Investing in your child’s early literacy skills doesn’t need to be expensive. With a little strategic planning and some expert insight, you can support your child’s literacy development and instill a passion for reading that will last their whole lives.
Scholastic’s webinar, The Power of Home Libraries: From Research to Results, brought educators together to dig into the data on developing literacy at home and how to support families and children. We’ve distilled the highlights from their conversation to see how parents can help kids build literacy skills.
What’s a Literacy-Rich Home — and Why Create One?
“When there are books in the home, literacy and numeracy rates nearly double,” says Dr. Amanda Alexander, Chief Academic Officer at Scholastic. “...Books at home and reading at the adolescent level had a direct correlation to outcomes in adulthood, namely in literacy, numeracy, and technology skills.”
Dr. Alexander also says that having books at home benefits children when it comes to increasing vocabulary: “Kids learn new words by reading books, and they learn on average, 4,000 to 12,000 new words each year and that’s just from books.”
Other benefits of reading include technical reading skills, oral language, spelling skills, reading comprehension, and reading volume, says Dr. Alexander. She notes that “reading a lot on a particular topic is also predictive of knowledge.” It’s how we pick up “facts about the world in which we live.”
The home environment matters because it’s a learning environment, just like school. Children who read at home gain academic skills, and are less likely to lose academic skills over summertime when school is out.
Further, Dr. Alexander says that kids who grow up in a home with many books attend school for longer on average than those who don’t. But perhaps the most important finding is this: The research shows that having books in the home is a driver of these positive outcomes, regardless of better-known drivers like the parents’ education levels, occupations, or economic status.
Plus, 4 easy tips from our in-house librarian on how to build a home library.
"Reading at home will strengthen the relationship between parents and children. It strengthens their creativity, boosts their imagination … and also it lays the foundation for academic success." –Tracey Allen, Family Operations Coordinator, Camden City School District (NJ)
How to Build Literacy All Year Round
During the webinar, Tracey Allen suggests setting aside a space in the home to read, which helps increase buy-in. She also recommends having a routine. For example, you can make trips to the library a fun, family activity. This way, she says, “they're just not sitting there reading, or you're just not reading to them. Do something together, but have a climate where it's comfortable for everyone.”
Erskine Glover, Superintendent of Hillside Public Schools in New Jersey says that prioritizing this kind of family literacy gives us “a chance to truly have rich discussions in the home,” both about children’s interests and parents’ prior experiences.
As families build upon kids' interests, Scholastic’s research shows that creating a home library to support them doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. It’s about prioritizing the important things like access to books, diversity of reading material, and most of all, time spent together reading as a family.
Encourage ‘Wide Reading’
Our report, Home Libraries, shows that home libraries with many books “make for good practice, building fluency and comprehension and ensuring that students think of themselves as good readers.”
Later, the relationship between reading volume and reading achievement flips: “After Grade 3 … volume drives reading achievement; children who can access and read large quantities of a variety of books become more skilled readers.”
Support ‘Deep Reading'
Deep reading will be familiar to any reader who’s ever tracked down the entire backlist of their favorite author or gone digging through the local bookstore to find new writers in a beloved genre. It happens when readers fall in love with reading or with particular writers, series, or genres.
This is where the concept of curation comes in. Look for books that will excite your young reader in particular. Ask teachers and librarians for recommendations. Involve younger children in the process of finding their next favorite read and creating the library of their dreams.
Choose Books With Different Reading Levels
Scholastic’s home library research shows that “the most effective home libraries must include books with different difficulty levels, encouraging students to feel comfortable reading at their own reading level while offering the opportunity to expand and explore beyond their abilities.”
So don’t be afraid to stock books that are a stretch for your kiddo’s current reading level. It’s magical to watch your child develop their abilities and grow into new reads.
Let Kids Make Choices
Whether you’re planning a read aloud or helping kids curate their own library, one of the best things you can do is give your children choices.
The Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report shows that kids want to choose the books they read:
- 93 percent of kids say their favorite books are the ones they picked out themselves
- 92 percent of kids say they are more likely to finish reading a book that they have picked out themselves
Stock Your Home Library With These Books for Under $5
Find new favorite books for young readers at every grade level — for less than you’d spend on an afterschool ice cream! There are good books available for $5 or less and we've curated some of our favorites belows.
Ready to start building your family library? Shop more books under $5 below, and search The Scholastic Store by grade and age, subject and format, or series and characters.
