Quality or Quantity?

When I think about my experiences reading with my child, I think about the great stories we have read, the things we talk about while we are reading, and how much my little one really enjoys it. I don’t think about the amount of time we spend reading. I don’t think I have ever told my daughter, “Ok, we have to read for 20 minutes tonight.” I may have told her, “I can’t wait to see what happens, so let’s make sure we finish this book tonight.”

Thinking about my experiencing reading with my daughter doesn’t seem to match the reading homework that I used to give students. I remember telling students that they had to read for 30 minutes each night. It did not matter what they read … they just needed to read something. I sigh and shake my head when I think about giving that instruction. My instruction was focused on time (quantity) rather than the reading experience (quality).

My daughter and I will read this summer. We have not joined a specific summer reading program (yet anyway). My daughter will start school in the fall. It is one of my goals to help her develop of love of learning and reading. I want to lay the foundation for that even before she starts school. I want her to see reading as an enjoyable experience and not as just one more thing that she has to do.

My plan for summer reading for her (for us) is simply for us to choose books we think we will enjoy and read them. If one book only takes a few minutes to read, then we can choose another one to read if we want or not. If a book takes us 3 days to read, then we will read for days without any worry as to how long we are reading each day.  The teacher in me knows daily reading experiences are beneficial. The mother in me doesn’t want to restrict those reading experiences to a certain amount of time.  I want our reading experience more focused on quality than quantity (as a teacher, I know that quantity of reading time is much easier to keep track of than the quality of reading time.)

I hope that my daughter will want to read a variety of types of books (the mother and teacher in me will probably help “guide” that selection). The Summer Reading Lists now available in the Read Section on the Big Universe Site provide a great place for us to start when choosing books to read. There are book lists divided by age groups and topics. Even though I say book lists, the lists on Big Universe are much more than just lists.  These lists are collections of book covers. I know that my daughter will enjoy choosing books to read when picking from a picture of the book cover better than if it was just a plain list.

I am looking forward to our summer reading times, and I hope she will enjoy it too!

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/12801018@N00/3567108541/