A practical parent-friendly handbook filled with easy-to-do, effective, science-based tips and strategies that can be used in the course of normal everyday routines to boost language skills and instill an enduring love of reading in infants, toddlers, and new readers. Based on cutting-edge scientific research combined with insights author Nancy Newman gained as a teacher and a parent, Raising Passionate Readers sheds light on important underlying ideas and explains how to have fun with children in ways that enhance their ability to listen, talk, read, and write. Newman's upbeat approach, wise advice, and pragmatic suggestions can be adapted to a wide range of personalities, schedules, and settings. LEARN- Why raising enthusiastic readers is easier than most people realize - Which popular myths about time, technology, and teachers to ignore- How infant/toddler communication skills affect IQ and emotional growth- When early matters (and doesn't matter) in the reading process- Which "secrets" turn new, struggling, and reluctant readers into avid readers - How to help all children get the most out of technology Raising Passionate Readers will inform, inspire and empower parents, grandparents, educators, librarians, learning specialists, pediatricians, and anyone else interested in helping children become lifelong readers.
About the Author: Nancy Newman is a teacher, literacy consultant, parenting educator, and author. Since 1995, she has lectured widely on language development and literacy at schools, libraries, and conferences in the New York tri-state area. Known for her ability to convey complex underlying ideas to diverse readers and listeners, original insights, practical advice, and humor, Newman has inspired and empowered thousands of parents, educators, librarians, and school administrators in a wide variety of settings. In her latest book, Raising Passionate Readers: Five Easy Steps to Success in School and Life (Tribeca View Press), Newman combines cutting-edge scientific research with her experience as a teacher and a parent, and offers uniquely simple, joyful strategies that boost language skills and ignite a passion for books and reading in children from infancy through grade school. Newman's first novel, Disturbing the Peace, was published by HarperCollins in 2002. Newman's upbeat approach grew out of her firsthand experience as a remedial English teacher in Bronx junior and senior public high schools and at a community college. After witnessing students' widespread aversion to reading, she observed that students' negative attitudes often stemmed from early reading problems that had not been corrected in grade school. Their inability to read well had quashed their enjoyment of books, caused them to associate reading with frustration, humiliation, and failure, impeded academic success, and narrowed their intellectual and social-emotional growth. Determined to find a way to support students, she helped to establish an alternate program for students-at-risk on the campus of Staten Island Community College, and developed a successful classroom approach that introduced students to the pleasure and power of using words, re-ignited their appetite for reading, and motivated them to improve weak communication skills. When she became a mother, Newman adapted her classroom approach for home use to enhance her children's ability to use and enjoy words and to share her love of reading with them. Because she knew that learning to read is a lengthy process of language acquisition that begins in infancy, she looked for easy, playful ways to share words with her children in the course of everyday routines. Although dyslexia runs in her family and two sons found learning to read a struggle, all three children became such skilled, avid readers by the end of elementary school that administrators invited Newman to share her pleasure-based method with others in the community. Since 1995, she has given dynamic workshops to parents and educators updating them about the critical role parents play in the reading process before and during children's school years. Ms. Newman lives with her family in New York City.