Dear Abby Reader Suggests Closed Captioning to Improve Reading Skills

One of Dear Abby's readers offered a brilliant suggestion this week to parents who want to improve their children's reading skills. I'm sharing this advice here in case any of my home schooling parent readers missed it.

"Proud Parents" explained to Abby that her children often prefer watching television to reading. In trying to address this problem, she and her husband came up with a good compromise. "We mute the television and have the children read the words instead of listening," she wrote. "It works great! Their reading skills have soared, and I have noticed they are now reading more books than they used to."

This clever mother also noted that she enjoys the quiet time when their family "watches" TV.

If anyone cares to comment on this idea, write to http://www.DearAbby.com or PO Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.