice our children need.

“Please make sure that your child reads at least 15 minutes EVERY night,” the note from my daughter’s teacher reads. There’s a form to be filled out and signed each day, to make sure both parent and child stay on track.

So, I add “Read with Brittany” to our “to-do” list, and promise my daughter we’ll get to it each day, squeeze it in somehow between soccer practice and Brownie meeting, homework and dinnertime, walking the dog and taking a bath . . . if only I can stay awake.

*

Like most parents, I started out with the best of intentions.

I read regularly to my firstborn from the time she was small. “Good night, moon” were among her first words; she learned how to read before she entered first grade.

But the second child was tougher . . . she had too little patience to sit still while I read. And before long I was too busy with child No. 3 to even think about a daily reading routine.

It seemed too easy too often to simply let the three of them pass the evening quietly, soaking up “Hey Arnold” and “Rugrats” on TV, while I caught my breath, doing dinner dishes and preparing for bathtime routines.

It is tempting to give up, to let it slide; to simply send your children off to school, expecting teachers to teach them to read.

But it doesn’t always work that way, as I learned during a morning in first grade.

As a volunteer in my daughter’s class, I watched as they tackled the day’s reading assignment, where each child read to the group aloud.

It was an easy book . . . about Beth and Jim and their pet cat. And while some children seemed to breeze right through, others stumbled, stuck at every word.

And I realized that I could tell by listening which children had known reading as a part of their days.

I could hear it in the rise and fall of their voices, as they mimicked the inflections good readers know. I could see them search the pictures for clues when they approached a word they didn’t know.

And then there were those who approached each word as though it were a land mine, poised to erupt as they struggled to untangle the letters on the page. They paused in odd places, didn’t know when to turn the page, seemed uncertain even whether to move through words up and down or left to right.

My middle daughter--unread to--was among them. And I realized then how much she had missed on all those nights I was too busy or too tired to read.

*

Schools are getting serious now about doing their part to make students better readers.

Ask your children about their DEAR books and SSR. That’s Drop Everything And Read and Sustained Silent Reading . . . fixtures in many schools these days.

But budding readers need support at home, too. After all, like any skill, reading requires constant practice.

It’s not as easy as it was a generation ago. . . . When I was small, my mother had only to make sure I had a library card and a bike with a basket for carrying books. I took care of the rest--pedaling off to the library each week, reading each night until I feel asleep.

But I never had to fit in soccer practice or karate lessons, never begged to watch Nickelodeon.

Now we must work hand in hand with schools to make sure our children learn to read.

Because learning to read is not merely a function of good teaching, good curriculum, goodwill. . . . It’s a day-to-day journey--from the first time the letters S-T-O-P make sense to a child on a traffic sign, to the day Shakespeare’s sonnets can make her cry.

And like it or not, we--their parents--are our children’s first, best guides.

Sandy Banks is a Times columnist.