Companion Reader vs. No Companion Reader An Experimental Research Study

Children begin school with various reading experiences. There are children who begin school with rich experiences of parents reading to them on a daily basis. On the other hand, there are children with hardly any experiences at all. Children who come from homes that provide rich experiences enter school with a large vocabulary while children with less exposure to reading experiences enter school with a much smaller vocabulary. Jacobs, Morrison, and Swinyard (2000) stated that The Commission on Reading concluded that “the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children ” (Anderson, Heibert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985, p.23). Some children enter school with well over 1,000 hours of being read aloud to by parents while others enter school with less than 20 hours of being read aloud to by parents. Being read to has many benefits for children. Through this read aloud interaction children: • Build vocabulary • Develop oral language • Develop written language • Develop social skills • Develop phonological skills • Begin to make connections between their world and that of the text • Begin to question the text being read Theses benefits help the children from primary grades well into intermediate and high schoo