The Gift of Reading: A Guide for Educators and Parents

Dave Hutchinson is assistant superintendent of the School District of
Mystery Lake in Thompson, Manitoba.

The Gift of Reading begins with an autobiographical narrative of the
author’s journey into literacy and evolves into a comprehensive
literacy development support guide for parents, teachers, and
administrators. Although many of the ideas and strategies Bouchard
recommends appear to be the exclusive domain of the classroom teacher,
parents are reassured that this is simply not so. Developing a
children’s literature collection, encouraging the self-selection of
interesting reading material, reading aloud, establishing regular
reading times, and turning off the television constitute a fraction of
the good advice offered to parents. In addition, a host of effective
child and adolescent literacy development instructional strategies are
put forward for the benefit of classroom teachers.

Clearly, Bouchard favors a holistic language development philosophy,
replete with a varied collection of books in the classroom and
continuous opportunities for appropriate modeling via the classroom
teacher, teacher-librarian, and school principal. Perhaps this text’s
greatest value would be as a support for the development of school-based
policy and practice in the area of literacy development. Principals in
particular would find The Gift of Reading an excellent springboard for
such an endeavor.