READ WELL, THINK WELL: Build Your Child's Reading, Comprehension, and Critical Thinking Skills by Hal. W. Lanse, Ph. D. Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (May 2008) ISBN-10: 159869782X ISBN-13: 978-1598697827 Available now for pre-order at: Amazon.com  : B&N.com   A Call to Arms It's time for a revolution! America needs a new grassroots movement: parents who can teach their own kids to read. My fellow parents, I say to you: We have to become actively involved in our children's education if they are to succeed in life. No matter how well your local school functions nothing can replace the support and guidance that you can provide. I can assist you. I have the knowledge, the experience and the strategies that can transform almost any child into a world-class reader and thinker. Parents, I say to you: Your kids are already smart. You just need the techniques to unlock their potential. I'll teach them to you. Following, is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Read Well, Think Well. As you'll see, I try to keep the edu-speak to a minimum. My goal is to provide nuts-and-bolts strategies that parents can try right now. You don't need a degree from a teachers' college to help your kids become great readers. Predicting: One of the Major Reading/Thinking Skills If your child is in second grade or higher, her teacher might tell you that she's reading well. As a concerned parent, you must then ask, “What do you mean by reading well?” It's quite possible that you will be told one of the following: “She can decode most of the words.” “Her phonics skills are great.” “She pronounces the words well when she reads aloud.” It's true, most children in general education classes are pretty good at these skills. But surprise, surprise, this doesn't mean they can read! Reading is more than phonics. It's more than decoding. Reading is also about understanding, or what literacy experts call comprehension. Guess what? Most teachers don't teach comprehension. For the past twenty-five years researchers have noted that children comprehend the basic plot elements of stories but go bust when it comes to the deeper meanings. Most children cannot grasp these deeper meanings on their own. It's not a matter of intelligence. Our kids aren't stupid. Comprehension must be explicitly taught and most educators are not trained to teach it. In fact, many teachers that I've trained over the years had no idea that they weren't teaching comprehension. It's not their fault. In the age of test-prep we've confused drilling kids with instruction. They aren't the same. Here's one skill that helps kids read well: predicting. Good readers build theories in their heads. They think, “I believe the character is going to run away from home because he's already said he wants to join the circus and get away from his battling parents.” (The details change from example to example, but the concept remains the same.) The prediction, even in sophisticated adult readers is sometimes correct and sometimes not. Being incorrect doesn't make you a bad reader. Having no theory at all makes you a bad reader. Good readers, even very young ones, develop theories as they read; and very often they revisit their theories. A good reader might say, “Ha, I was right! When the hero said, 'The planet Xenon must be saved,' I knew he was going to steal his father's star cruiser and join the intergalactic army.” The same good reader might later say. “Oh, my theory can't be right. Now that the author has told me that the hero is blind, I know that my prediction that the character will steal the star cruiser can't be true. But now that I know that he's always talking his best friend into doing crazy things I'm thinking that maybe the hero will talk his friend into stealing the star cruiser and joining him on the adventure.” See? A good reader makes theories, checks and revises them. So how do you teach a young reader to think like this? Easy. You show her how you do it. Read a story together with your child. Read it aloud while she follows along. Stop every now and then and say, “I'm noticing that the character said she hates asparagus and that the family always feeds scraps to the dog. I'm thinking that maybe later in the story she's going to give the asparagus to Rover. Let's read on and check. Aha! I was right!” or “Wait a second! Now she's saying that Rover hates vegetables too, so I was wrong. My new prediction is that she's going to toss the asparagus into the trash masher because now I'm noticing that the family is talking a lot about their beautiful new trash masher.” Practice this skill often with your child, but don't make it a drag. Talking about books must be fun, or your child will become a resistant reader. Make the predictions a game, a mystery to be unraveled. And always, always give your child books that she enjoys. If your child is to become an independent reader, she must have choice when selecting books.