Gordon Wells' work (and lots of other stuff) makes it clear that
reading to/with kids is powerful. Arrange early childhood classrooms
so there's _lots_ of reading aloud. Get parents in there reading to
small groups or individuals. And reading for the fun of it, not
treating the texts as pretexts for discussions or occasions for
comprehension quizzes.
(Don't forget Anne's thing about the take-home packages of books
with notebooks for recording and exchanging responses; I've just
been reading Mary Catherine Bateson's _Peripheral Visions_ and she
keeps reminding me that powerful learning of important stuff mostly
occurs outside of formal educational contexts: if we don't change
what's going on in homes changing what's going on in school won't
help a whole lot.)
-- Russ
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