How Do We Strengthen Reading?

California education officials, after several years of abysmal test scores, have embarked on a major efforts to improve reading skills among early elementary school-age children.

Of the third-grade students who took the Stanford 9 reading test last spring in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties, more than 100,000 failed to achieve grade-level reading scores. About 67,000 third-graders failed to meet the standard for basic literacy.

KARIMA A. HAYNES asked three parents what they are doing to strengthen their children’s reading skills.

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ESTHER CARRILLO

Homemaker, mother of Kelton, a first-grader at Morningside Elementary School in San Fernando.

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On Sundays after everybody has breakfast, my son sits on my husband’s lap and they read the funny papers. While my son looks at the characters, my husband, Angel, reads the story. Angel will ask Kelton questions like, “What did you get out of this?” or “Tell me what happened.”

I take [Kelton] to the library twice a week and we go to the museum as a family activity. Sometimes we stay after school for reading programs.

My son wants to be the president of the United States. When he told me that I was shocked, but now I use it to encourage him. I tell him, “Listen to how proper the president speaks. Listen to his pronunciation and vocabulary. You hear the president? That’s why you need to read.”

My son loves to read fairy tales like “Snow White, “Cinderella” and “Robin Hood.” I want him to read books that aren’t just geared to boys, but girls as well, so that he grows up to see women as equals. If she is better educated, drives a better car, has a better job, he should be able to accept that.

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AMY MALKOVICH

Homemaker, mother of, Megan, a second-grader at Granada Hills Baptist Elementary School

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When we are driving in the car going to school, we look out the window and read signs. If she wants to get something from the store, she has to read the ad to me. When she is reading out loud to me, I can hear which words she may be having trouble with. It helps me to recognize if she is falling behind, and I can address it quickly.

We chose Megan’s school specifically because they teach phonics. When my son, Jim, started at Chaminade Preparatory School in the sixth grade, he read well but he didn’t have the knowledge of grammar like the other kids. . . . He spent a lot of time catching up. . . . Because of Jim, I moved my second son, Matt, to Granada Hills Baptist when he started the second grade. From that point on, he practiced phonics. He is now an avid reader.

After the first child, you learn. Megan has an easier row to hoe because she had her older brothers’ examples to follow. The boys come home with their reading books and she asks for her own reading book. She is trying to compete with her brothers. My husband, Ed, and I are always reading books, magazines and newspapers.

If you can’t read there is a whole world that is closed down to you. Your opportunity to move on, to get a higher education, is virtually nil.

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ELOISA GIL

Homemaker, mother of Victor, a second-grader at Morningside Elementary School in San Fernando

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We have a little library for him in his bedroom. We let him choose the book that he wants to read. Most of the time he reads to me. Sometimes, I read to him before he goes to bed. I have been reading to him in both Spanish and English since he was 4. When he went to kindergarten, I helped him with his ABCs. We try to read newspapers and magazines to set an example for him.

In school, the children walk to the [public] library for field trips. The school also had a pajama party. The kids came to school in their pajamas and the parents, teachers and principals read to them. For Christmas, they set up the stage with a tree and everything and Santa Claus came and read to the children.

It is very important to me and my husband, Francisco, for him to have a foundation. It is important to us that he knows how to read [not just] at his grade level but above, so that when he goes into the third grade he will be ahead.