Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six

by Maya Payne Smart

Overview

An award-winning journalist and literacy advocate provides a clear, step-by-step guide to helping your child thrive as a reader and a learner.

When her child went off to school, Maya Smart was shocked to discover that a good education in America is a long shot, in ways that few parents fully appreciate. Our current approach to literacy offers too little, too late, and attempting to play catch-up when our kids get to kindergarten can no longer be our default strategy. We have to start at the top. The brain architecture for reading develops rapidly during infancy, and early language experiences are critical to building it. That means parents’ work as children’s first teachers begins from day one too—and we need deeper knowledge to play our positions.

Reading for Our Lives challenges the bath-book-bed mantra and the idea that reading aloud to our kids is enough to ensure school readiness. Instead, it gives parents easy, immediate, and accessible ways to nurture language and literacy development from the start. Through personal stories, historical accounts, scholarly research, and practical tips, this book presents the life-and-death urgency of literacy, investigates inequity in reading achievement, and illuminates a path to a true, transformative education for all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593332177
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	1,051,624
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Maya Payne Smart is a writer, parent educator, and literacy advocate who has served on the boards of numerous library and literacy organizations. She and her family live in Milwaukee, where she serves as affiliated faculty in educational policy and leadership in the College of Education at Marquette University. Her website, MayaSmart.com, provides tips and tools for parents to nurture, teach, and advocate for kids on the road to reading.

Table of Contents

Introduction: We Should All Be Readers 1

1 Beyond Bedtime Stories: The Truth about Getting Kids Ready to Read 17

2 The Long Run: How to Nurture Reading at Each Age and Stage 39

3 Yes You Can: Five Touchstones for Parents Who Dare to Teach 61

4 You're Hired: Essential Lessons Every Parent Can-and Should-Give Kids 71

5 Nourishing Words: The Lasting Impact of Early Language 83

6 Taking Turns: How to Make Conversation a Habit from Day One 99

7 Sound Instruction: The Tenor of Reading Success 119

8 L Is for Liberation: How to Help Kids Crack the Alphabetic Code 133

9 Word Wisdom: How to Spell Your Way to Better Reading 153

10 Extra Credit: How Savvy Parents Keep Learning 177

Conclusion: Raising All Readers 189

Bonus Chapter: How to Assess Childcare Providers and Schools from an Early-Lite racy Perspective 195

Multimedia Resources 196

Acknowledgments 197

Notes 201

Index 225

Editorial Reviews

06/06/2022

“We can’t afford to continue pretending that a hodgepodge of reactivity and remediation can get millions of children reading well enough to flourish,” warns journalist Smart in her debut, a manifesto on the importance of instilling language skills in children. Smart notes that subpar reading skills can affect one’s “wellness, employment, housing, and even the likelihood of incarceration,” and cites data showing that American kids are falling behind: “5-year-olds have ‘significantly lower’ emergent literacy than kids in other countries,” and just 14% of 15-year-olds “read well enough to comprehend lengthy texts.” Reading before bedtime won’t cut it: language learning starts in utero by about 35 weeks gestation, Smart writes, and synapses involved in language learning peak during the first six months of life. To get kids back on track, Smart offers up her TALK method, which involves taking turns exchanging baby babble with infants, asking questions of babies even before they’re able to respond, labeling and pointing out words and objects, and keeping conversations going at every opportunity. She suggests easy-to-follow exercises, too, such as “After I close a book, I will share what I liked most about it.” Parents will find Smart’s solid advice well worth returning to. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Reading For Our Lives is the book to turn to when nurturing critical readers. Like reading, Smart's book is for our children's lives. Don't miss out because our kids must not miss out on the life-giving power of reading."
—Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist
 
"A must-read for any parent! This exceptional book walks you through not only the why of reading to your child, but the way. The scientifically-grounded, step-by-step insights outlined here can heighten both your and your child’s joy at learning one of life’s most important skills: reading."
—Barbara Oakley, New York Times bestselling author of A Mind for Numbers
 
"I anticipate a revolution of reading readiness once parents get their hands on this book! In Reading for Our Lives, Maya Smart puts her faith in parents as the key participants in leading our youngest learners into literacy. No more tears over tedious workbooks or relentless drilling. Instead, Smart offers countless, actionable tips and practices to be used at home. Smart rightly claims that learning to read is of urgent, liberating importance for today's children. Preparing them at home so that they are equipped for school is a gift any parent can easily give their children, with Smart's book in hand. I'll be recommending Reading for Our Lives for years to come. It's the best book about learning to read I've ever read!"
—Julie Bogart, creator and founder of Brave Writer, author of The Brave Learner and Raising Critical Thinkers
 
"I have rarely had as visceral a reaction to a book as I had in reading Maya Smart’s brilliant and life-changing Reading For Our Lives. Like her namesake Maya Angelou, who suffered childhood trauma and couldn’t speak, only to become a world-class orator and writer, Smart helps us to navigate the perilous but fulfilling route from birth to literacy in the first six years of life. This is a book that every parent must read to make sure their children reach their full potential as readers and citizens of our nation"
—Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author of Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America, co-author of Unequal: A Story of America
 
"An amazing book for perhaps the most important job parents have: getting our kids to love to read."—Ryan Holiday, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Daily Stoic, The Obstacle Is the Way, and Ego Is the Enemy

“This book is a wonderful resource for families with young children, as it recognizes them as the child’s first teachers. It weaves together an introduction to early literacy through the child’s ages and stages with recommendations that support raising a reader!”
—Ann McClain Terrell, Early Childhood Education Consultant and National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Past President

"Parents will find Smart’s solid advice well worth returning to."—Publishers Weekly

"In this useful book for parents, Smart, an educator and literacy advocate, provides guidelines for expanding a child’s reading capabilities, laying out the necessary steps for creating an eager reader.... Smart is a knowledgeable, capable guide who has distilled a vast amount of research into an approachable package. A solid resource for diligent parents who want to create readers for life."—Kirkus

From the Publisher

2022-06-01
A guidebook about encouraging young children to read.

In this useful book for parents, Smart, an educator and literacy advocate, provides guidelines for expanding a child’s reading capabilities, laying out the necessary steps for creating an eager reader. “For the past few decades,” writes the author, “the majority of American kids have been shuffled from grade to grade without ever reading well enough….These are capable students whose reading development is hobbled by a devastating mix of untapped opportunity at home and inadequate instruction in schools.” In 2020, a study revealed that 29% of 13-year-olds say they don’t read for pleasure; in 1984, that number was 8%. Smart urges parents to be proactive and begin literacy training as early as possible at home, even before preschool or kindergarten. The author offers suggestions on how to start, what skill mastery looks like, and the milestones a child needs to pass before proceeding to the next level. She includes comprehensible discussions of theory and research that show parents why reading is an indispensable skill alongside practical tips on ways to engage children throughout the process. Smart explains how to talk to an infant, share a book with a child, use praise when a child displays mastery at a particular level, and how to introduce the alphabet and its various shapes. She also provides numerous journal prompts at the end of each chapter so parents can track their child’s progress and assess their reading level. For some parents, the text may not contain enough straightforward lesson plans; the book will appeal most to parents who appreciate theory. Still, getting children to read is vital, and Smart is a knowledgeable, capable guide who has distilled a vast amount of research into an approachable package.

A solid resource for diligent parents who want to create readers for life.

Kirkus Reviews