Don Winn interviews (author of The Invisible Toolbox) Kim Jocelyn Dickson on how to assist kids who are not reading at grade level.
Parents, you are more powerful than you know…
Did you know that according to the latest NAEP—our nation’s report card that tests students in fourth and eighth grade every two years—65% of fourth graders and 66% of eighth graders in the United States did not perform as proficient readers? (NAEP 2019)
Equally as concerning, research tells us that 75% of students who do not read on grade level by third grade will never catch up. (Children’s Reading Foundation)
Why is it that 3 out of 4 students will remain behind? And what is happening with students in the 25% who do manage to make gains and become proficient readers?
Observations I’ve made in over three decades teaching elementary school children convince me that there is one variable that’s most powerful and effective in moving children into reading success.
In our latest conversation, author and dyslexia expert Don Winn and I discuss these issues: why children struggle and how they can be helped.
The Invisible Toolbox
The Power of Reading to Your Child from Birth to Adolescence
Longtime elementary school teacher Kim Jocelyn Dickson believes every child begins kindergarten with a lunchbox in one hand and an “invisible toolbox” in the other. In The Invisible Toolbox, Kim shares with parents the single most important thing they can do to foster their child’s future learning potential and nurture the parent-child bond that is the foundation for a child’s motivation to learn. She is convinced that the simple act of reading aloud has a far-reaching impact that few of us fully understand and that our recent, nearly universal saturation in technology has further clouded its importance.