A mid the toys of summer, where do books fall? Under the bed? Behind the refrigerator? Or right beside the tennis racket or on top of that duffel bag packed for camp?
Books need to be part of every child's summer gear -- and reading one of the skills he practices along with curve balls, back strokes and cart wheels. Reading, like many other skills, improves with practice and diminishes without it.
Researchers say that if a child reads only six books during school vacation, he will maintain the reading skill he had when school let out. If he doesn't, he's likely to have some catching up to do come September.
But, wait a minute! This is vacation, parents say. After months of monitoring homework assignments and study habits, do they have to nag their kids about reading too?
Nag? No.
Take them to the library? Perhaps.
Read to them? It's important; it can also be fun.
Encourage them to read alone? Indeed.
Parents are real important players in the reading game. A recent U.S. Education Department report showed that the students who did best academically reported that their parents read a lot, kept plenty of books at home and read aloud to their children.
Despite the benefits, "It's not always an easy thing to do to keep kids reading," concedes Ruth Graves, president of Reading Is Fundamental Inc., a national literacy organization in Washington. want them to feel at home with books."
Obviously, many children do not. In the May report titled "Reading In and Out of School," one-third of the 25,000 students interviewed in 1990 said they never read in their spare time. And one-third of the eighth- and 12th-graders surveyed said they read five or fewer pages a day in school or for homework.
"The biggest thing parents can do is let kids know reading is important," says Deborah Taylor, the head of the office of children and youth for Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library.
And parents can clue their kids in to how important reading is in the same ways they communicate other values. Namely, by doing it themselves and by devoting family time, attention and money to the pursuit of it.
"The single most important factor influencing children's literacy is the amount of time they are read to. Factors such as vitamins, low-cholesterol foods or a private school education do not seem to matter," writes Steven Bialostok in his new book, "Raising Readers" (Peguis Publishers, Winnipeg).
