Reading with children from a young age encourages early literacy. My mother made it a nightly ritual, and it made bedtime something to look forward to instead of something to dread.
Once my brother, sister and I had our pajamas on and our last drink of water, we would climb in bed and Mom would read. If we dawdled, we got half a page. If we were prompt with bedtime rituals, we would get to hear a half hour of an ongoing “chapter book.”
This family tradition enabled us to enjoy the whole “Little House on the Prairie” series, the adventures of “Robinson Crusoe” and the humor of “Charlotte’s Web.” My siblings and I fell in love with words, stories and books and were soon reading on our own. Story time had a lasting effect on us all.
So, it was a joy to carry on this tradition when I had my own children. Here are 10 of my favorite ways to mentor little language lovers.
10 Tips to Nurture a Love for Reading
- Use different voices when you read to children, changing accents, inflection and cadence. Try whispering a sentence or two. It gets their attention!
- Kids like to laugh. Find humorous stories and poems with great rhymes and silly characters. Soon your children will be reciting the best lines with you. Try “Fun is a Feeling,”a rhyming picture book by Chara Curtis, the classic “Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle,” or “Grandma’s Feather Bed,” an award-winning Dawn Publications book featuring the funny lyrics from folk singing icon John Denver and illustrations by Christopher Canyon.
- Read aloud to children every day, putting it on par with getting dressed, eating dinner and brushing teeth. Like breathing, it wasn’t an option in my house. It was a natural facet of daily life – a fun part! I found that even babies like the sound of a reading voice. I remember my infant daughter settling contentedly in the crook of my arm each afternoon as I read to her older sibling – who would perch next to me on the armchair for our daily dose of books.
- Get books on tape for car rides. Take advantage of your captive audience. I found these books were a miracle cure for tired, whine-prone little ones.
- Find a topic that lights the fire under your child. If your son loves baseball, read a baseball story together. Try the “Jackie Robinson Graphic Biography.” You read a page, and he reads a page. Then go out and play catch with him for 20 minutes or plan an outing to a pro ballgame.
- Find unusual places to read. One beloved fourth grade teacher I knew took his classes to stairwells to read books. The kids enjoyed the change in scenery, and their teacher’s voice echoed in all the right parts when he read. Other great spots to enjoy a book? Try a hammock, a tree fort or a refrigerator box with a doorway cut into it and stocked with a flashlight. Or, pack a picnic and a book such as “On One Flower: Butterflies, Ticks and a Few More Icks.” Then drive to a nearby park to read, explore and have lunch.
- Use large print books for early readers. Use your finger to point out words or a 3×5 card to help train eyes to read. Cut a notch in the corner or use the straight edge and slide as needed.
- Good illustrations capture the imagination. Pick out books with wonderful pictures – ones like those in “Little Yellow Pear Tomatoes.” Point out details in the illustrations to get kids more involved in the story.
- A trip to the book store – whether virtual or on a local street corner – is a great way to reward a good report card or some other goal…and it doesn’t involve sugar. Give your child a gift card and let her pick out her own book and “pay” for it on her own. My two daughters loved this holiday and end-of-school-year ritual.
- Help children write the stories in their heads. Supply paper, pencils, markers and tape and let them go to town. Better yet, go digital. Help your child use the Big Universe Author Tool – a wonderful way to write a book while enhancing computer and reading skills. The website has printing and publishing options too, so your child can become a “published author.”
This list only scratches the surface. I’d love to hear what other parents, reading teachers, homeschoolers and library media specialists have devised over the years to make reading fun. Go ahead, spill your secrets. Inquiring minds want to know.
Please take a moment to offer a comment and share the love!
* Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com
Seven years ago, my husband came home with a grin on his face.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We’re going to Barbados!” he shouted.
Silence. Admittedly slow on the uptake, I asked, “Is this for our anniversary?”
“No, we’re going for a year!” he squeaked.
My husband doesn’t usually squeak.
Soon I was jumping and hooting, too! My spouse had received a Fulbright Grant to teach and do research at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, an island in the Caribbean.
Our excitement was soon tempered with the massive scope of preparation required to move out of the country with two children for a year. Do research. Make a list. Rent the house. Make another list. Schedule doctor visits, farm out the animals AND figure out the best way to handle our schooling dilemma!
Our arrival would coincide with the beginning of the school term in Barbados, but the red tape was daunting. The education system was decidedly British and the Common Entrance Exam would have loomed large for my oldest daughter. Because we were to be on the island for one school year only, we decided to forge our own way.
While my girls would eventually slide into the public school system in the States for high school, their elementary and middle school years were spent in the warm embrace of Mitchell Road Academy, a private school of about 400 students in Greenville, S.C.
If we officially left the academy’s enrollment roster, we risked losing our spots there. We hated that idea since the teachers were fabulous and the environment nurturing. After a meeting with administrators, we were given permission to use the academy’s curriculum, including their books and lesson plans. It was official! I would be an island mama, juggling homeschooling along with the mangos and bottles of sunscreen.
I also consulted with a few local matriarchs of homeschooling and ended up ordering a crate of books from Sonlight, a literature-based curriculum company, to supplement our resources. Another literary friend let me borrow a box of her chapter books.
My sixth- and fourth-graders craved books, and I confess that the book issue was my BIGGEST fear about the whole adventure ahead of us. Not knowing what resources would be available, I was afraid of running out. There would have been mutiny on my hands! (Note: One child read 35,000 pages on her summer vacation the following year, and my other daughter was not far behind.)
What I would have given to have a resource like Big Universe’s website with its 1,000-plus children’s books from top publishers and the thousands of member-created books. It would have made life so much easier and our extra luggage much lighter.
We took eight large – meticulously weighed – pieces of book-laced luggage, plus four book-stuffed carry-ons and our backpacks. (A shipping container had been our initial instinct, but we had been advised otherwise by a connection at the U.S. Embassy.)
Getting us, our books, clothes and other items to the airport before our early morning flight was a major feat. We sighed in relief when each bag was weighed, tagged and checked.
Our initial flight was late getting into Miami, so the dash through the airport to catch our second plane was quite spectacular. Shoes on, shoes off, unpack the two laptops, pack ‘em back up, metal detectors, specialized attention from a wand-bearing security guard, etc. We were the last to board our jet to the Caribbean – beet red and drenched from running with books and computers. Once we took off, I was too exhausted to care that I had a phobia about flying over water.
When we arrived at Grantley Adams Airport, imagine this ordeal in reverse. We had to retrieve all that luggage, while not losing our children. Despite the mayhem in Miami, every one of those heavy monsters made the transfer! It was a miracle – no doubt about it.
Hundreds of thousands of tourists travel to Barbados each year; however, we made quite a spectacle. The “red caps” gathered, eyeing our stash like vultures circling carrion. (No pun intended.) Fingers pointed, comments were made, and then one brave soul dashed up with his luggage wagon and asked to carry our things.
His trolley was woefully small, but he soon subcontracted a buddy to pile our luggage on his cart, too. The looks on their faces were priceless when they tried to heave the bags into place. Towels, bikinis and sandals don’t usually weigh that much! They earned their tips that day.
After a lot of explanation at Customs, document waving, and the prayers of a desperate mother, we were suddenly waved through. We’d made it!
Big Universe would have saved many backs a lot of grief that day. Volumes could have remained in the States, and vertebrae could have stayed in alignment.
This website is such a great option for families, missionaries and teachers, who travel and live overseas. As long as they can wangle Internet access, they have a 24/7 virtual library at their fingertips and the benefits of the website’s Author tool. My children could have used it to write their essays about coral reefs, tropical storms, sea turtles, island churches and other cross-cultural observations.
To be fair, Barbados did have library resources, but access was limited because we weren’t permanent residents. The girls could check out only one or two books each time we visited – which is like telling an elephant that he is getting a plum for his dinner.
In the end, we had a fabulous year of adventure and cross-cultural exchange. The schooling – books and otherwise – went better than I ever dreamed. The memories are priceless.
Posted on August 19, 2009 by Suzan Woodard in Personal Experiences.
Tags: Anna Quindlen, Big Universe, Books, bookshelves, I am a Bunny, library, memories, Ole Risom, read, Richard Scarry
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New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen wrote something 18 years ago – about the time I was elbow deep in diapers with my newborn. She could have taken the words right out of my mouth:
“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”
I did not voice this self-same wish audibly, but I did spoon-feed my children books from the time they were babies. My oldest gravitated to newspapers and books before she could walk, and I happily encouraged it…that is until I noticed she had quite an appetite for the written word – literally. She loved to eat paper and her Pampers proved it!
My firstborn never showed any interest in getting into cupboards or cabinets or anything else that we had baby-proofed within an inch of our lives. No… she wanted books, the Lifestyle section and the Opinion Page.
My husband and I quickly stocked up on sturdy inedible cardboard books that could withstand a fair quantity of drool and frequent page turning. She loved all books, but her favorite was “I Am a Bunny,” written by Ole Risom and illustrated by Richard Scarry. She and her sister can still quote this whole book – “I am bunny. My name is Nicholas. I live in a hollow tree…”
Her favorite tub book was Bert and Ernie’s Bath Book, a canary-colored volume that floated like a beacon amid the soap suds. Ironically, I don’t think she ever so much as splashed her yellow rubber ducky.
Some of my girls’ fondest memories with their dad involved trips to the library, where they would drag a laundry basket along the carpeted floor, filling it with enough books to last them two weeks. Fortunately, the librarians printed out a list of checked-out books, which allowed us a relative amount of success when it came time to round them up. We would get the occasional late fee, when a book slid behind the bed or under the car seat, but my husband and I decided it was a small price to pay over the long haul.
Books were prized in our house as was reading time. Birthday wish lists always included a title or two, and soon “Papa,” their grandfather, was enlisted to build a new bookshelf for the girls’ room – one that went from floor to ceiling. (Another similar shelf was filled to capacity.)
One of the book-related memories that makes me smile was a conversation about the houses my girls imagined living in when they were grown-ups. I asked my daughters to describe their “some day” house.
“Oh, it will have a great big ladder,” one of them said.
Puzzled, I asked her if she was going to live in a tree house.
“No, silly,” she said. “I’ll need it to reach the books on the top shelf in my library!”
Anna Quindlen would have been so tickled to hear her say that. I know I was.
In the few short years since the publication of Ms. Quindlen’s column “Enough Bookshelves,”technology has taken off. While I am still drawn to libraries and paper books like a starving silverfish, there are New Age ways to possess and devour books. Computer technology has ushered in the age of downloadable ebooks, interactive whiteboards, hand-held Kindle book readers, reading applications for smart phones, and websites such as Big Universe, where thousands of children’s picture books are available to read wherever you have Internet access.
Virtual bookshelves! Who would have thunk it?
