[originaltext] Teachers and parents normally call attention to the pictures

Teachers and parents normally call attention to the pictures when they read storybooks to preschool children. But a study published in 2011 suggests that calling attention to the words and letters on the page may lead to better readers.
    The study compared children who read in this way in class with those who did not.(34)Children whose teachers most often discussed the print showed clearly higher skills in reading, spelling and understanding. These results were found one year and even two years later.
    Shayne Piasta, an assistant professor at Ohio State University, is an author of the study. She says most preschool teachers would find this method manageable and would need only a small change in the way they teach. They already read storybooks in class. The only difference would be increased attention to the printed text.
    Ms. Piasta says if you get children to pay attention to letters and words, it makes sense that they will do better at word recognition and spelling. But she says the research suggests that very few parents and teachers do this in a systematic way.
    There are different ways that adults can talk to children about the print. They can point to a letter and discuss it, and even make the shape with a finger. They can point out a word: " This is ’ dog. ’ " They can discuss the meaning of the print or how the words tell the story. And they can talk about the organization of the print—for instance, showing how words are written left to be right in English.
33. What do teachers and parents usually pay attention to when they are telling stories?
34. What happened to kids whose teachers often discussed words and letters?
35. How can teachers and parents talk to kids about the print?