Is Your Home Reader-Friendly?

Girl ReadingRecently, read-aloud-with-children guru Jim Trelease reported findings from a University of Southern California study which found that "the child growing up in an environment brimming with books, magazines, and newspapers, seeing and hearing a parent read, owning a library card... will have far higher scores than will the child raised in a print vacuum." Mr. Trelease comments that "readers raise readers because they do the raising in an environment that nurtures it... The child raised in a "rain-forest" of print consistently outscores the child raised in a print "desert."

To find out if your home is a reader-friendly environment, answer yes or no to the following:



  1. Are there reading materials of different levels (including the reading levels of your children) readily accessible in your home?

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  2. Does each of your children have books or magazines to call their own (owned or borrowed)?

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  3. Do your children see the adults and/or older siblings reading and talking about what they are reading on a regular basis?

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  4. Does someone read with your children at home at least three or four times weekly?

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  5. Is reading recreationally (choosing reading as a leisure activity) rewarded in your home (or used as a reward) and/or substituted for that extra hour of TV?

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  6. Do you involve your children in reading-related activities in the course of their everyday lives (writing and reading lists, reading billboards or street signs, sorting the mail, reading notes from the teacher together, etc.)?

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  7. Have you talked with your children about their reading skills for life?

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  8. Does your child have at least one place in the house for homework and reading activities?

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  9. Do you as a family devote time to visiting the bookstore, school book fair, library, storyteller's sessions or reading together?

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