When we talk about rearing children who live a creative life, one filled with thinking skills, problem solving, and self-expression that almost always includes lives filled with models of creativity. Those models come in all shapes, sizes and forms, not the least of which is the model of a great book.
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Here's Zeal's new favorite reading spot: legs over the arm of the couch, surrounded by pillows, with Bionicles lurking nearby and the doggy's listening in. Jammies are a must!
A love of reading never just happens, but when it can be done in the most comfortable of spaces it is certainly encouraged!
1. Read aloud daily.
2. Take books with you everywhere you go. Travel to the store, park, ocean, church, with books in a basket, just in case.
3. Find a cozy place to read in your home.
4. Check out books on tape from the library.
5. Read signs and other environmental print together as much as possible.
6. Tell stories as a family.
7. Tape record your child telling stories.
8. Read songs, poems and patterned stories together. Recite them or sing them together whenever you feel the urge.
9. Do make reading a happy time together.
10. Find a time for reading to suit both of you. It is usually a good idea to switch off the television.
11. All children need time to look at and discuss the pictures in a book. Also, discuss the story with your child as he/she is reading it. Talk about what is happening and what might follow. When the book is finished ask your child if he/she enjoyed it and ask him/her to tell you why.
12. If your child makes a mistake do not worry. Reread the sentence or page pointing out the error gently.
13. Tell your child the words he/she does not know. Do not expect your child to sound out every word. Do not labor this point.
14. Your child may sometimes be reading a book that is “too easy”. Don’t worry – he/she may need to reestablish confidence, and it is useful for reinforcement.
15. If you think the book is hard for your child to read, then read it aloud to him/her. This will give your child encouragement and also develop expression and fluency.
16. Do praise and encourage your child. It is vital to build your child’s confidence.
17. Ask questions about what you read. Make connections to your lives together.
18. Reread favorites over and over again.
19. Play with words your child does know how to read. Make word cards or sentence strips and make silly sentences or stories with them.
20. Talk about interesting words, authors or illustrators.
21. Subscribe to children’s magazines and read them together.
22. Give books as gifts!
Now that we’re back from our series of little vacations, we’re happily settling in and looking towards our final quarter of the year, a time we usually make quite a few goals for ourselves, individually and as a family. Of course, we always have goals (all of us) that have to do with what we’re reading. So here’s a little piece about teaching kids to self-select their reading material. No matter what your children’s learning environment is (home, school, the world) understanding oneself as a reader is a valuable life skill for all levels. Enjoy!
Empowering Readers ~ Teaching Kids to Select Appropriate Independent Reading Material
Self-selection is a powerful motivator for readers of any age. In keeping with an approach of allowing children to choose what they learn, here’s a suggestion to also allow children to choose their own independent reading material.
Know Thyself. Allowing young learners the freedom to learn who they are as readers is key in the self-selection process. Often times, young readers want so badly to be able to read a certain book (usually based on a cover picture) that they experience disappointment (and a blow to their self esteem in the process). Setting goals for themselves as readers (and achieving them) is where we eventually want to be. Continued progress is what we are aiming for. Knowing where one is NOW and being OK with that is where we need to begin.
Finding an EASY Book.
The first step is to help your child find a book that is really too easy. That is, a book in which they can read and understand EVERY word without exception. It is just too easy. For beginning readers, their EASY book may be one that is wordless, or just has one or two words per page. This process is meant to give the child confidence: “Yes! There is something out there that I can read!”
Finding a Learning Book.
The next step to knowing thyself is to find a LEARNING book or what I like to call a “JUST RIGHT” book. That is, a book that one can read and understand most of the words in. Now, this book needs to be one that a child can read independently, yet sometimes may have questions about a word’s meaning, but can still make meaning from the text as a whole. Hence, it is a level of book that they are continuing to LEARN from.
Finding a GOAL book.
Now that your child knows what is too EASY and what is JUST RIGHT, it is important for her to find the book that she wants to be able to read. This process may take more guidance at first, but soon she will become a master at setting goals that are appropriate. Remind your learner that at one time their EASY book was a LEARNING book for her. Maybe that was just 2 months ago. What book does she want to be able read in the next two months? She may need a few gentle reminders at first about not making too much of a leap at first. Remind her that we need to take small steps to achieve our goals. But remember: allow it to come from the learner, not imposed upon her.
Keeping Track.
Make sure that you somehow keep a record of what your child chose as an EASY book, a LEARNING book, and a GOAL book as well as a date by which she wants to achieve her goal. I suggest also always keeping the books in a highly visible place, perhaps in a basket on your family’s project table or in the special spot your child has chosen as her designated work space, or where she keeps her reading work.
Reviewing Your GOAL book and setting new goals. Always, always, always follow through with this part. Make sure you review your learner’s GOAL book on or near the date she said she wanted to be able to read it. Ask her to try and read it independently on her own, then come back and ask her if there are any words that were once difficult, but now she knows. There will most likely be many. Could she now call this book a LEARNING book? Is it still too difficult? Review your goals together and begin the process again. You’ll find that your learner is gaining in more than just reading skills; she is beginning to know herself as a reader and gaining confidence!
Excerpted from the May issue of Wonderwise
The Wonder of a Read-Aloud Book
Cuddling up for a good read is one of the most special times in the lives of a parent and child Yet, as our children grow as readers, and become more independent in their reading, it becomes easier and easier for us to give up our read-alouds. But, we mustn’t. If there is one single thing that we can do to continue to help our children grow as readers and learners (even when they are already reading Chaucer’s Tales independently) it is continuing to read aloud.
The poet Julius Lester says, “literature is a way to link our souls like pearls on a string, bringing us together in a shared and luminous humanity.”
What better way to use literature to "link our souls" than through the family read aloud.
WHY READ ALOUD?
Reading aloud is perhaps the single most important thing we can do to help create proficient and avid readers who devour their books and really enter the world created for them on the page.
Reading aloud:
• helps our children know what it is to lose themselves in the drama of a story
• develops a positive attitude toward books as a source of pleasure and information
• increases vocabulary
• expands the child's knowledge base
• satisfies and heightens curiosity
• stimulates imagination
• stimulates understanding of language patterns
• sharpens observation skills
• enhances listening skills
• promotes self-confidence and self-esteem
• offers many new friends since book characters can become quite real
• helps develop problem solving skills and critical thinking
• encourages positive social interaction
• helps them to become successful readers who love books and learning!
So how can we “link our souls” to help along all these wondrous happenings? Reading aloud can happen in many ways, at many times, for many different purposes.
*Take a few moments in the morning to read a shared few lines of poetry. Lay in bed in the morning with the same chapter book you fell asleep reading together the night before. Use it as a point of connection as you begin your day.
*Revisit books that your kids have loved or even just kind of liked in the past. Find new magic in them together. Let the stories be re-experienced and see what comes up. Revisiting books again and again can offer your readers new ways to look at a story they already know. They will see new richness in the piece when given the opportunity to hear it time and again, and may grow to have a deeper understanding of messages that lie within the text.
*Support your child’s interests by reading aloud non-fiction books about what really lights your kids’ fires. Start with simple texts that introduce the subject they are interested in and move to more complex text. By starting simple, you will poise your children to learn more so that they can get more out of the more complex texts. Once you do move to the more complex texts (often being something they wouldn’t be able to comfortably tackle on their own) you will help them increase their vocabulary and their understanding.
*And lastly, MODEL! MODEL! MODEL! Model engagement in text and love of literature. ‘Go there’ with your kids as you are reading. It can be the single most important habit we help them develop in their reading. And may even help you re-learn how to really get into a book yourself
Need some ideas for your next read aloud? Here's a small list to get you started:
POETRY:
Read Aloud Poems for Young People, An Introduction to the Magic and Excitement of Poetry Edited by Glorya Hale
Where the Sidewalk Ends; and A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Talking to the Sun: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People, by Kate Farrel and Kenneth Koch
FOLK TALES, FABLES AND SHORT STORIES:
Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Yiddish Folk tales)
The People Could Fly, American Black Folktales told by Virginia Hamilton
The Juniper Tree and other Tales from Grimm translated by Segal, Lore
Even A Little is Something (Short Stories from Thailand) by Tom Glass
A Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon
The D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths retold by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire.
The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron
American Tall Tales by Mary Pope Osborne
Aesop’s Fables
CHAPTER BOOKS/SHORT NOVELS
My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Elmer and the Dragons by Ruth Stiles Gannett
The Dragons of Blueland by Ruth Stiles Gannett
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Flat Stanley (Series) by Jeff Brown
Mr. Putter and Tabby
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
The Magician’s Boy by Susan Cooper
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
The Iron Giant by Ted Hughes
The Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osbourne
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznik
LONGER NOVELS WITH MORE MATURE THEMES AND LANGUAGE
Taking Flight by Vicki Van Meter (Memoir of a 12 year old girl who piloted a plane over the Atlantic)
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
The Cricket in Times Square by E.B. White
Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Moray Williams
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
Soup and Me by Robert Newton Peck
The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Dream Stealer by Gregory Maguire
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konisburg
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
The Bat Poet by Randall Jarrell
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Because of Winn Dixie By Kate DiCamillo
The Tale of Desperaux. By Kate DiCamillo (My son has now had two mice named Desperaux- We LOVE this book, but beware of some intensity in storyline)
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards
The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
The Wish Giver by Bill Brittain
Ida Early Comes Over the Mountain by Robert Burch
Eragon by Christopher Paolini (who wrote it when he was 15!)
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
PICTURE BOOKS TO SHARE AS READ ALOUDS THAT EVEN OLDER KIDS LOVE
The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater
Thundercake by Patricia Polacco (Anything by Patricia Polacco makes a great read aloud for older kids)
Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor
The Table Where Rich People Sit by Byrd Baylor
I’m in Charge of Celebrations by Byrd Baylor
The Empty Pot By Demi
The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau
Raven by Gerald McDermott (and a series of other trickster tales beautifully told and illustrated by Gerald McDermott)
King Arthur series written and illustrated by Hudson Talbott
O'Sullivan Stew written and illustrated by Hudson Talbott
So, if I can, I would like to leave you with this, written by Strickland W. Gillian from the poem The Reading Mother:
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold,
Richer than I you can never be-
I had a mother who read to me.
So grab your choice and make read aloud time special again. Turn off the lights. Get that cozy lamp going. Flop on pillows in the living room or curl up in bed together. And don’t forget to try to do it every day. Even as your children become older and seemingly don’t need you for that bedtime story anymore, revive your read alouds. They can, once again, be the most special time of your day.
