Teach a Child to Read
with Children's Books

by Mark B. Thogmartin

For anyone teaching reading, Mark Thogmartin's book, Teach a Child to Read Using Children's Books, should be required reading. A veteran teacher, Thogmartin presents a common-sense argument that is widely supported by extensive research: Real books offer greater success than textbooks. To begin with, real books like The House That Jack Built or Miss Nelson Is Missing have the same 44 sounds and syllables, phonics and sight words as do "real" books. The big difference is that real books are a whole lot more interesting. Have you ever heard of a child with a favorite basal reader or a favorite vowel or consonant. Of course not; they have favorite stories and favorite authors.

In all teaching, the greatest amount of learning takes place at the point of interest. Without interest, the whole process becomes a case of forced feeding. And as Plato noted, "Forced feeding always turns the stomach."

For home-schoolers, Teach a Child to Read Using Children's Booksshould be a second bible in the family, for it is filled with resources, information, strategies, and inspiration for learning. I highly recommend it.

Commentary by Dr. Carl B. Smith:

If you are like most parents, you rely on your own past experiences as a learner in order to help your children learn and grow. You reflect back on experiences that you had with your own parents, and other adult figures, and use these as models for your behavior with your own kids. If those techniques worked when you were being raised, why not use them with your children? Doesn't that make sense? There's nothing wrong with this practice, but it must be admitted that it limits one to his/her own experience.

When it comes to helping your child learn to read, it is obvious to most parents that they cannot rely solely on what goes on in the preschool and elementary classroom. And many parents decide that they will teach their children at home. These parents try to design experiences at home that will favorably impact their children's reading skills. But what if your child doesn't learn in exactly in the same way that you did? What if your children do not have the same social and cultural experiences that you had, or what if they have a personality that responds to reading and to writing differently from yours? These are the reasons, of course, that parents continue to seek out different ways to motivate and to educate their children, especially in the area of reading, which is universally agreed to be a necessary skill in today's world.

Phonics, for example, is well known as a successful technique for helping young readers unravel the relationship between the sound of words and their spellings. Formal research studies confirm the value of phonics knowledge as a means for identifying printed words. But phonics alone is not enough; there are other highly important aspects in learning to read that cannot be ignored. How to process written information and how to enjoy reading are just two examples.

In this book, Mark Thogmartin, educator and parent, offers techniques and strategies that parents can use to give their children a balanced approach to reading and writing. He shows parents how to use the best of children's literature to stimulate interest in story reading while at the same time developing basic decoding and grammatical skills. By using his experience with his own children and his personal research into tutoring techniques, he opens the windows to fresh thinking about both the methodology and the content of reading and writing instruction.

You will find that Mark Thogmartin explains the thinking behind his approach in the initial chapters of this book. Then he presents a series of specific ideas to show how to carry out this balance between using books and teaching skills. We at the Family Literacy Center applaud the message of this book, one that promotes the joy of reading at the same time that children learn basic skills.

Chapters:

About the Author Mark B. Thogmartin is the former headmaster of a private Christian school where he also administered a home education program. He has taught students for over sixteen years in both public and private schools and holds a master's degree in reading. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Andrews University and teaches reading and mathematics at Walnut Township Schools in his hometown of Millersport, Ohio, where he resides with his wife, Donna, and their three boys.

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