Getting Children on the Right Track to Reading Before School

After reading The Jones Family's Culture of Literacy and Cunningham and Allington's Ch. 3, I've realized many different ways to get children on the right track to reading before they even start school. In Amy Johnson's article about the Jones family she showed various different ways that literacy was promoted throughout the Jones family. I found it very interesting that Johnson considered budgeting plans as a form of promoting literacy. I would never have thought that using numbers would be promoting literacy. I also found it very interesting that they promoted literacy through their spiritual life. I agree with Johnson that in order for a child to have some sort of knowledge of literacy prior to school that you need a text-rich environment. The Jones family used things such as magazines, the bible, budget plans, recipes, and newspapers along with many books throughout the household. Also, members of the Jones family were read to frequently. I think everyone can agree that being read to is an important factor in learning how to read and write. Allington and Cunningham also state in chapter 3 that reading to children is helping them "build a firm foundation for learning to read." They also agree with the fact that an environment should be print-rich to promote independent, happy readers. I agree completely with all of these authors and that we should start promoting literacy really early in children's lives.