Sometimes, of course, reading instruction gets done in ways and in places that have nothing to do with politicians or even teachers.
On a recent Saturday morning, 7-year-old Octavia Kelley’s sister Erica, 3, climbed up on the couch in the living room of their South Side home. She opened her favorite book: “Cookie’s Week” by Cindy Ward and Tomie de Paola.
Octavia, dressed in white tights because she had just come back from ballet class, sat beside her. It was a rainy day, the kind of day when the prospect of a good book can warm a room.
“Cookie’s Week” was a large, colorful book about a naughty cat named Cookie who turns a household upside down. It’s a combination of elements about which kids love to read: a cuddly pet and a big mess.
“On Monday,” said Erica, her eyes sweeping the page, “Cookie fell in the toilet. There was water everywhere!”
Erica turned the page. “On Tuesday,” she went on, “Cookie knocked a plant off the windowsill.”
The girls’ mother sat nearby, smiling and shaking her head. Erica, she knew, wasn’t able to read beyond a few words such as her name. Still, Erica delivered a word-perfect reading of the story, turning the pages at exactly the right moments.
“She’s watched Octavia read it so many times that she knows it herself,” said Vanessa Kelley.
Like most older siblings, Octavia is passing her reading knowledge along to her sister. They play school almost every afternoon, their mother said. “She’ll point to the word and ask Erica to say it. Her [Octavia’s] sentence skills and spelling are fantastic. She’ll see `cake’ and sound it out and spell it.”
Many reading experts believe that the hours spent in the home can be almost as crucial to developing a child’s reading ability as classroom time. Parents should read to children and have children read to them. “I was reading to Octavia before she knew what a book was,” Vanessa said.
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Last month, Vanessa and Lionel had a third child, whom they named Daija. In just a few years, Erica will be doing for her what Octavia did for Erica: passing along the magic of reading.