Do Parents Help Gifted Children Read?

Abstract

THERE has always been considerable discussion of what teachers should and shouldnT t do to help children read. But it is a serious mistake to as sume that reading is solely the responsibility of teachers and the school. A child spends more time at home than he does school and a great deal de pends on what happens there. What is the parents' attitude toward their children s they feel the school is doing a good job of teaching read ing to their children? they provide physical conditions and special reading materials for their children? Books? Magazines? Questions suchas these are particularly important when considering the reading development of g i f t e d children. Re search shows that gifted children are mentally hun gry and that their cerebral appetites often are met through wide reading. Since the school frequently is unable to provide enough free periods for gi fted children to satisfy their insatiable desire to read, most of their free reading, if it is going to take place at all, must occur the home. With the cooperation of a number of experienced elementary teachers enrolled the writersT class es, the authors were able to gather informatio n about the home reading environment of 83 gif t ed intermediate grade children. The study grew out of questionnaires filled out by 29 fourth-, 33 f ifth-, and 19 sixth-grade children. Two additional chil dren were included, although no grade designation for them was available. Intelligence quo t i e n ts ranged from 130 to 185 with an average of 137.8 Approximately one-third of the total number of chil dren began to read before entering school. Among other things, the children were asked how many books at home belonged to them, if magazines came to their home just for them, and the names of such magazines. They also were asked how much time they spent daily out of school, reading for fun. When questioned as to how many books at home belonged to them, two of the 83 children answered with an ambiguous many. One child failed to respond. The remaining 80, as evidenced Table I, indicated having personal libraries ranging size from 2 to 500 books. The average size was 41 books. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of these data is variability. Although no child reported owning no books, almost 20% of the children report ed having small libraries (two to ten books); and a minority group indicated tremendously large librar ies for this age level. In general, however, it is reassuring to find that 40% of the children own sub stantially large libraries of 20 to 100 books. Forty-seven children this study answered af firmatively the query, Do any magazines come to your home just for you? Table II shows that 21 different magazines were subscribed to by parents, with four: Children s Digest, Boys* Life, Jack and Jill, and Calling All Girls, enjoying a popul ar i t'y accounting for 65% of the total number. Asa side light, it is interesting to note that most of the mag azines are juvenile their appeal. A few adul t magazines, such as Saturday Evening Post and Look, also are represented. In several stances, the magazine titles reported by the chil dren are error. Table III shows the varying amounts of time the gifted children this study devote to reading fo r fun outside of school. Seven children failed to com mit themselves this regard. But of the 76 who did respond, it is reassuring to find that well over half of them are devoting more than one hour daily to free reading outside of school. ''' In the home, where do you do most of your reading? To this question, the authors received multiple responses. Fifty-five children (56% of the total responses), answered: my Another 27 children (28% of the total responses), said that they did their reading the living room. The remaining answers varied and included: den, ' ' ''kitchen, spare room, study, in a cor ner, and tree house. Three children failed to answer the question. The responses given, how