Imagine sitting down every day as a family to enjoy some quality family reading time together. Everyone rushes to snuggle up together and waits excitedly to start the story. Is this what happens in your home? Some days it may be. Other days it may be a bigger struggle. It definitely is in our house some days. If you long for the days of peaceful time reading to kids, but struggle to make it happen, then I am here to help. Today I’m sharing the most important tip for reading to kids.
Category Archives: Raising Readers
Reading to Kids about Uncomfortable Topics
In recent weeks, I have read lots of conversations online about parents worried about discussing uncomfortable topics with their kids. Racism, prejudices, slavery, and intolerance are just some of the topics I have seen argued about. While I recognize a parent’s fear of upsetting their children, I fully believe that reading about uncomfortable topics and talking to your kids about these things is crucial.
Reading Sins and How to Rectify Them
Do you struggle to get your kids excited about reading? There are a few reading “sins” that may affect a child’s love of reading. Find out how to fix these common mistakes while reading to kids.
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Fighting back when kids want to reread the same story
Rereading the same book night after night can be exhausting for parents. You get tired of the same story and the same rhymes. You can repeat them without looking at the pages. While this may be annoying to you, hearing the same story over and over is actually really beneficial to kids.
Each time they hear the story, they pick up on more of the plot, the tone, the character development, the rhyme patterns, etc. They are able to start filling in some of the words on their own, especially if the text has a good rhyme. They will also be able to retell the story in their own way, which is an important skill to develop. Plus, the comfort of hearing a favorite story over and over again adds an emotional level to your reading time, which helps them tie reading to positive feelings.
So instead of forcing a new book on them every night, give in to the repeated stories. (Although I have been known to send certain books on vacation after a while, to be found again sometime later on).
Not letting kids read graphic novels
There are a lot of people who believe that graphic novels aren’t “real books”. This is also common when discussing comic books. However, I completely disagree with this argument. Are they reading? Are they putting the screens away and reading stories on the page? Then don’t stress!
There are so many milestones and guidelines for kids and reading, that we often worry about what they “should” be reading. But as adults, we don’t exactly read what we “should” be reading all the time either! Sure we could only read the classics, or brilliant texts on philosophy or ethics, but sometimes we want to escape with a romance novel or a thriller too. Reading should be enjoyable. If we force kids to read what they “should” be reading and discount what they want to read, then they will grow to dislike reading as a whole.
Related Post: Let Kids Read What They Want
Telling kids that memorizing a story isn’t reading
How to Raise a Bookworm in the Digital Age
We are surrounded by technology all day long. As a bookworm, I pushed back hard against the rise of the e-reader. My sister and I stood in solidarity that we would NOT give up our hardcover and paperback books in favor of another screen. And yet, even we eventually fell and started reading on e-readers. (Even though we still read regular books more often than not). But with the rise of e-readers, tablets, and smartphones, there is the fear that kids are reading less, and becoming more addicted to screens. So I’m sharing my tips on how to raise a bookworm in the digital age.
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3. Surround Them with Books
I know, I know. It sounds so simple. Too simple, in fact. But the fact remains that surrounding kids with texts not only provides them with lots of opportunities to read, but also encourages curiosity in the texts around them. We have boxes of books in every room of the house. (I did not completely plan to have them in EVERY single room, but my daughter had her own plans). We even have books in our outdoor patio in the summer, and in each car. There are books everywhere we go. And there is not a day that goes by that my daughter doesn’t pick up a book to flip through on her own.
She picks them up and asks me to read them. She looks at the pictures and repeats the stories to herself. Since she is learning to read, she is now picking out words that she knows as she flips through them. We have read during meals, while she gets dressed, and while she swings on her swing. There are tons of small opportunities during the day to fit in a little reading, and having those books available reminds us to grab a book to fill those moments.
2. Let Them See You Read
When you fill your house with books, don’t just add books for your kids to read! Studies show that kids who see their parents reading are more likely to read as well. As a bookworm, I always have books on hand anyway. But I make an effort to show my daughter that I love reading for myself too. While I do read on my Kindle and on the Kindle app on my phone (which tripled my books read!), I try not to do this in front of my daughter too often. I want her to see me reading physical books so she recognizes that I’m reading. When she sees me reading on my phone, she doesn’t know if I’m scanning through Facebook or reading a classic novel. I would rather she see me reading a physical book so she has that physical reminder.
Related Post: Finding Time to Read as a Busy Mom
And the #1 Way to Get Kids Reading in the Digital Age
*Drum Roll*
1. Read With Them!
I have said it before, and I will say it over and over again. Reading with your kids is the number one way to get your kids interested in reading. There is no such things “too young” or “too old”. It is never too early or too late to start. I read to my daughter on her first night home from the hospital. I also had a professor in grad school that took five minutes at the end of every class to read us a picture book and give us a mental break. You are never too young or too old to enjoy a good book.
Reading to your kids not only shows them that reading is important and fun, but it always helps them to associate positive and loving feelings with reading. The times that you spend snuggled up together and enjoying a good book provide all of you with good memories. Plus, it is a great way to wind down at the end of a long day, or to start a day on the right foot.
Make it part of your day
Set a screen-free time every day when you will all read. It doesn’t even matter what or how. Maybe you all snuggle up together to share a picture book (or two… or twelve). But maybe the kids are fighting and reading all together isn’t going to work. Then get out a basket of books and let everyone choose their own. Or come up with a quick silly game where the winner gets to choose. Or just let everyone take their own books to their own corners and read or peruse by themselves. If your kids are older and want to read on their own, then everyone can read their own books. Or you can take turns reading interesting articles to each other in a magazine. Reading is reading, no matter what kind.
Check out this post for some fun ways to track reading as a family, and even make it a game!
*Parenting Disclaimer*
This is not to say that weaning kids off screens will be easy. Nor am I saying that we don’t have screen time in our house. We do. One of my daughter’s “treats” is a couple minutes of screen time playing her favorite educational game. (Definitely check out Khan Academy Kids!). But even with her love of that game, and her growing interest in screens, she asks for the tablet way less often than she asks for books. Set realistic expectations when you get started with a technology detox. And most importantly, don’t force reading to the point that it becomes a chore. Find new and different ways to “read” together if the traditional read aloud doesn’t work for you today.
Find some humor in your reading situations with this list: 5 Things Experts Don’t Tell You About Reading to Kids
Read Aloud Mistakes You May Be Making
While reading aloud to kids, there are a few things that can make your reading time more enjoyable and more beneficial. In addition to providing your kids with loving memories, reading aloud to them also gives you a chance to exhibit the strategies that good readers use. But sometimes it is easy to fall into simple read aloud mistakes. These are easy to fix, and will help you to get more out of your reading time!
How to Make Sight Words Fun
With school being closed for the remainder of the year, I am trying to find even more fun ways to get learning into our day without making my daughter feel overworked. We have recently begun working on sight words. So to get our practice in, I decided to come up with some fun ways to review them with her. This easy sight word practice can be adapted to whatever your kids are interested in and provide tons of fun learning opportunities.
Standard Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission from purchases you make through the links in this post.
My sister and I are huge Harry Potter fans, and we decided to make a flying keys mobile for a friend of ours that was having a baby. So my sister bought little dragonfly wings like these for us to use. She offered me the leftover wings, knowing I would find some way to use them. I decided to attach them to our sight word cards with a little sticky tack, and create “Sight Word Fairies”.
To start with, I printed out these flash cards for the first 100 sight words on the Fry Sight Words List. I cut them out and put them in a little bag. I have started taking them out a dozen at a time and focusing on those.
Related Post: Printable Sight Word Flash Cards
Sight Word Fairy Hunt
I started with some of the sight words that I was pretty sure my daughter already knew and recognized. I hid them throughout our living room and encouraged her to find them. In order to “capture” them, she had to read them correctly. If she read one incorrectly, it flew away and she had to find it again. She had so much fun finding them and capturing them, that we have played this game over and over.
Sight Word Bug Swat
My daughter is going through a bug thing right now, so the next day we pretended that they were “sight word bugs” and she had to swat them with a fly swatter. I laid them on the ground and encouraged her to swat the correct word as I called them out to her. On another day, we were playing with her dolls and we pretended that she had to protect her baby from the “bugs”. As they got closer to her and her baby, she had to call them out and swat them before they reached them. She had a blast “protecting” her baby doll.
Tons of Sight Word Games
This simple idea can be changed around to suit whatever your child is interested in at the moment. We have also been inspired recently by the show “Bluey” and their fairy hunt episode, as well as adventures in the Magic Tree House books, and even Chewbacca chasing off the Porgs from Star Wars. Each of these interests gave me a starting off point to include a little sight word review in our day. This activity doesn’t have to take a long time, and it can be done any time of the day. With all the different ways that we can use these little winged cards, she has yet to get bored with practicing sight words.
Conquering Sight Words
After we have done this several times with the same words, she starts to master them. Once she has “conquered” a certain word, we put it into a “Word Treasure Chest”. Then I remove the wings and add them to a new flashcard. This has allowed her to see how many words she has already conquered and how far she has come. Together, we will come up with a prize or celebration for when she has conquered all of the words.
This easy sight word activity is so adaptable and fun that kids will be asking to practice! Check out my printable sight word flashcards over in the Babies to Bookworms shop to get started!
When Should You Stop Reading to Your Kids?
When you think about reading to kids, most people picture a small child on the lap of a parent, sharing a simple board book or picture book. But is there a time when you should stop reading to kids? What age is too old to read to them, instead of them reading to themselves? The answer to this question is simple….
NEVER!
Do you remember when your parents stopped reading to you? How old were you? I actually don’t remember an exact time when my parents stopped reading bedtime stories to me and my sister. It makes me kind of sad to consider that the last night they read to us was a regular night. But the truth is, while our nightly ritual of reading together before bed may have changed, we never stopped reading to one another. Even now that I am an adult, when we are together, we still sometimes read interesting or funny things to each other.
As the reading benchmarks constantly change and kids are expected to read more, faster, and sooner, parents may feel that they aren’t supposed to read to their kids anymore. Eventually your kids should be reading for themselves, so the sooner you stop reading to them, the better it is for them, right?
WRONG.
Related Post: Tips for Reading Aloud with Kids
Reading to kids won’t stop them from reading for themselves!
Even after your kids start learning to read, or are even reading fluently on their own, it never hurts to read together! Once your kids start to read on their own, it’s beneficial to read books with them that are above their reading level. This helps them to build vocabulary, explore deeper themes, develop fluency, and watch the reading habits of a good reader.
When kids first start to read, they have to consider every single word. It can take a while to get from the start of the sentence to the end. And then they have to put it all back together again to make sense of it. But when they hear the words on the page read by a skilled reader, it allows them to focus on the story, the information in the text, and the flow of the words, without having to decode each word themselves.
The emotional side of reading together
In addition to the benefits of witnessing reading strategies employed by a skilled reader, there are many emotional benefits to being read to. I have often mentioned the emotional connection that reading with kids can provide, and the loving emotions that they can connect with books. This is still true as kids age!
Imagine sitting in school all day and learning to read. You spend the day practicing letter sounds, decoding words, and attempting to make sense of everything you are reading. Then you come home, exhausted, curl up with your loved ones, and they pull out a book. Do you want to focus on decoding even more words? Or do you want to relax, listen to the story, and be taken away to the world of fiction? Chances are, it is the latter.
Related Post: 5 Things Experts Don’t Tell You About Reading to Kids
There is nothing wrong with kids reading to you!
I am absolutely, 100% not saying that kids are overworked at school and shouldn’t read to their parents. I remember finally being able to read my library books to my parents and being so excited to do so! You definitely should give kids a chance to read if they want to. Never dim that light! But my point is to remember that they may not always want to, and that is okay too.
When I was in grad school, we had a professor who would end class five minutes early every day. She would make us close up our notebooks and put down our pens. Then she would pull out a children’s book and read it to us. We were full grown adults getting our Masters degrees in education. Many of us were teachers already working in schools. But you can bet that that was our favorite part of class. She knew the benefits of taking five minutes out of our hectic and chaotic days to just enjoy a good book. And that experience stuck with me.
I have worked in classrooms from infants up through fifth grade. I cannot think of a single class I worked with that didn’t enjoy when I pulled out a book to share. Because no matter what age you are, having a book read to you can be a comforting, stress relieving, and fun experience. So no matter what age your kids are, don’t fall into the trap of believing that they should only be reading for themselves. Keep reading to them as long as they will let you, and maybe even beyond!
Do you think there is an age when parents should stop reading to kids? Share in the comments below! I would love to hear your thoughts!
7 Ways to Get Free or Cheap Books for Kids
Raising kids is expensive. So I am always looking for inexpensive ways to purchase the things that my daughter needs. As bookworms, we both devour books at a ridiculous rate, so it is important that I find ways to get cheap books for kids. Today I wanted to share 7 ways that I get inexpensive or free books for my growing bookworm.
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1. The Library
Starting out with a super obvious one, but one that continues to be overlooked. Even I have to admit that we don’t go to the library as often as I would like us to. The library is the best place to get access to completely free reading materials for kids and adults. Many libraries even offer the opportunity to borrow e-books as well. Check with other libraries in your state to see if you are eligible to borrow from their catalogs as well. (I know the New York Public Library will grant you a card if you are a resident of NY state, but I do not know about other states). Even though I usually prefer a physical copy of a book, I have increased the number of books I have read by using the NYPL in addition to my local library.
2. Secondhand Stores
Thank goodness for secondhand stores! I have purchased more clothing for my daughter at our local consignment store than any other store. I have lucked into some of her absolute favorite clothes, toys, and books by shopping there. Our local consignment shop even offers a book club where you earn a free book every month. It may take digging through crowded shelves, but you may find some great books at ridiculously low prices!
Related Post: The Trouble with Raising Bookworms
3. Local Book Sales
How NOT to Talk to Kids about Politics
One of the things I love about children’s books is that, more often than not, they are metaphorical. Children are so impressionable that in the early years, we are teaching them HOW to think, and not necessarily WHAT to think. Which is why I was inspired to speak out when I received a request to review a book that was determined to draw a dividing line for kids that we are seeing every day in the United States. Instead of accepting it, I decided it was time to rethink how we talk to kids about politics, and to share a more inspiring book that gives kids a different look at people in power.
Standard Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission from purchases you make through the links in this post. I received a copy of the book ‘The Next President’ in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Hate Filled Smear Campaigns
Recently, I received a request to review a children’s book about politics and political figures. Since I am always interested in teaching kids about big issues, I read the synopsis and press materials, but found that it was a hate filled smear campaign against real life political figures. I will not share the title of the book for two reasons:
- I do not want to smear the author. Whether I agree with the book or not, I want to be respectful of others.
- I do not want to promote it, even indirectly
While reading about the book, I was incredibly disheartened to find that even the summary was full of hateful mockery, name-calling, racist comparisons, and cartoon versions of real people (who were not well disguised).
Related Post: Overcoming Election Negativity with Positive Books about America
Balancing the Scales?
The author’s point in writing the book was to “balance the scales” against what they felt was indoctrination of their children by public schools and the media. However, all I saw in the book was an attempt to indoctrinate children in the opposite direction. Instead of providing kindness and listening and understanding, it was promoting mockery and nastiness. Where it could have offered a different perspective on socialism and capitalism, it instead focused on brutally attacking personal individuals.
Is this what we have come to? Promoting hate filled political rants to children and pretending it is about the politics and not our anger? When did we stop being able to separate the politics from the people and have thoughtful debates instead of personal attacks?
Related Post: Children’s Books about Being an American Citizen
Children’s Books with Educational Apps
My daughter loves books and reading. But she also enjoys technology. I work hard to keep her screen time in check, but I also recognize that there are some benefits to giving her access to educational tools. Today we had the opportunity to check out books from a new publishing company that pairs children’s books with educational apps for kids, and encourages emerging readers to interact with books and play with text in a new way.
Standard Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission from purchases you make through the links in this post. I received copies of these books in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Read Hear & Play: 600 First Words
This boxed set of books includes 6 books which each feature 100 words in various themes: In Your Town, On the Farm, For Fun, On the Go, At School, and In Your House. Each word featured in the book is written in a large block font, and is accompanied by a bright, colorful picture. These are great books for introducing new words to emergent readers.
The books pair with a downloadable app which offers 3 different options for interacting with the text. First, the app can read the text aloud, which helps kids with the pronunciation of each word. It also pairs each photograph with a fun sound effect, bringing the words to life for kids. The app also includes fun games for kids to play, using the images in the book. My daughter particularly enjoyed the matching game.
Mother Goose
This set of 12 small board books features beloved Mother Goose rhymes and sweet illustrations, all packaged in little books perfect for small hands. My daughter had a set of board books in a similar size when she was a baby and she adored carrying them around everywhere with her. These would easily fit into a purse or diaper bag for reading time on the go. Each book features a different rhyme, and adorable cartoon illustrations that tell the story.
These books also pair with the free downloadable app. Just like with the First Words books, the app interacts with the books in a variety of ways. The app can read the rhymes aloud, highlighting the words so emergent readers can read along with it. For very young kids, highlighting the words also teaches the concept that words come from the print on the page, which is an important pre-reading concept. The app also uses the illustrations to create fun learning games. Kids can play a memory game with the illustrations, or a matching game which encourages them to match the correct printed word with the illustration.
What We Think
