Happy Reading Moments

I wouldn't call my kids avid readers. One or two of them might be heading that direction, but I still have to encourage reading, or bedtime might be the only time it happens. And life has been busy lately, and there have been plenty of days when it only happens at bedtime. Oh, and naptime too!

Yes, my kids like books. But like most kids (and adults), they can often be pulled other directions by life's busyness and distractions. I savor the moments I find my kiddos reading with little to no prompting from me. 

... Like at Chick Fil A. I love when there's a book in the kids meal, and my son begs me to read it to him instead of playing on the playground. This was one from the Franklin series. And he also still pulls his Chick Fil A Cowborg comic books from his bookshelf for me to read to him (his big brother is getting sick of them). 

We visited our local used bookstore and spent a fortune on all the books the kids carefully selected from the shelves. 

I cracked up when I found these books on our used bookstore visit. The top title is my 4 year old's excuse for not doing what I ask, and the bottom title is my 9 year old's excuse.

This is where I can find My Little Reader on the day his Lego Jr. magazine arrives in the mailbox. 

When my 9 year old is bored, he will resort to reading aloud to his little brother. Love catching them in these moments. 

My 4 year old also enjoys his Turtle magazine subscription!

The TV is right there, and yet she's curled up with her Nook! Yay!

She told me this past week that reading has become like watching TV to her. She says she doesn't want to stop reading. Have I mentioned she's gone up almost 2 reading levels since November? Very proud of her. 

Caught him reading a book from his Easter basket behind a chair. 

And just to keep it real, I will add to all this that my kids are total screen enthusiasts as well. We put limits on screen time, but could stay glued to it all day if we let them. There sure is more and more stuff competing with reading time now, isn't there? How do you encourage reading at your house?

Forget the Reading Race

My youngest son, My Little Reader, is now four years old and in preschool. It's becoming difficult not to notice now where other kids are with their literacy and reading skills and compare my little guy to them. I see his peers coming to class with him each week, and I'm in preschools every week working with my own Literacy Launchpad students... There's a pressure isn't there, to feel like your kid has to be right where every other kid is academically, or even ahead? I find myself stressing more and more lately that I'm not spending enough time working on this skill or that skill with my son and that he'll be behind all the other kids his age.BUT then I remember all that I learned in my studies in college, as well as in my years of teaching Literacy Launchpad - that it doesn't matter when a child learns to read, it matters how much they learn to love reading. And often, heavy-handed efforts to get our kids to start reading at an early age can leave them not really wanting to read. 

I was skimming through Jim Trealease's Read Aloud Handbook this week and he quotes an education adage, reminding parents that "'What we teach children to love and desire will always outweigh what we teach then to do.'" He goes on to say that "The fact is that some children learn to read sooner than others, and some better than others. There is a difference."

I felt encouraged as I read through the pages of Trelease's book. I was reminded of the power of simply reading to my kids as much as I can, giving them a rich literacy environment, and keeping away from flash card drilling and phonics worksheets as a means to teach my kids reading. 

Our eduction system seems to push for formal reading instruction at an earlier and earlier age. I've personally experienced parents that push teachers to do reading instruction earlier and earlier. Sometimes I see preschools teaching skills that kids aren't even developmentally ready to handle yet. Often our schools can be very good at teaching our kids how to read, but as Trelease points out, the research shows that they usually aren't very good at teaching them to want to read. 

Did you know Finland has higher reading scores than the US, but doesn't begin to formally teach their children to read till age seven? Our focus here in the states, in getting our kids to read early and to read well misses the point. None of that matters if they don't want to read. We end up with kids who read at school and not any other time. 

Trelease and the experts and researchers he quotes in his book don't think there's anything necessarily bad about early reading necessarily, but they feel a child should arrive at that skill on their own, without a structured time each day when someone is sitting down with them and teaching them letters, sounds, and syllables. 

I'm so glad I took some time to get my head back on straight this week. I'm thrilled that my kiddo enjoys books and gets excited about reading time. I need to forget about the big "reading race" and revel in that. I probably need to make space in our day for even more time to simply read books aloud to my son, and stick some of the phonics instruction books I've been eyeing back up on my shelf. My son might not be diving into the Harry Potter series solo anytime soon, but he sure does love him some books and that's what matters in the long run. 

Do you (or did you) ever worry that your child isn't learning certain skills early enough? Do you find yourself comparing your child to their peers like me? Tell me I'm not alone!

The Pretend Reading Milestone!

There is a lot of value in the pretend reading our little ones do before the real thing starts. It is an important pre-reading milestone! You can get an idea of your child's understanding of how reading works when they are pretend reading. Do they hold the book right? Do they understand where the words are that they "read?" Do they turn the pages the correct direction? Do they understand that it's the same story every time they read it?

These are all important things for pre-readers to grasp in order for real reading to eventually happen. Reading to your child frequently and regularly will teach them these important print concepts and book handling concepts. Letting them "read" to you (or their friends, or toys, or whomever) will help as well.

Use these pretend reading moments to ask questions if you can, gently guide them in how to handle the book... and to just revel in the adorableness of this milestone!

As you can see below, my son has evolved through various stages of pretend reading. You can see his progression in the videos here below.





It started out as with My Little Reader not really understanding much about book handling, or which way the pages turn or the text is read. He just wanted to "read" too!




Then he began to understand that the print told the story of what was happening in the illustrations. But he still didn't have a handle on which direction you read the words, or even turn the pages.






He started to become a little more solid in his book handling. (He's reading to his brother, who is in the shower.)






And then he understood that the story in a book was always the same every time you read it. He could remember and then retell the basic points of a story that he heard read to him once or twice.






Now he can memorize, almost verbatim, most of a story after hearing it once or twice.He understands that it's not just that the story and ideas in the story never change, but that there are specific words in the text that tell the story exactly the same way every time. And he's now beginning to genuinely sound out and read some of the simple words in some books. In this video, he reciting most of the text from memory, but the rhyming words he is sounding out and reading.

Does your little one like to pretend read? I would love to hear about it in the comments!

Keep 'Em Reading This Summer

Here's some ideas I've been thinking on for helping my kids continue working on their reading this summer:

- Read O'clock!
       Make reading part of your daily routine and schedule by establishing a time during the day when the whole family drops everything to read. This will be tricky to do in our house, and will require dedication on my part to stay consistent with it. But if I can get it to work, I think it could be marvelous for all of us!

- Enhance your summer outings and vacations by reading up on a topic or location before your trip.
        It can help build up anticipation for the trip, it can make your trip more enjoyable by helping you become more savvy about your destination, and it will make the trip more interesting for your kids.
       We're taking a Disney World trip this summer, and we're all having fun reading Disney books, watching Disney movies, and pouring through Disney travel guides!

- Participate in your library's summer reading program.
        Most libraries have all kinds of special events going on during the summer program. Our library is having a Star Wars party (what my boys are most excited about), puppets, crafts, magicians, reading partners (not exactly sure what this is yet), games, an animal presentation, etc. My kids are already excited about these events. We're going to try to make a weekly library trip part of our summer routine too.

- Learn a new hobby.
      Encourage your kiddos to use their free time this summer to learn a new hobby. Offer to help them, or offer to learn it with them. Then head to the library and get out all the books about that hobby that you can! Having a goal, feeling that thirst for information, can provide the right motivation to keep your kids eagerly hitting the books.

- Subscribe to a magazine
     This could work really well with the last idea mentioned. There's a magazine for everything, so get your child a subscription to a magazine that covers the topic of the hobby they're learning. That will be a fun surprise for them to watch for in the mail.

- PenPals!
     I'm going to see if I can set up a pen pal system between my kids and their cousin. This will be great practice for their reading and writing. And will give them something to look forward to receiving in the mailbox during the summer months. This also gives them a great opportunity to be creative with their writing; they can make cards, little books, lists, poems, charts, all kinds of things to have fun with!

What are you doing with your kiddos to keep them reading this summer? Share your ideas in the comments!

Fostering A Love For Reading: Part 5

Building Vocabulary

Photo by Samuel Mann

Maybe it sounds strange to say that building a child's vocabulary can help foster a love of reading in them. But consider this, vocabulary is one of the handful of essential skills a child must possess to be a successful reader. And if we want our children to enjoy reading, we must help them be good at it.

The great news is, building a child's vocab comes easy! Here's how:

1. Read! Yes, just read to your child. And while you're reading, define new words, and identify and discuss objects in the illustrations. Sometimes I'm tempted to breeze over specific objects on a page because I know my son doesn't know what it is yet. But then I realize that he will never know what it is if I don't tell him (DUH)!

And try not to over simplify things when you're reading. If you're going to take the time to identify objects in the book, you might as well identify them properly. You'll be surprised at how much your child can understand with your help. And you'll also be surprised at the big words they can say and remember!

2. Talk, talk, talk to your child. Explain what you just did, tell them what you are doing now, and explain what you're about to do next. Identify things around the house and at places you visit. Make up stories. Ask them questions.

I can tell you honestly that we (my husband and I) do these things (read and talk) with our son, and he has become quite the chatter box! We didn't really know he was such a chatter box till others (babysitters, friends, family) began telling us. I guess we assumed all kids his age jabbered all the time.

People ask us if he has more words (or talks more) than most children his age, and honestly, I don't know. I've read that a typical 20-month old has a vocab of 12-15 words, but that there are many that have larger vocabs than that. Isaac definitely has many more words than 12-15. And he's at that stage where he's surprising us every day with new words he's using. We love it... usually!

Something else helpful to remember when it comes to vocab: Books have much, much richer vocab than TV! And it's easier to talk more with your child when the TV isn't on, blaring and distracting you both from the opportunities to chat with one another.

A good vocabulary feeds right into another one of those necessary skills needed for reading success - fluency! Fluency is the ability to read quickly and easily. It's important for being a successful reader, because children who aren't fluent readers have a hard time understanding and appreciating what they're reading. All their mental energy is used up simply reading the words. And when you don't understand what you're reading, you don't enjoy reading, and you aren't motivated to do more of it.

Having a good vocabulary helps with fluency because children with large vocabs have a deep well of words in their brains to assist them in decoding, reading, and understanding the words they will come upon in books. Think about how much easier it is to read a book about a topic you are familiar with and enjoy (maybe a book about a favorite hobby) than it would be to read the manual for a complex piece of technical equipment full of words that you have never heard and have no idea what they mean.

So keep on doing what I hope you're already begun doing with your child. Fill their ears and minds with words, and give them the chance to use them!

Fostering A Love For Reading: Part 4

Read, Read, Read Aloud To Your Child!

Obviously, I'm not going in order of importance with the posts in this particular series. If it was, this tip would probably be listed in the top spot!

Reading to your child is the single most important thing you can do to raise a reader (Jim Trelease)! And it's important no matter how old your child is, or whether or not they are able to read themselves. As Jim Trelease says, if reading aloud is a commercial for the pleasures of reading, why do we ever stop doing it? Especially when our children get older and are less likely to read for pleasure?

There is research galore (pick up the Read Aloud Handbook) supporting the mega impact that reading aloud to your child carries! Basically, children who have been read to a lot, will likely grow to be readers!

You can make reading a part of your family's daily routine without forcing it upon your children in an unpleasant manner. Ideally, reading with your child begins right at birth (or prior to), but sometimes a parent discovers the power of reading to their child a little later. When that's the case, making reading aloud a daily part of your lives may feel awkward or difficult at first.

If that's the spot you're in: How about getting a newspaper subscription? Or a subscription to a magazine your child might be interested in? Read interesting articles you find to your child (articles you think would also interest them). How 'bout simply starting a bedtime story routine? That's a natural read-aloud opportunity, and I can't imagine any child not liking a bedtime story... no matter how crazy they might pretend they think you are at first. Maybe read a book at the same time as your child and chat with them about it when you both finish, or every chapter or so? Kind of like a little book club...

For younger children, who reading aloud to is usually a little more natural feeling, read to them whenever you can. Literally, whenever you can. You'll probably be surprised how much you both enjoy it. And you'll see their attention span grow and grow. My son is 19 months, and my husband and I are stunned at the length of stories he'll sit and listen to. (Tonight he requested a long bedtime story and my husband did the skipping-a-page-or-two at a time trick as he read it, because he didn't want my son to be up till midnight while he read the whole thing.) Lengthening a child's attention span is actually one of the many benefits to reading aloud to them.

I know I have touched on this topic a lot on this blog (I even sell a tee with this reading-aloud message on it), so I won't belabor the point here.

Read to your child.

Everyday.

You can never read to your child too much.

Don't ever stop reading aloud to your child.

And P.S., some people have been commenting about the "Read to Your Child" tee. You can click the photo in the sidebar on the right to order your own!

Fostering A Love For Reading: Part 3

Turn Off The TV!!

Did you know?

1. Television is the direct opposite of reading.
2. For young children television is an antisocial experience, while reading is a social experience.
3. Television deprives the child of his most important learning tools: questions.
4. Television interrupts the child's most important language lesson: family conversation.
5. Television encourages deceptive thinking.
6. The vocabulary of television is lower than nearly all forms of print.

~ Jim Trealease, The Read Aloud Handbook

Today's tip goes hand in hand with part 2 of this series: Have Books Everywhere. What I mean is, it doesn't do a lot of good to have books everywhere in your house if you always have the TV on. If your child is anything like mine, TV watching causes them to go into a zombie like trance that makes them completely oblivious to their surroundings - good books and all!

That's not to say my son never watches TV; I wish that were the case (Note: the photo above is of our TV and our videos). But we do let him watch a little bit of a video every morning while we shower and get ready for the day (I don't get up early enough to do this while my son is still asleep). And we have recently instituted family movie nights once a week (though my son doesn't usually sit long enough to watch the entire movie).

That's pretty much it for TV in our house (while our son is awake). We do not have a working TV in our main living area, so there is no temptation for me to turn on the news or daytime television while we playing or hanging out. This is not as torturous as most parents imagine it might be!

Jim Trealease's The Read Aloud Handbook has some great info on the effects of TV watching, as well as suggestions for combating the TV addiction. Here are some of his suggestions, along with some of mine:

• Set some limits for TV watching. For example: No TV on school nights, or no TV during dinner.

• Listen to the radio (we usually have NPR on most of the day in our house), or books on tape. I usually find this more entertaining than mindless TV anyway. You might be surprised as well! Works in the car too; substitute audio books for DVDs on long car trips.

• Absolutely no TV in kids bedrooms. No matter how old they are.

• When the TV is on, turn down the volume and turn on the closed captioning. Voila! Now you're reading while you're watching TV!

• If all else fails, remove the TV... or make it non-functional. You won't miss it as much as you imagine. Essentially that's what we did in our home. We got rid of our dish package and switched to basic cable via an antennae. After the change we no longer got any channels on our downstairs TV and our DVD player is not compatible with it. You can't watch TV if there is no TV to watch!

Fostering A Love For Reading: Part 2

Have Books Everywhere...

and Watch the Magic Happen!

This is kind of a no-brainer, right? I mean, how can your child be interested in reading if there aren't books around to be read?

Usually I see books kept in a child's room, but often that's the only place I see them. Books should be everywhere! In the kitchen. In the bathroom. In the car. In the living room. In your bedroom. With your outside toys... Anywhere your child spends any time on a regular basis, make space for some books there. You don't have to have a whole bookshelf, just a little pile. Even one or two will do.

I also recommend that you give the books in your house a fair fight. By that, I mean don't have a room full of a million toys, and then a stack of a few books. The books will obviously get lost in the mix, and likely never even be seen, let alone picked up and read. Place as much value on the books as the toys. Give them equal play space, even setting some books out on the table, or the rug as you're setting out toys for playtime.

It's also important to rotate the books that you have out around the house. Kids (especially babies and toddlers) like to read the same book over and over. This is a good thing! But eventually everyone needs a little variety. Mix it up a bit, and keep them interested.

Having books everywhere is one step in the plan for "Fostering a Love for Reading." It doesn't work on its own. It must be combined with other efforts as well. But if this particular step in Fostering a Love for Reading is new to you, you may be surprised as just how powerful it can be to simply makes books available to your child everywhere.

One more place I always have a book: my purse or diaper bag. Always handy! And this is especially neat if your child isn't used to you having a book with you. Pull it out as a special surprise while you're waiting in line at the grocery store. You don't have to necessarily read it to your child, hand it to them and let them flip through the pages as you unload the grocery cart. If you have an older child, keep a chapter book in the car or your purse that you can read a chapter together here and there when you're out and about and have some time to kill waiting around.

And one last thing, if you have books everywhere, the books will do a lot of the work for you, as far as capturing your child's attention. But your child isn't going to stay interested in the books if you don't engage with them in reading as well. But having the books everywhere will make it totally easy and natural for you to encourage reading throughout the day, during playtime, during mealtimes, during bath time... When books are everywhere, they sort of naturally become a lifestyle. And that's the goal!

Fostering A Love For Reading: Part 1

Find Books On Topics That Interest Your Child

Before I had kids I would hear this kind of advice a lot, and I gave this advice a lot myself as well. But I must admit, I was always a bit skeptical of whether it was really effective or not. Now that I have My Little Reader (Isaac) though, I can say that IT IS! Granted, I have been feeding Isaac a steady diet of books since he was a fetus, so I'm sure that helps, but I think this particular tip has helped his hunger for books grow and grow.

Obviously when Isaac was tiny, it was kind of whatever goes when it came to the subject matter of his little baby books. But now he actually has things that he's interested in, and it's SO MUCH FUN! It makes reading books with him even MORE enjoyable. I had no idea! There's this certain joy that comes with finding a book that you know your little one is going to go gaga over. So far for me, it's been one of the most rewarding experiences when it comes to parenting... Who am I kidding? It's been one of the most rewarding experiences PERIOD.

And the great thing about it is, once you start choosing a variety of books to read your little one, and you start discovering their interests, it then leads to new interests and then more new books to explore and enjoy.

If you can find a book they like that's part of a series that's a bonus, because then you have a bunch of books ready to go that are likely to be guaranteed hits!

Isaac has always been really into puppies and doggies. Maybe it started with us reading him Snuggle Puppy all the time when he was tiny (he loved it)? So recently I decided to get one of the Carl books (Alexandra Day) from the library. He loved it, and now we've been reading more books in the Carl series.

Then we went to Toddler Storytime at the library, and they sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." He's been doing the little hand motions for it ever since. So I brought him over to my big bookshelf and got out my copy of The Itsy Bitsy Spider (Iza Trapani). He's really diggin' it. He asked for it a couple times today.

Also, we've been reading Arthur's Christmas (Marc Brown) for about two months now. Ugh! He really fell in love with that one when he discovered that, in the book, Arthur has a piggy bank just like his piggy bank. So today we finally went and pulled a new Arthur book off Mommy's book shelf - Arthur's Birthday. I think we read that one about four times today. Actually, the promise of reading Arthur's Birthday was how I got him to very willingly get into his PJs tonight.

We don't let Isaac watch much TV, but lately we've been letting him watch a little bit of Toy Story 2 while we get ready in the mornings (while Mommy's showering and doing her hair, etc.). He is now obsessed with Toy Story 2, a fact which my husband and I kind of hate. But I'm thinking if I can find some Toy Story books, that might make us all really happy! (Perhaps an adventure for us to go on later this week...)

... As I'm typing all this, I'm thinking of more topics Isaac is currently intrigued by that I need to go book-hunting for.

Today's tip is not limited to just parents. Teachers, find out what your students are interested in and bring in some books from the library on the topic. Surprise them with it and say something like, "I know how much you love _____, so I found this book all about it at the library. Let's read it together!" How fun would that be for them? They'll probably end up begging you to bring them books on all kinds of topics.

This is also a great idea for any kids in your life. I have bought my nieces books on topics I know they love. Bought one of them a knight book one Christmas. And this Christmas I got one of my nieces a story about Big Bird (one of her latest obsessions).

Don't think you only should find books on topics they've demonstrated an interest in. Be sure to introduce books on new topics to them as well. Do both!

For reluctant readers though, books on topics they're already interested in is a great place to start!

How have the little ones in your life responded to books on topics they're interested in?