10,000 Hours to Reading Success

Last week, my friend Jen came to read with us for World Read Aloud Day.  In addition to her work in the district, Jen writes at a wonderful blog called Teach Mentor Texts.  Yesterday, she had a post up that really got me thinking about how much time parents and teachers need to spend reading with our kids.  You can read her post here:

And I Would Read 10,000 Hours

The gist of her post is:

• It takes about 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill
• If we want kids to master reading, they will need 10,000 hours of practice
• If a child reads for 20 minutes a day, it would take 82.2 years to master reading.  You read that right, 82.2 years!
• In order to master reading in 10 years, kids need 164.4 minutes (2.75 hours) of reading practice each day

How much reading practice is your child getting each day?  Remember that at this age, reading practice doesn't just mean sitting down and listening to you read books for 2.75 hours.  Yes, reading stories aloud is important, but it can also be:

• pointing out letters in the environment
• talking about pictures you see
• following a recipe
• looking at books independently or with a sibling/friend
• talking about words that rhyme
• making up a story about pictures in a book

At school, we practice reading every day as well.  When students are arriving, we spend about 10 minutes looking at books while we wait for everyone to get here.  We read at least one story aloud every day, and we always have the book area open during work time. Additionally, we talk about letters and sounds, practice retelling stories, and read a variety of print materials such as books, magazines, and even ebooks!

Take some time to think about what you are doing at home to help your child practice reading.  How much time are you spending each day?  What are some new things you can try to practice reading at home?