Book Smart How to Develop and

Support Successful Motivated Readers

1st Edition Anne E. Cunningham
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/book-smart-how-to-develop-and-support-successful-
motivated-readers-1st-edition-anne-e-cunningham/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The IT Support Handbook: A How-To Guide to Providing

Effective Help and Support to IT Users Mike Halsey

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-it-support-handbook-a-how-
to-guide-to-providing-effective-help-and-support-to-it-users-
mike-halsey/

Communication Excellence: How to Develop, Manage and

Lead Exceptional Communications 1st Edition Ralph Tench

https://textbookfull.com/product/communication-excellence-how-to-
develop-manage-and-lead-exceptional-communications-1st-edition-
ralph-tench/

Keys to Successful Orthotopic Bladder Substitution 1st

Edition Urs E. Studer (Eds.)

https://textbookfull.com/product/keys-to-successful-orthotopic-
bladder-substitution-1st-edition-urs-e-studer-eds/

How to be an Alien - Pearson English Readers Level 3

2nd Edition George Mikes

https://textbookfull.com/product/how-to-be-an-alien-pearson-
english-readers-level-3-2nd-edition-george-mikes/
What Makes Us Human How Minds Develop through Social
Interactions How Minds Develop through Social
Interactions 1st Edition Jeremy Carpendale

https://textbookfull.com/product/what-makes-us-human-how-minds-
develop-through-social-interactions-how-minds-develop-through-
social-interactions-1st-edition-jeremy-carpendale/

Idea Searching for Design How to Research and Develop

Design Concepts David Bramston

https://textbookfull.com/product/idea-searching-for-design-how-
to-research-and-develop-design-concepts-david-bramston/

Literacy in the Early Grades: A Successful Start for

PreK-4 Readers and Writers 5th Edition Tompkins

https://textbookfull.com/product/literacy-in-the-early-grades-a-
successful-start-for-prek-4-readers-and-writers-5th-edition-
tompkins/

How to Take Smart Notes One Simple Technique to Boost

Writing Learning and Thinking for Students Academics
and Nonfiction Book Writers 1st Edition Sönke Ahrens

https://textbookfull.com/product/how-to-take-smart-notes-one-
simple-technique-to-boost-writing-learning-and-thinking-for-
students-academics-and-nonfiction-book-writers-1st-edition-sonke-
ahrens/

Creative Design and Innovation: How to Produce

Successful Products and Buildings 1st Edition Robin Roy

https://textbookfull.com/product/creative-design-and-innovation-
how-to-produce-successful-products-and-buildings-1st-edition-
robin-roy/
01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd ii 11/21/2013 7:28:02 PM
 BOOK SMART

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd i 11/21/2013 7:28:00 PM

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd ii 11/21/2013 7:28:02 PM
 BOOK SMA RT

How to Develop and Support

Successful, Motivated Readers

Anne E. Cunningham
and Jamie Zibulsky

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd iii 11/21/2013 7:28:02 PM

 3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide.

Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by

Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

© Oxford University Press 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law,
by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization.
Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the
Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cunningham, Anne E.
Book smart : how to develop and support successful, motivated readers / Anne E. Cunningham,
Jamie Zibulsky.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–984393–0 (pbk.)
1. Oral reading. 2. Storytelling. 3. Children—Books and reading. 4. Children—Language.
5. Language acquisition—Parent participation. I. Zibulsky, Jamie, author. II. Title.
LB1573.5.C96 2014
372.45’2—dc23
2013022810]

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd iv 11/21/2013 7:28:02 PM

 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments | vii

Preface | ix

Introduction to Shared Reading | 1

1. The Role of Oral Language in Reading Development: How Language
Skills Lead to Literacy Skills | 10
Talking and Reading: Some Similarities | 11
Semantic Development | 17
Syntactic Development | 45
Pragmatic Language Development | 55
2. Emergent Literacy: The Roots of Reading | 75
Phonological Awareness | 78
Concepts of Print | 112
Alphabetic Knowledge | 121
3. Learning to Write: How Writing Makes Your Child a Better Reader
and Thinker | 147
Writing Development | 150
Spelling Development | 192
4. Story Comprehension | 222

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd v 11/21/2013 7:28:02 PM

 vi Contents

Story Schema | 229

Causal Reasoning | 243
Inferential Thinking | 253
5. The Effects of Reading Volume: Vocabulary and Knowledge
Growth | 276
The Relationship Between Reading Volume and Vocabulary | 281
The Relationship Between Reading Volume and General
Knowledge | 288
6. The Social and Emotional Benefits of Reading Together | 331
A Healthy Sense of Self | 333
Motivation and Mastery Mindset | 355
Perspective-Taking and Empathy | 369
7. Conclusion | 397

Appendix A | 401

Appendix B | 403

Appendix C | 407

Appendix D | 409

Appendix E | 411

Glossary | 439

Index | 453

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd vi 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We first started talking about the idea for this book three years before
we penned this acknowledgments page. So many people have helped
us turn those conversations into the book in your hands now, and we
owe them all a great deal of gratitude. Our graduate students have tire-
lessly assisted us throughout this process and provided helpful edits,
activities, and background knowledge that fundamentally improved our
final product. At University of California, Berkeley, many thanks go to
Anne’s research group, including: Yi-Jui Chen, Kelly Campbell, Andrea
Golloher, Neil Hasser, Stevie Jeung, Jerred Jolin, Catherine Lipson,
Alejandra Ojeda-Beck, Mary Requa, and Gat Harussi Savaldi. And at
Fairleigh Dickinson University, we thank Jamie’s research group, includ-
ing Jasmine Davis, Courtney Santucci, Chelsea Schubart, and Veronica
Slaght. We’ve also received a great deal of support from our editor at
Oxford, Abby Gross, as well as the rest of her team, and we thank every-
one at Oxford University Press for their support.
We also appreciate the support of our friends and colleagues who
read drafts of the book along the way, offered helpful critiques, and
shared their own knowledge of this topic. We have too many wonderful
cheerleaders to name here, and we thank each one of you. Special thanks
to Dr. Ruth Nathan, Molly O’Connell, Robyn Becker, Kelly Boyle, and
Dr. Katie Raher who not only shared their expertise, but also adorable

vii

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd vii 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 viii Acknowledgments

anecdotes and videos of themselves, their children, and their grand-

children engaging in just the sorts of activities we discuss in this book.
Their enthusiasm for this project helped us keep going. Thank you also to
Theresa MacArthur at the West Milford Township Library in New Jersey,
who helped us tremendously when we compiled our recommended
book lists.
As we hope will be clear throughout this book, we are both passionate
about the field of reading development and fascinated by many aspects
of this complex process. Anne’s enthusiasm for this field was first fueled
by her mentor, Keith Stanovich, who has continuously helped her think
about research, refine her ideas, and be a confident scholar for more than
30 years. Similarly, Jamie’s academic trajectory has largely been shaped
by taking a class with Anne in her first semester of graduate school and
the advice and support Anne has provided since then. Becoming a suc-
cessful, motivated academic is similar to becoming a successful, moti-
vated reader in that one cannot do it alone—we depend on our role
models to shepherd us through each step in the process. Our deepest
gratitude goes to Keith for beginning this mutigenerational model of
mentorship that has served us both so well.
Our inspiration to write this book came, in large part, from our own
families. Without her parents, Pat and Herb Zibulsky, who helped her
become a successful, motivated reader, Jamie would not be the person
she is or in the field she is in. And although Anne’s expertise in reading
development preceded her son Michael’s birth, helping him learn to read
enriched her understanding of the joyful role that parents can play in
developing successful, motivated readers. Thank you, Michael, for help-
ing a mother see the world more vividly through the eyes of a child. Of
course, Anne’s initial understanding of this shared process came from
her own mother, Carol Cunningham, who always took the time to read to
and with her, and did so much more. We both want to deeply thank our
husbands, Conor and Gary, who could probably write their own books on
reading at this point, and who helped with the editing and formatting of
this book tremendously, as well as taking care of the feeding and stress
level of its authors. We know now that it takes a village to write a book,
and we couldn’t have done it without you all—thanks!

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd viii 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 PREFACE

About This Book

Any time you pick up a book from the shelf of the library, or decide to
purchase one at your local bookstore, you do so because the book inspires
some sort of curiosity in you or promises to provide answers to ques-
tions you have been asking. We suspect you have picked up this particu-
lar book because you have heard about the importance of reading with
your child and want to develop strategies for reading together. Perhaps
you love reading and want to make sure that your son or daughter does,
too. Or maybe you never get around to reading yourself, but know it is
important to figure out how to spend more time reading together. Either
way, we are glad you are here, and we have written this book to help par-
ents like you. We want to congratulate you for taking the time to embark
on this journey with us, and with your child. Developing strategies for
reading with your child can seem complicated at first, but our goal is to
show you a number of ways to read together, and talk about reading,
that are is easy to fit into your daily routine. In fact, we know that read-
ing this book will help you realize how much you are already doing to
foster your child’s language and literacy development. The strategies we

ix

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd ix 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 x Preface

provide in each chapter should help you build on the great work you are
already doing.
Although many parents know that reading aloud to children is an
important activity for building later literacy and life skills, why this is
the case is rarely explained clearly to them. Understanding the specific
benefits of reading together will help you deepen and enrich your rela-
tionship with your child while supporting his or her academic develop-
ment. Increasingly, daycare centers and preschools provide early literacy
instruction that complements parents’ efforts to help children make
progress toward learning basic reading skills, but our education system
does not consistenly focus on developing the skills that will help children
comprehend text and think critically about what they read. We believe
we need to do more to support long-term reading success in all aspects
of literacy.
You have the power to help, because parents can develop responsive
and engaging ways to read at home so that their children become moti-
vated, critical readers. However, too many parents are either unaware of
the importance of these strategies or unsure of how to specifically use
them. And that is the real reason we have written this book: we believe
that educating parents about the benefits of reading aloud as a family,
from cradle to college, has the power to boost academic performance and
social-emotional development.
In terms of academic performance, reading together over the years
will help your child develop his vocabulary, learn to sound out new words,
and begin to comprehend and remember details of written stories. As
we will discuss throughout this book, researchers know that children’s
reading abilities in early elementary school predict their reading abilities
in high school. Even things that your child does during her preschool
years, like the way she plays rhyming games or holds a book, can indicate
what her later reading skills will be like. The seemingly simple act of read-
ing together builds a wide variety of academic skills, and we will discuss
these skills in the first several chapters of this book.
But another aspect of reading that makes it so critical is that it has
the potential to change the way your child thinks, relates to others, and
understands the world. We often overlook the fact that reading can help

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd x 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 Preface xi

young children develop critical thinking skills and social-emotional skills,

but it is one of the most important points we want to make in this book.
Reading can help children learn to be introspective. Katherine Paterson,
the author of wonderful, award-winning children’s books including
Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved, sums up the lofty goals that
most parents have for their children as growing readers. She says:

It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them

something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imagina-
tions—something that will help them make sense of their own lives and
encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite differ-
ent from their own.1

It takes a lot of time and care to ensure that your child develops the
capacity for reflection that Paterson talks about here, and we will share
strategies for building this type of knowledge in the latter chapters of
the book. But neither teaching children to read nor stretching their
imaginations can happen overnight. In each chapter of this book, we will
talk about the gradual unfolding of your child’s reading skills, and we
hope you will see how these different sets of skills—academic and social-
emotional—both develop over time. Just as your child learned to ride a
bicycle in many stages, reading is a process, not a one-time event.
Even before you buy your toddler a plastic tricycle, you play games and
encourage activities that help him develop many important motor skills
that will make riding the new trike easier for him. You make your home
and yard feel like safe places to explore, and you help your child to be con-
fident about his abilities. It will be years until you begin practicing with
him on a two-wheeler, running down the street with one hand on the
handlebars and another hand steadying your child or gripping the seat,
but you are already preparing for that day. And shortly after that, you
know the day will come when you no longer need to keep holding on. But
you will keep on being watchful and helping him develop more advanced
skills, like learning how to signal when he wants to make a turn.
Reading is no different. Even before your child became enthralled with
the early board books you read with her, the one-sided conversations

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xi 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 xii Preface

you led as you walked around the house and responded to her actions
had already stimulated her language processing skills, which become
so important to reading development. But soon afterwards, your inter-
actions could become more dynamic. Sharing those first board books
together creates a situation where you read and watch, pause to listen
and respond to your child, and demonstrate a give-and-take between
what the books says and what you and your child have experienced
together. Reading those board books will help her think of reading time
as a special part of the day, and let her begin to understand how to hold
a book and turn the pages. Eventually, your child will begin to share her
own ideas about the pictures you look at and the stories you read, and
you will begin to see her gain her balance as a reader. But even when
she begins reading fluently, your work is still not done. Reading requires
reflection, responding to new situations, and letting your background
knowledge interact with the text to create its meaning. Children must
learn to do all this as readers, so imagine the benefits afforded to chil-
dren who have had responsive parents.

Using the book. Each chapter in this book focuses on a specific step in
the process of reading development, from building oral language skills,
to emergent reading skills and the path of writing development, to the
many skills needed for reading comprehension and engagement, and
finally, to the social-emotional skills cultivated by reading. Moreover,
each chapter highlights activities and strategies that will allow your child
to build these skills while furthering his or her special bond with you and
ensures that reading time becomes highly valued by you both. We explain
how reading aloud together can develop each of these skills and, in turn,
how each of these skills will help your child become a successful learner,
as well as a lifelong, motivated, and confident reader. In Appendix E, we
recommend a variety of books that may help you build the many skills we
discuss throughout each chapter.
We hope that you first pick this book up when your child is an infant,
and that you page through it to get a clear sense of the amazing develop-
ments he or she will make with your help over the next several years. As
your child matures, we picture particular chapters in this book becoming

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xii 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 Preface xiii

well worn and dog-eared, as you focus more intently on skills that are
appropriate to build at that time. This is not a book to read cover to cover
and then put away, but a tool and reference guide that we hope will con-
tinue to provide you with useful information and strategies as your child
becomes a toddler, a preschooler, enters elementary school, and eventu-
ally becomes a fluent and avid reader.
For this reason, we want to be sure to explain that the activities and
strategies we recommend in this book are just that—recommendations.
You should pick and choose between these recommendations to select
the ones that make most sense for you and your child, and should not try
to simultaneously tackle all of the recommendations in one list or chap-
ter. In fact, trying to do too many new things at the same time might feel
overwhelming for you and your child, which would be counterproduc-
tive. The activities we suggest are designed to make language and lit-
eracy a fun, shared experience for you and your child. Setting a goal for
yourself of trying out one new activity a week may be a good way to start
incorporating these strategies into your daily life.
To aid you in selecting appropriate activities and strategies, you will
see that all of the recommendations we make are followed by an icon
indicating if the activity suggested is best for 0–3-year-olds (a rattle) ,
4–7-year-olds (alphabet blocks) , or children 8 and older (a reader) .
Many activities are appropriate for more than one age group and these age
guidelines are approximate ones. You know your child best, so use your own
judgment in determining if an activity will be fun and at the right level of
challenge for him or her. If your son has a very sophisticated vocabulary as
a 3-year-old, you may select some of the activities that are listed as appro-
priate for 4–7-year-olds. If your 8-year-old daughter is still working hard
to keep track of the details of the stories she reads, you might continue to
select some of the activities that are listed as appropriate for 4–7-year-olds.
Again, the most important thing to do is to select activities that you think
will be engaging to your child. If you do that, you can’t go wrong.
As you read through the book, you will see that each chapter includes
recommendations appropriate for each of the three age groups, because
most of the language and literacy skills that we discuss take several years
to unfold. So, although you can read across chapters and focus on the

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xiii 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 xiv Preface

activities that are suited to 0–3-year-olds in each chapter, we think it is

also important for you to understand which skills—within each chap-
ter—your child will be working on as he or she gets older. Preparing for
the next stage in your child’s development in advance by reading about
the skills he or she will need to focus on next can help you anticipate how
to support your child in the months and years to come. For this reason,
a new topic is discussed in each chapter and subsection of the book. For
example, you might choose to read just one subsection of the book at
a time—perhaps focusing on the phonological awareness section when
your child is in the second year of preschool—or you might choose to
skim across chapters, looking for activities focused on a variety of skills
that seem appropriate for your four-year-old. Either approach can work
well and the most important thing is to pick activities that allow you and
your child to bond while building important reading skills.
Another big idea that we focus on throughout the book, and that
Katherine Paterson points out in the quotation at the beginning of this
preface, is that reading gives us a glimpse into the lives of others, who
may think and act very differently from us. By providing this insight into
the broader world, reading can help children become more empathetic
people. The interpersonal skills that children acquire through shared
reading with a parent, combined with the knowledge that children gain
through reading, together coalesce to play a powerful role in the way
that they approach tasks and people. It is truly astonishing that children
can develop so many different types of knowledge through book read-
ing, as they learn about unfamiliar worlds and the perspectives of other
people, and explore their own emotional reactions to poignant moments
in stories. As Katherine Paterson suggests, we need to find books and
stories that can awaken children’s understanding of the world around
and beyond them. However, to become this sort of responsive reader
and use literacy as a tool for perspective-taking, children need to possess
many basic reading skills, which we hope to help you foster through the
activities and strategies provided throughout the book. The early chap-
ters of this book provide strategies to ensure that your child can develop
a robust vocabulary, gain access to and play with the sounds in words,
express himself in writing, and read simple words and sentences. The

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xiv 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 Preface xv

later chapters in this book will explain how your child can begin to read
between the lines and use background knowledge to make sense of sto-
ries at a deep level, how you can ensure that reading is a favorite pastime,
and how books can be tools for understanding oneself and others. These
later chapters should help you see how your child will begin to ride that
two-wheeler without much assistance at all. We hope you enjoy this ride
towards independence as much as your child does!

About Activities and Strategies on Other Topics

of Interest

Before continuing to the next section of this preface, we would like to

take a moment to discuss two additional important matters that relate to
the goals of this book. Our world today is becoming increasingly technol-
ogy oriented and multilingual. In response to this diverse landscape, and
in the interests of providing a more comprehensive account of children’s
literacy development, we will share some advice and strategies on the
topics of selecting educational technology and learning English as a sec-
ond language. However, given the already comprehensive nature of this
book, we will not have the privilege of going into great detail on the two
subjects. Instead, we will provide tables at the conclusion of each chapter
that offer credible resources to help you be a more informed consumer of
educational technology and summarize research-based strategies shown
to facilitate the development of two languages simultaneously. To ignore
these topics would be both a great disservice to you, our reader, and a
naive appraisal of an increasingly diverse and technological society. The
following brief introductions to these topics will orient you to relevant
background information in these critical areas.

Tech Tips. In each chapter of this book, we will include a small section
focused on how technology can help you build the skills that we discuss in
that chapter, as well as how to ensure that technology does not negatively
affect your child’s development of these skills. As we write this book, our
society is in the midst of a transition from relying primarily on print to

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xv 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 xvi Preface

digital information, and this new phenomenon affects all families. In

the past decade, an increasing amount of research has been conducted
that explores how parents are integrating new technologies into their
households and how these new media are influencing learning and reading
together in the home environment. The launch of the iPad in 2010 helped
this phenomena hit a tipping point. Parents, educators, and researchers are
working hard to identify the ways in which digital books, games, and other
content shape household interactions, as well as the types of opportunities
children have to learn outside the home—in schools, museums, libraries,
and in the car. These new tools provide parents with many ways to use
digital media and apps appropriately to promote literacy.
However, there are also many concerns people have about these new
technologies, from determining the appropriate content and amount of
screen time for children of a particular age to making sure that children
are safe when using the Internet. Some of the big questions parents have
include:

• How Much Screen Time Do Children Log Per Day?

• A recent large-scale study by the Kaiser Family Foundation2
found that children ages eight to eighteen spent more than seven
hours a day using some form of digital media. By multitasking
(for example, watching a movie while playing on the computer),
children actually managed to view almost eleven hours of media
content during that time. The amount of screen time that
children log each day continues to increase as smartphones and
tablets make it easier to access media content at any time.
• How Much Screen Time Do Experts Say Children Should Get
Per Day? Why?
• The American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) discourages
television watching and the use of other digital media for
children younger than two years old and suggests limiting
screen time for older children to less than one to two hours per
day.3 The AAP found that for each hour that children younger
than two years old spent watching television alone, they spent
close to the same amount of time not interacting with parents
or siblings during the day and lost out on valuable opportunities

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xvi 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 Preface xvii

for vocabulary development. This finding makes sense—we

have a limited number of hours in each day, so time spent using
technology can easily end up being time spent not interacting
with people. And as we will discuss throughout this book,
many of the most important activities for language and literacy
development require play, conversation, and shared book
reading between a child and caregiver . . . all activities that can
best be accomplished when the television is turned off and the
smartphone is put away.

That said, it is very common to see families using technology tools in

ways that are not consistent with the recommendations of the AAP and
other organizations who provide such guidelines. Our goal in writing
this book is to meet you and your child where you are right now and
to help you do more to support your child’s reading development. We
assume you may already be using technology tools with your child, and
therefore, although we respect the recommendations made by these gov-
erning bodies, we want to help you find more effective ways to use those
technology tools to which your child has already been introduced. A gen-
eral rule of thumb is that technology can be helpful as a supplement to
the language and literacy activities you already engage in with your child,
and harmful as a replacement for the language and literacy activities you
already engage in with your child.
You can also make decisions about when to use technology and when
to stick with old-fashioned methods. Some language and literacy skills
may make sense to foster in your older toddler or elementary school age
child by using technology tools, and other skills may best be developed
solely through interpersonal interactions. Here are some major benefits
of these technology tools:

• They allow for immediate access to the materials you want

to watch or download.
• These tools can allow your child access to materials that might
be hard to find otherwise or as quickly. Technology allows you
to “strike while the iron is hot” and get your child engaged in a
language or literacy activity when he’s in the mood for one.

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xvii 11/21/2013 7:28:03 PM

 xviii Preface

• Your child can learn through repetition.

• Repetition can be both helpful and harmful, and the ability
to watch or play the same thing repeatedly is also a common
concern parents have about technology. That said, there is
variability in the skills that children need to learn and some, like
learning to recognize and pair letter sounds and letter names,
require more exposure and practice to acquire. Technology is a
way to supplement the number of exposures your child needs,
especially when your time is limited. When your child does need
practice with a particular skill and you do not have the time to
help him, technological tools can be useful.
• Educational computer games or applications can be highly
motivating for children.
• Children often stay engaged in academic activities because
of the interesting graphics, opportunities to win points,
rewards, or praise, and interactive feedback. High-quality
technology tools are capable of being responsive to your child
by providing individualized feedback and tailoring the difficulty
level of questions and materials as appropriate. Lower-quality
technology tools, while also easily accessible, do not take your
child’s needs and abilities into account in the same way as the
tools that have been developed to serve a true educational
purpose. It is important for you to monitor what your child is
watching and playing to make sure that the technology tools he
uses are high quality.

Although we are reluctant to provide references to online tools because

we have no way of knowing how long these websites and applications will
be accessible to readers, we do so sparingly in the Tech Tips section in
each chapter in order to provide you with clear examples of technology
tools that might be useful. We have tried to pick only those websites and
applications that we think will be accessible over time, and will update
this information on our website regularly. We will also share some guide-
lines that you can use to select appropriate applications and websites
independently. After reading this book, you will understand which lan-
guage and literacy skills are most important to acquire and why, which

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xviii 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

 Preface xix

will make you a more informed consumer of educational technology and

understand that there is high value in some, but not all, of these tools.

English Language Learners. This section in each chapter is focused

on children learning English as a second language (L2) and how
parents can support their development of language and literacy skills
in both it and their first language (L1). If your child is on the road to
multilingualism, we want to congratulate you and tell you about the
benefits that come along with fluency in multiple languages. As a parent,
you play an important role in helping your child acquire English language
skills and in fostering the development of his home or first language. We
also want to assure you that you and your child can still use all of the tips
and strategies described in this book in your first language. Researchers
have demonstrated that the same skills that predict reading success in
monolingual English speakers also play an important role in the literacy
development of children learning English as a second language.4 These
skills are highlighted in each chapter of this book, such as oral language
and vocabulary development, phonological awareness, and print
knowledge. Some of these language and literacy skills transfer easily
across languages (like phonemic awareness), while other skills are less
directly connected (like vocabulary). By focusing on the development of
these skills in both languages, you will certainly help your child become a
better reader, writer, and speaker because scores of research studies show
that strengthening abilities in your child’s first language will help him
become a better reader, writer, and speaker in both languages.5 Below,
we include an overview of the research looking at the development of
multilingualism.
Contrary to what many believe, exposing your child to a new lan-
guage will not impede her development of her first language.7 Initially,
developing two languages simultaneously may be more challenging or
emerge more slowly for your child than developing just one,8 but ulti-
mately this challenge will be beneficial for her in the mastery of both
languages.9 In fact, research has demonstrated that learning two lan-
guages actually fosters brain development, such that areas of the brain
dedicated to language, memory, and attention are significantly different

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xix 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

 xx Preface

in monolinguals and bilinguals.10 This positive influence on brain devel-

opment will promote children’s cognitive development and flexibility,
especially in language processing.11 Thus, helping your child acquire L2
will not have negative effects on her language development; instead, she
will acquire both languages with time. An important point to empha-
size is that, in developing proficiency in L2, your child will actually be
improving her skills in reading, spelling, and writing for both L1 and L2.
We will tell you a bit more about how second language development can
affect these specific literacy skills.
Specialists in the domain of multilingualism have demonstrated a
cross-language transfer of reading comprehension ability in individuals
who are bilingual.12 What this means, according to these researchers, is
that the ability to understand written information can transfer across
languages for children of all ages and from both L1 to L2 and L2 to L1.
Cross-language transfer, then, may be thought of as a “cognitive tool” that
activates and then transforms a child’s background knowledge; which is
helpful in the development of both languages.13 The instructional strate-
gies we provide will help you to expand your child’s background knowledge
and language skills in L1, as well as to promote the transfer of this infor-
mation to L2. As you will read in the chapter on Story Comprehension,
background knowledge is critical for reading comprehension.
Word recognition is closely associated with successful reading
comprehension, because we need to be able to identify words quickly
and accurately in order to focus on making meaning out of the words
we read.14 There are several steps involved in successful word recogni-
tion: first, an oral form (the spoken word) is mapped onto a visual
form (the written word), while at the same time meaning is assigned
to both the spoken and written word. Fluent readers complete this
mapping process rapidly, which supports reading comprehension.
Individuals who are learning multiple languages have an advantage
because word recognition skills in one language have been shown to
transfer to another language.15 In this way, fostering your child’s word
recognition skills in a second language will enhance her word recogni-
tion ability, which in turn facilitates her reading comprehension in
both languages.

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xx 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

 Preface xxi

The evidence for cross-language transfer is not limited to reading and

word recognition, but also is evident in writing.16 Knowledge of writing
in a bilingual child’s first language can carry over to the second, thereby
promoting the emergence of writing in the new written language.17
Moreover, learning another language can enhance knowledge of English
structure and vocabulary,18 two critical elements in the endeavor to write
proficiently in English. For example, several studies have demonstrated
that an individual’s literacy level in Chinese can predict abilities to write
in a second language.19 Finally, as in the case of language-specific strate-
gies transferring between languages, general writing strategies acquired
in the first language, such as generating ideas, backtracking, or planning,
can be used when writing in a second language.20 Therefore, developing
your child’s second language writing will be an amazing investment both
in your child’s first and second language.
One of the specific challenges for a beginning L2 writer is accurately
spelling words. Researchers have suggested that proficiency in spell-
ing translates into proficiency in writing and phonology, both critical
in understanding, remembering, and being able to efficiently retrieve
words from memory.21 Complicating the situation, however, is the fact
that English is not a “transparent” written language. This means that
multiple letter patterns can represent the same sounds (for example, rain
and reign) and similar patterns represent sounds differently based on
the letters that come before or after them in a written word (for example,
can and cane). This issue makes spelling particularly difficult for English
language learners, as well as for students whose first language is English.
However, children who learn to be aware of both the regular patterns
and irregular deviations from them in English will have a better oppor-
tunity for learning the language. For the child learning English as a sec-
ond language, an early focus on developing accurate spelling may have a
strong impact on the development of reading comprehension.22
In addition to these academic benefits of your child learning a sec-
ond language, maintaining your home language has invaluable social,
emotional, and cultural benefits. Staying connected with members of
your family who primarily speak this language strongly contributes to
your child’s developing sense of cultural and community identity. Not

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xxi 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

 xxii Preface

speaking to your child in your home language (when you want him to
learn English over the home language) has the potential to break down
the natural communication parents have with their children and create
a rift between home language/culture and the outside world. The ability
to speak two languages offers your child experiences with both cultures
and the connections between them. Knowledge of more than one lan-
guage opens the door to a wider array of music, literature, poetry, and
history found across cultures. This wide exposure sets the stage for your
child to develop greater compassion, empathy, and appreciation of dif-
ferent customs and values. Also, the need to consider a conversational
partner’s primary language gives bilingual children more opportunities
to develop perspective-taking skills (or the ability to “step into someone
else’s shoes” and appreciate that person’s thoughts and feelings) than
their monolingual peers. For a child raised in a Spanish-speaking house-
hold in the United States, it’s likely that she’ll speak with Spanish- and
English-speaking friends, family, and community members every day.
Understanding that others have different backgrounds allows a child
to modify her expectations depending on whom she is speaking with.
Developing this understanding will serve your bilingual child well as
she considers the perspective of others in the complexities of human
interaction.
As a parent of a blossoming bilingual child, you will find myriad ways
to successfully engage your child in learning two languages. Our goal is
to provide you with the ability to encourage and implement reading and
writing activities in two languages so that the journey toward bilingual
literacy will be less daunting and much more enjoyable for you both.

About Us

Our desire to write this book comes from two places. First, we are both
passionate readers. Books have been a source of inspiration, solace, and
escape for us, and we think that a love of literature enhances one’s life
and want to be sure that no child misses out on the chance to become
someone who reads for pleasure. Just as important, though, we are

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xxii 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

 Preface xxiii

driven by our professional experiences in schools and clinics. We have

both seen children who are frustrated and disengaged readers—because
reading is difficult for them, because reading makes them feel stupid,
because parents and teachers pushed them too much or not enough or
just not the right way—and parents who are confused about how to help
their children most. Even though these experiences are quite common,
we often neglect to think about the fact that reading is an emotional
experience for children and their caregivers. It always has been for us.
Jamie’s interest in the field of reading development, and her decision
to become a school psychologist, was propelled by a photograph that
hung in her bedroom throughout college. The moment captured in this
picture, of Jamie’s father sitting on the beach and reading intently—and
18-month-old Jamie perched in her own chair next to him, studying her
own picture book with fervent interest, is the perfect illustration of the
type of early exposure to books that jumpstarted Jamie’s lifelong love of
reading. A precocious reader who began reading independently during
kindergarten, Jamie received a great deal of attention and praise from
the adults in her life for her love of books. These behaviors—of opening a
book, talking about stories, and learning to sound out words—had been
reinforced even from the time Jamie was still wearing diapers. Reading
side-by-side with her parents, on the beach or on the couch, was a fre-
quent and magical part of Jamie’s childhood.
Although Jamie began reading to spend time with and receive atten-
tion from her parents, she began to derive her own intrinsic pleasure
from reading as she became a more sophisticated reader. In elementary
school, when Jamie had a disagreement with her friends or bickered with
her sister, diving into a book was the best way for her to make herself feel
better. She remembers devouring playful books by authors like Gordon
Korman (who wrote the Bruno and Boots series) and Ann M. Martin (who
wrote The Baby-sitter’s Club series), while also adoring more serious
books by Patricia MacLachlan, Natalie Babbit, and Katherine Paterson.
For someone who catches the reading bug, books become friends in
times of joy and in times of annoyance. To this day, one of the best ways
that Jamie knows how to cope with sadness or frustration is to pick up
a familiar book and visit with characters she adores. And in good times,

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xxiii 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

 xxiv Preface

selecting books to bring to the beach or on a vacation is one of the great

pleasures of her life.
Similarly, when Anne thinks back on her childhood, she remem-
bers a family that thrived on print: books, newspapers, and magazines.
Reading played a large role in her upbringing and both parents modeled
the joy that they derived from reading literature, history, and newspa-
pers. Anne could always rely on the comfort of reading a book with one
of her parents after an evening bath. Because her family shared a love of
literature, her mother often read two, three, and four books out loud to
her and her siblings every day. Growing up, her family visited the library
each week. Anne recalls poring over all the options available to her at the
library. Patrons were limited to taking out twelve books at a time, and
Anne would always take out the maximum possible, leaving the library
with a stack of books that reached her chin. Novels such as Misty of
Chincoteague opened up new and magical places and allowed her to enter
a world that satisfied her love of horses. Reading the Nancy Drew series
gave Anne an outlet—a place where she could read about the challenges
other people experienced and the solutions that they found—and where
she could invariably find comfort and excitement. To this day, Anne likes
to borrow and buy as many books as possible, because digging into sto-
ries and learning new information continue to bring her a great deal of
comfort and delight.
As a parent, Anne has passed along this enthusiasm for reading.
Sharing books with her son, Michael, has always been a joyful experi-
ence and an opportunity to introduce him to the worlds and characters
that have meant so much to her. When Michael was a baby, Anne would
cuddle with him on her lap in the rocking chair and read board book after
board book with him. Michael liked The Very Hungry Caterpillar the best,
perhaps because of the silly voices and sounds that Anne made while
reading. Anne was particularly excited when Michael, as a toddler, began
to pick up books and “read” them on his own. Sometimes the book was
upside down, and he certainly didn’t yet know that it was the letters on
the page that told his mother what to read, but he looked at the pages
intently and turned them until the end.

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xxiv 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

 Preface xxv

One of Anne’s favorite activities as Michael continued to grow older

was during the calm before bedtime, when it was just the two of them
away from the busy and hectic aspects of their day, and they could snug-
gle up together and read a few of Michael’s favorite books. By the time
he was three years old, he was hooked, and would bring book after book
to Anne wherever she was and ask her to read with him. She often had
things to do, but how could she say no to reading a book? Let’s just say
cooking dinner wasn’t a very efficient process in their household for a
couple years. Many of you can probably relate.
Our belief that reading is so important does not simply stem from
our personal experiences as readers. We also know this as professionals.
Jamie is a school psychologist by training, and her interest in the area
of reading research developed over time, as she was frequently asked to
evaluate older elementary school children and adolescents for special
educational services or to provide these students with social skills or
anger management training. Almost always, when she looked through
their cumulative records, she would see that all through elementary
school, often starting in kindergarten, their teachers had warned that
they were struggling as readers. But because help was not given soon
enough, these children began to have incredible difficulty making sense
of the information that was presented throughout each and every school
day—because reading is an essential part of math, science, and social
studies learning, too—and they began to misbehave instead of trying to
learn. For Jamie, once she knew of their reading difficulties, their frus-
tration seemed quite understandable.
This observation, that so many children who needed help in reading
at an early age were not getting it, is what inspired Jamie to become a
professor. By training the next generation of educators, she hopes to help
change the school system so that these students get help sooner. She
also continues to work with children and parents at Fairleigh Dickinson
University’s Center for Psychological Services. Her work with families
has shown her that teaching parents to serve as their children’s teach-
ers and therapists is tremendously powerful, because parents have the
opportunity to help children learn and practice new skills many times

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xxv 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

 xxvi Preface

every day. She hopes, as does Anne, that this book allows you to think of
yourself as your child’s first teacher and guide.
As a young college student, Anne realized she loved sitting on the
stoop of Michigan State University’s Laboratory Preschool and inter-
acting with four- to five-year-old children. It became clear to her that
a career teaching young children would be ideal, and Anne turned her
energy toward becoming the best preschool and elementary school
teacher she could become. For almost a decade, Anne taught preschool
through elementary age students. During that time, Anne helped many
beginning readers unlock the magic of books, many kindergarteners and
first graders excitedly recognize new words, and second and third grad-
ers begin to comprehend the stories they read on their own. But in those
years she also witnessed firsthand how different students’ experiences
with reading and writing can be and how learning to read is actually one
of the most challenging and frustrating educational accomplishments
for a number of children.
Anne’s curiosity about these differences and desire to prevent read-
ing difficulties caused her to embark on her career in research. Anne was
trained as a developmental psychologist at the University of Michigan
and for the next 20 years she conducted groundbreaking research that
contributed to our current understanding of the ways that children learn
to read and the ways in which parents and teachers can support them.
Anne’s research demonstrated that learning to perceive and hear the
sounds of the English language is a causal factor in determining who will
become a skilled or less-skilled reader, and that kindergarten through
second grade children spontaneously “self-teach” spelling patterns
of words when reading. In a series of carefully conducted studies with
Dr. Keith Stanovich from the University of Toronto, she also demon-
strated the relationship between reading volume and the development
of student’s reading ability, vocabulary and general knowledge about
the world. As a professor at the Graduate School of Education of the
University of California, Berkeley, she has also been able to accomplish
her goal of preventing reading difficulties on a large scale because of the
many opportunities to translate this research to families and practitio-
ners and affect policy at local, national, and international levels.

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xxvi 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

 Preface xxvii

Indeed, as a former classroom teacher, Anne was, and still is, very
interested in how the support adults provide to a child early on can affect
the development of the skills that cultivate long-term achievement and
motivated readers. Although Anne studies the development of reading
throughout the lifespan, she has become more and more focused on the
earliest years of children’s lives, because of the substantial evidence that
these years provide the greatest (but not only) window of opportunity
to support a child in becoming a capable, confident, and avid reader.
Her current research with early childhood educators has focused on the
information that young children need to develop the building blocks of
language and literacy required to become lifelong readers. As their chil-
dren’s first teachers, it is important for parents to have this information
as well.
We wanted to share this background information with you so you had
a sense of how we have both helped parents and teachers use this type of
information most effectively. It has been such a privilege for us to work
with parents who are passionate about education and child develop-
ment, and we have always been gratified when our perspective can help
someone build on the great work they are already doing at home. It is our
hope that this book will help you master a full set of practical tools and
interpersonal strategies to help build your child’s foundation as a reader.

Conclusion

As we wrote this book, we thought about what type of interaction you,

as a parent, would want to have with this text. There are some basic prin-
ciples that come up in each of the following chapters that can help guide
reading time with your child. In the next section of this book, Introduction
to Shared Reading: Definitions and Practices, we want to describe to you
exactly what shared reading is and how to engage your child in his or her
zone of proximal development (a term we promise to define!) while pro-
viding scaffolding and praise. These ideas are so important to what we
are talking about throughout the book that we want to emphasize them
here. They are core practices we will talk about again and again.

01_9780199843930-FM-Int-Ch01.indd xxvii 11/21/2013 7:28:04 PM

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 CHAPTER XII.
OBSERVATIONS ADDRESSED TO EUGÈNE BY PAUL, AND
THE REPLIES MADE TO THEM.

Paul, with his head bent over the paper covered with sketches, and
his hands between his knees, could not help thinking, for his part,
that his cousin was covering a good deal of paper in making ceilings,
whereas they had always seemed to him the simplest thing in the
world, and the least susceptible of complication. In his own mind, in
fact, Paul made scarcely any distinction between a sheet of paper
stretched on a board, and a ceiling. So when Eugène had repeated
the phrase, “Is it quite clear to you?” Paul hesitated a little, and said,
“I think so,” adding, after a pause—
“But, cousin, why not make floors and ceilings as they do
everywhere else?”
“It seems to you a complicated affair, my dear fellow,” replied
Eugène, “and you would like to simplify the matter.”
“It is not exactly that,” rejoined Paul; “but how do they manage it
generally; do they employ all these contrivances? I have not seen
what you call bearers, and trimmer-joists, and trimmers and corbels,
in any of the ceilings I am acquainted with. It is possible, then, to
dispense with them, is it not?”
“None of these appliances are dispensed with in ceilings of
carpentry work, but they are concealed by a coat of plaster; and, as I
was telling you just now, this covering of plaster is one of the causes
of the decay of wooden floorings. In all these floorings there are
trimmer-joists and trimmers next the flues and hearths; sometimes
there are also bearers. All this is bound together by iron work, to
form a rigid framing between two plane surfaces with as little space
as possible between them. In Paris, where the houses are very dry,
this method is still allowable; but in the country it is difficult to obviate
the damp, and inclosed ceilings of this kind run the risk of soon
falling into decay. The timbers must be exposed to the air, (I say
once more) if we would preserve them. This framework of wooden
floorings exists in all that are constructed with these materials, only
you do not see it. Now it is desirable in architecture to make use of
the necessities of the construction as a means of decoration, and
frankly to acknowledge those necessities. There is nothing
discreditable in allowing them to be seen; and it is a mark of good
taste, good sense and knowledge, to exhibit them by making them
contribute to the decoration of the work. In fact, to people of good
taste and good sense, this is the only kind of decoration that is
satisfactory, because it alone is suggested by the requirements.
“We have accustomed ourselves in France to decide everything,
but especially questions of Art, by what is called sentiment. This is a
convenient state of things for many persons, who presume to talk
about Art without having ever had a pair of compasses, a pencil, a
modelling tool, or a paint-brush in their hands; and professional men
have gradually lost the habit of reasoning, finding it easier to take
refuge in the conclusions of those amateurs who fill pages while
really saying nothing to the purpose, and in so doing flatter the taste
of the public while perverting it. Little by little, architects themselves,
who of all artists should make good use of reasoning in their
conceptions, have acquired the habit of concerning themselves only
with appearances, and no longer trying to make these harmonize
with the necessities of the structure. At last these necessities have
come to be looked at by them as annoyances; they have concealed
them so completely, that the skeleton of an edifice—if I may so call it
—is no longer in harmony with the dress it puts on. We see on the
one hand a structure,—often left to the mercy of contractors, who
manage it as best they can, but naturally in subservience to their
own interests,—on the other hand a form which indifferently suits
that structure. With your permission, then, we will not follow this
example, but will produce a building, unassuming it may be, yet one
in which not a detail shall be found that is not the result either of a
necessity of the structure or of the requirements of its occupants. It
will not cost us more on that account; and when the work is
completed, we shall rest satisfied that there has been nothing
disguised nor factitious, nor useless, in what we have produced, and
that the architectural organism we have built will always allow us to
see its organs, and how these organs perform their functions.”
“How is it, then,” rejoined Paul, “that so many architects do not
show (as you propose to do here) those necessities of the
construction, but disguise them? Why do they act in that way? Who
obliges them to do so?”
“It would take a long time to explain that to you.”
M. de Gandelau entered at these last words of the conversation.
“We have worse and worse news,” said he. “The German armies
are spreading everywhere; we must expect to see the enemy here.
Poor France!... But what were you saying?”
“Nothing,” replied Eugène, “that can have any interest in presence
of our disasters.... I was trying to make Paul understand that in
architecture we should not disguise any of the means of
construction, and that it is even in the interest of this art to avail itself
of them as a basis for decoration; that, in a word, we should be
sincere, that we should reason and trust only to ourselves——”
“Certainly!” rejoined M. de Gandelau, “you lay your finger on our
plague-spot as a nation—— To reason, to trust only to ourselves, to
get a clear idea of everything and of every fact by study and labour,
to leave nothing to chance, to disguise nothing from one’s self or
from others; not to take phrases for facts——not to fancy ourselves
protected by tradition or routine—— Yes, this is what we should have
done—— It is too late, and who can tell whether, after the
misfortunes which I anticipate, our country will recover enough
elasticity, patience, and wisdom to leave sentiment and keep to
reason and serious work! Try to teach Paul to reason, to habituate
himself to method, to acquire a love for mental labour; and whether
he becomes an architect, an engineer, a soldier, a manufacturer, or
an agriculturist like myself, you will have rendered him the most
valuable service. Above all, may he never become a mere half-
savant, half-artist, or a half-practitioner in any department—writing or
talking about everything, but incapable of doing anything himself.
Work! The more sinister the character of the news we receive,—the
more heavily they weigh upon our hearts,—the more energetically
should we give ourselves to useful and practical labour.
Lamentations are to no purpose. Work!”
“Let us go and look at the building,” said Eugène, who saw that
Paul continued in a meditative mood, and was scarcely inclined to
set to work again.
Fig. 35.—view of the building operations
 CHAPTER XIII.
THE VISIT TO THE BUILDING.

The building was beginning to assume a definite shape; the plan was
becoming visible above the ground. About twenty masons and
stonecutters, four carpenters and their helpers, enlivened this
quarter of the neighbourhood. Carts filled with bricks, sand and lime,
were coming in. Two timber-sawyers were cutting up trunks of trees
into planks; a small movable forge had been lighted under the
shelter of a clump of trees, and was used for repairing tools, with the
prospect of being called into requisition for forging iron straps,
cramps, bands, and lintel bars. A beautiful autumnal sun was
shedding a warm but subdued light on the busy scene. This
spectacle succeeded in effacing from Paul’s mind the gloomy
impression left by his father’s words. Under this aspect work did not
seem to him invested with that harsh and rugged form which had at
first somewhat scared our holiday pupil. Paul proceeded therefore to
follow his cousin over the ground as an attentive clerk of works (Fig.
35), listening with great care to his observations.
“Here is a stone, Master Branchu,” said Eugène, “which must not
be put in; it has a flaw, and as it would be a lintel, it must be
rejected.”
“But, sir, the flaw doesn’t go far.”
“Far or not, I disallow it,—do you understand? Paul, you will take
care that it be not laid.... Observe this little chink that is barely visible;
strike the stone with this hammer on both sides. Just so; the ring of
the stone is dull on this side; well, that proves to you that it is not
sound, and with the help of the frost this piece on the right side will
separate from its neighbour.... Here are some bricks that you will not
let them use: see how cracked they are; these white spots too ...
they are particles of limestone which the fire has converted into lime.
When the damp acts upon them these particles of lime swell and
burst the brick. You must take care before allowing bricks to be used
to have them well moistened. Those which contain portions of lime
will fall to pieces and so will not be used.”
“But, my good sir,” said Branchu, “it isn’t my fault; the bricks are
not my business.”
“No; but it is your business to send back those that are defective to
the brickmaker, and not to pay him for them, since you have
undertaken to get them supplied; that will teach him to clear his
ground thoroughly of bits of limestone. There is some sand with clay
in it, see how it sticks to one’s fingers! Master Branchu, I must have
none but good coarse sand; you know well where that is to be got.
This has been taken from the edge of the pit; it is good for nothing
but to be put in the haunches of the cellar vaults for filling up; do not
allow it to be used in the mortar—you understand, Paul! Mortar
requires well granulated clean sand, the grains of which do not
adhere to each other; and observe,—before using it have a few
bucketfuls of water thrown on the heap. Take care, too, that the
mortar is not mixed on the ground, but on a wood platform. You have
done so hitherto, that is quite right; but take care that it is never
made in any other way; if you are in a hurry for it, and one platform is
not enough, have two. Be very careful too, Paul, to see that the
stones are all well bedded in mortar.”
“Oh! you needn’t trouble yourself, sir, I never do otherwise.”
“Yes, I know very well, that for basements and hard stone this is
pretty sure to be attended to; but higher up your workmen are very
apt to lay the stones on wedges and run the beds with liquid mortar,
which is easier. Be very careful about this, Paul. All the stones ought
to be laid over their place, on thick wedges, leaving a void of two and
a half to three inches; the mortar ought to be spread below over the
whole surface, and be about three-quarters of an inch thick; then
take away the four wedges, and the stone settling down on the
mortar, it must be struck with a great wooden beetle till the joint is
only three-eighths of an inch everywhere, and the surplus mortar is
pressed out all round——”
“Here are some hollow beds, Master Branchu; you must have
them re-dressed.”
 “What is a hollow bed?” said Paul to his cousin, in a whisper.
“It is a concave bed surface of a stone,”
replied Eugène, and added, taking his
note-book:
“Here (Fig. 36), you can understand that
if the bed of a stone presents the section a
b, the middle c being more hollow than
the edges, the stone in question rests on
the latter only; consequently if the
pressure is considerable the corners d e
split off; we then say that the stone is
flushed. It is better that the surfaces
should be made as sketched at g, and
Fig. 36.
should not rest upon their edges.
“Till now, Master Branchu, you have
been raising your building by means of runs or inclined planes, but
we are getting high; we shall soon want scaffolding.
“As we are building with range-work, using dressed stone above
the plinth only at the angles, and for the door and window casings,
you will leave scaffolding holes between these wall stones. Then you
will only want scaffolding-poles and put-logs. For raising the material
the carpenter is going to make you a hoist, and you will employ the
crab which I shall have sent from Chateauroux, where I have no use
for it just now.”
“If it’s the same to you, sir, I prefer our machine.”
“What!... your wheel concern, in which you put a couple of men
like squirrels?”
“Yes.”
“Well, as you like; nevertheless I mean to send for the crab; you
shall try it.”
“In fact,” said Eugène aside to Paul, “his machine, which dates, I
believe, from the Tower of Babel, raises the loads, when they are not
too heavy, much more easily than our winches; and as we have no
very heavy stones to raise, we will not oppose his wishes on this
point.” And turning to the master mason:
“It is a settled matter, Master Branchu, that we do not allow any
after-dressing, except for some very delicate mouldings or chamfers
if occasion requires; you will set your stones completely dressed with
only here and there a little thickness to be worked off.”
“Certainly, Mr. Architect, certainly; I would rather build like that.”
“So much the better, I am glad of it.” And addressing Paul: “I know
nothing more injurious than the custom that prevails in some great
cities of after-dressing buildings. Rough blocks are laid; then when
all is built, up they go and cut, pare, sink, scrape, mould, and carve
these shapeless masses, most frequently regardless of the jointing;
without considering that they thus take away, especially from soft
stone, that hard crust which it forms on its surface when newly cut on
leaving the quarry, and which resists the inclemency of the weather;
a crust which is never formed again when the materials have once
produced it and have thrown off what is called their quarry-damp.
Happily, in many of our provinces the excellent custom has been
retained of cutting each stone on the ground, once for all, in that
form which it is permanently to keep; and when once laid, the stone-
cutter’s tool does not touch it again. Independently of the advantage
I have just pointed out to you, this method requires more care and
attention on the part of the dressers, and it is not possible then to put
the beds and joints anywhere at random. Each stone, on this plan,
has its proper destination, and consequently the form suitable to its
place. Lastly, when a building is once raised, it is finished: there is no
occasion to do anything more to it. I must add, that this method
requires on the part of the architect, a complete and finished study of
each part of the work at every stage in his arrangement of the parts
of the structure.”
 CHAPTER XIV.
PAUL FEELS THE NECESSITY OF IMPROVING HIMSELF IN
THE ART OF DRAWING.

One thing astonished Paul,—the facility with which his cousin could
express with a few strokes of his pencil what he wished to explain.
His perspective sketches, above all, seemed to him marvellous; and
our young architect began, on his part, to try to indicate on paper the
forms he wished to master; but, to his great disappointment, he
succeeded only in producing a mere medley of lines which was
incomprehensible, even to himself, a quarter of an hour afterwards.
Yet in drawing out his memoranda, to which his cousin attached
importance, he could not but feel that the means employed by his
chief would be very useful to him if he could acquire them.
One day, therefore, after having spent several hours at the works
in endeavouring to get a clear idea, by sketching them, of the form of
some worked stones, but without succeeding in obtaining a result
even tolerably satisfactory, Paul went to his cousin’s study, and said
to him—
“What I have learned of linear drawing is evidently not enough to
enable me to render on paper the forms which you are able to
explain so readily by a sketch; I beg you therefore, cousin, to teach
me how to set about representing clearly what I have before me, or
what I wish to explain.”
“I like to see you so anxious to learn, Paul; indeed, this is half the
battle, though only the half, and in fact the easier one. I shall not be
able to teach you in eight days, nor even in six months, the art of
drawing with facility either the objects you see, or those which you
conceive in your brain; but I will give you the method you must
follow; and with labour,—much labour and time,—you will arrive, if
not at perfection, at least at clearness and precision. Drawing implies
not mere seeing, but considering an object. All who are not blind,
see; but how many are there who know how to see, or who in seeing
reflect? Very few, certainly; because we are not habituated to this
exercise from childhood. All the higher orders of animals see as we
do, since their eyes are very similar to ours; they have even the
memory associated with vision, as they recognize the objects or the
beings which they like or dread or of which they make their prey. But
I do not think that animals acquire a notion of bodies or surfaces
otherwise than by an instinctive faculty without the intervention of
what we call reasoning. Many of our fellow-men do not see in any
other way; but it is their fault, since they could reason. But that is not
the question now. The following is the method I propose to you:

Fig. 37.
“You know what triangles and squares are; you have studied
elementary geometry, and you seem to me to be tolerably familiar
with it, since you could evidently understand the plans, the sections,
and even the projections of bodies on a vertical or horizontal plane;
or else my sketches would not have been intelligible to you. I should
wish you therefore to take some cards, and drawing to a scale on
each of them the various faces of a stone you see worked, you will
cut out these surfaces with scissors, and with the help of strips of
paper and paste you will join them, so as to represent one or two of
these pieces of stone. The little model will thus become familiar to
you; you will know how the surfaces are joined, and what are the
angles they form. In the evening, by lamp-light, you will place these
little models before you in every possible position, and copy them as
they present themselves to your eyes, taking care to indicate by a
dotted line the junction lines of the surfaces which you do not see.
Stay,—here on my table is a rhombohedron of wood, which, as you
know and see, presents six similar and equal faces whose sides are
equal, each of these faces consisting of two equilateral triangles
united at their base. See (Fig. 37), I take this body between my
fingers by its two vertices; if I show it to you in such a position that
one of its faces is parallel to the plane of vision, the two others will
present themselves obliquely (as at a); you see three faces
therefore, but there are three others behind that are hidden from you.
How would these present themselves if this body were transparent?
Just as indicated by the dotted lines. If I make the rhombohedron
revolve between my fingers, so that two faces are perpendicular to
the plane of vision, (as at b), two faces only will continue visible, two
others will be hidden from me, and two follow the two lines a b, c d.
Now, I present the rhombohedron so that none of its faces are
parallel or perpendicular to the plane of vision,—thus (vide c.) Well, I
shall still see three faces, but foreshortened—thrown out of shape by
perspective; and the three others will be indicated by the dotted
lines. In the evenings, therefore, make as many little models as you
can, representing the stones you have seen at the works, and copy
these little models in every position. Throw them at random on the
table, several together, and copy what you see; mark what is hidden
from you by a dotted or finer line. When you have practised this for a
week, many difficulties will have been already conquered. And then
for further advance.”
 Fig. 38.

This method pleased Paul very much, and, without losing time,
with the help of some of his memoranda, he began to construct a
little model of one of the stones whose faces he had measured. It
was the springer of an arch with a return face. He succeeded in
making a tolerably good model in card-board, which he proudly
displayed on the family table after dinner, and which he copied first
on its under-bed, then as placed in various positions. He would have
continued his work all night, so much was he fascinated with it, and
so many interesting discoveries did it enable him to make, if at
eleven o’clock Madame de Gandelau had not warned him that it was
time to go to bed. Paul had some trouble in getting to sleep, and his
dreams presented to him nothing but card-board models of a very
complicated description, which he endeavoured unsuccessfully to
put together. So he got up rather late, and on entering his cousin’s
room, did not fail to attribute his tardy appearance to the bad night
he had passed.
“Well,” said Eugène, “you have got the descriptive geometry fever;
so much the better; it cannot be learned well unless you have a
passion for it. We will work at it together when the frost suspends our
building operations and the bad weather shuts us up here. An
architect must be able to use descriptive geometry, as we spell
correctly,—without having to think about it. Perspective must be
absolutely familiar to him. Neither can be learned too soon; and it is
only in early youth that these things can be acquired so thoroughly
as to give us no trouble at any time to recall them, even if we should
live a hundred years. You are a good swimmer; and if you fall into
the water you have no need to remind yourself what movements you
must make to keep at the surface or direct your course: well, it is in
this way you ought to know geometry and perspective; only you must
give a little more time to practising this essential branch of our art
than is required for learning to swim like a frog.”
Fig. 39.—Plans and Section of the Principal Stairs.
 CHAPTER XV.
CONSIDERATION OF THE STAIRCASES.

It was time to give the details required for the execution of the
staircases. Eugène had told Paul to prepare these details; but Paul,
as may be imagined, had not been very successful in accomplishing
his task, and had only furnished an imbroglio perfectly unintelligible
to others as well as to himself, notwithstanding the summary hints
given by the architect in chief.
“Come,” said Eugène, “we must apply ourselves to this work
together. Branchu and the carpenter are asking for details.
“Let us take first the principal stairs, and mark their walls (Fig. 39).
For the height of the ground floor we have 15 feet, including the
thickness of the flooring; and the steps ought not to be more than 6
inches high, each of them: we must therefore reckon thirty steps
from the level of the ground floor to the level of the first floor. In
breadth or in tread—the term used by builders—a step ought to be
from 10 inches to a foot, to give an easy ascent. Thirty steps
therefore require an extension of from 25 to 30 feet. I think I told you
this before, when we drew the plan of the ground floor. If we take the
middle of the space reserved for the steps, on our plan, we find
exactly 30 feet; marking therefore the steps on this middle line, and
giving them 11 inches tread, we can get two landing-places in the
angles at a, a′. We will make these steps wind so as to avoid sharp
angles near the newel. The first step will be at b, the last at c. At d,
under the stairs, we will make the partition, which will allow us to
form the water-closet at a´. Since at the landing-place, a, we have
ascended eighteen steps (each 6 inches in height), we shall have 8
feet 6 inches under the ceiling, which is more than sufficient. We will
light it by a window, e. The two windows, f, will light the staircase
and follow the level of the steps, as the elevation shows. For nothing
is more ridiculous than to cut across windows by the steps of a
staircase; and although this is done constantly, it is one of the
absurdities which a builder ought to avoid. From the servants’
passage, g, the water-closet will be entered by the door h.
“Let us now draw the elevation, or rather the vertical projection of
these stairs. This is how we proceed: we draw the walls in elevation,
then divide the height to be ascended into as many parts as there
are to be steps, as I do at i. Projecting these divisions horizontally on
the elevation, and the ends of the stairs vertically with the walls and
the newel, indicated on the plan, we get, by the meeting of these two
projections, the section of the stairs along the walls and against the
newel.
“There we have it; the last step is then at k, on the level of the floor
of the first story. To reach the second story, we have 13 feet 3 inches
to ascend from one floor to the next. Giving 6⅛ inches to each step,
we get twenty-six steps, minus a fraction which is not worth counting.
We shall therefore preserve in plan the drawing of the first revolution,
starting from the step, l, which gives thirteen steps to the point m.
From this point we will draw the thirteen remaining steps to complete
the number twenty-six, as I have marked on the supplementary plan
at n. Then for the elevation we will proceed as above. We shall thus
get the general section from v to x for the two stories. The drawing
being completed, the next question is of what material the steps are
to be made. Contained between walls and a newel, which is a wall
itself, we can, if we think well, make them each of a single block of
stone. However, that is scarcely practicable in this neighbourhood,
because we should have difficulty in procuring hard, compact, fine
stone, suitable for this object. We will therefore content ourselves
with making the first step only of stone, and the others of wood,
covering them with good oak board; and to avoid inserting them in
the walls, we will provide a projecting-string in stone, forming a
bracketing along the walls and the newel, to receive their ends, as
shown here (Fig. 40). We will lath these steps on the underside
where they are to be left in the rough, and plane them only on the
face, or riser, a. That they may be firm in their place, we will fasten
them with stays, b, which will be covered by the boards forming the
tread, and will be fixed into the holes, c.
 Fig. 40.
“As regards the servants’ winding staircase, we will make it of hard
stone, each step carrying a portion of the newel, as sketched here
(Fig. 41).
“Now try to put these instructions in a regular form, that you may
be able to give the details readily to the mason and carpenter.”
With considerable labour Paul succeeded in making a tolerably
complete drawing from the indications furnished by his cousin: but
the latter was obliged often to help him; for his clerk was not an
expert in elementary descriptive geometry, and these projections
presented difficulties at every turn. Paul got into confusion with his
lines, took one point for another, and would many a time have