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Show nooopnporo big aid to young rcadore Can parents lure reluctant reluc-tant young readers into an enjoyment of reading? Growing Child, the monthly month-ly child development newsletter, news-letter, suggests that when reading the newspaper becomes be-comes a family adventure it can help a child learn to enjoy reading more. Many children are"reluc-tant are"reluc-tant Readers." They know how to read: they simply don't enjoy it. This happens even when a child has all the "advantages": weekly visits to the library, story hours, bedtime reading, parents who are avid readers. The scope of information in the newspaper offers many opportunities for discussion and learning. For example, the local weather forecast . can lead to an interest in ,. the lines, patterns, and num -bers on the weather map an interest that can develop into a desire to learn read about clouds, the color of sunsets, electricity. Pictures of anew highway, a flood, the Easter Seal poster pos-ter child, and Saturn's rings lead to questions about transportation, nature, handicaps, han-dicaps, and outer space. And the logical place to find the answers to all these fascinating fasci-nating questions is in the library, li-brary, in a book. Newspapers are good for non -factual learning, too. A photo of an unattractive person per-son could lead to a discussion of where physical beauty ranks in your scale of values. val-ues. The newspaper's usefulness useful-ness outlasts its timeliness. (After a few weeks, the ink doesn't rub off anymore.) Your child can paint on the classified pages. He can do potato printing and use the paper to wrap gifts. He can make paper hats, boats, and paper mache. Comic pages make good puzzles for younger children. chil-dren. Simply cut them into squares and have the child arrange them in the proper"' sequence. Newspapers are good pre-reading pre-reading practice, too. A child can learn to recognize letters, numbers, and words, and point them out in headlines, head-lines, It will be great fun for him to cut out individual words and combine them in funny sentences. And when your child learns to read Ann Landers well, that's another story. At any time, though, newspapers are miniature encyclopedias, encycloped-ias, offering new things to learn, discuss, or do everyday. You can get more information infor-mation on this subject and on the physical and social development of children up to six years old by writing to Growing Child, 22 North Second Street, P.O. Box 620N Lafayette, Indiana 47902. When writing, include child's birthdate. |