Games, books, activities and ideas to get your kids reading!
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Every new mom knows that her baby understands more than he can say. You say to a baby, “milk!” and that baby brightens right up. Long before he can speak, he understands.
That amazing, ahead-of-the-curve process never stops, as long as kids are constantly challenged with new ideas and offered the chance to learn new skills.
I’m not advocating French flash cards for infants or War and Peace for a toddler. But I am saying that your kids can handle more than you think.
Today is Family Literacy Day. It’s a great day to… click on “15-minute ideas” or “Games” or “Crafts” in our tags and find a wonderful activity you can do with your kids that will help to get them reading. At our school, a parent contacted the local library, which is […]
We’ve just launched an exciting new website that offers kid-friendly news articles.
Teaching Kids the News provides daily news articles, appropriate for kids (approximately grades 1-6).
Some articles also have ESL (English as a Second Language) versions.
The site can be used by parents; by teachers in the classroom; by homeschoolers and by kids themselves.
Is your older child writing a book or movie review? Here’s a five-minute clip of two of the best movie critics, Siskel and Ebert, talking about what makes a good film review–the discussion also holds for book reviews, restaurant reviews, or any other piece of writing you’re doing in which you must be critical.
When kids see adults reading they’re more likely to read, themselves. It isn’t just a theory, there’s been research done on this.
When a kid sees an adult reading a children’s book, he’s even more likely to read. Try picking up a kid’s book for yourself the next time you’re at the library; the effect on your child will be very interesting.
My literacy colleague, Jen Robinson, has a slew of other great reasons why adults should read children’s literature.
Take a dash of something kids like… and add a dash of something parents like… and you’ve got Bone, the novel.
The Bone series by Jeff Smith has long been an enormous hit with kids. At our elementary school library, we have tons of copies of each one of them and we can’t keep ’em shelved (I know, because I help do the shelving.)
The kids are nutty about Bone. Me, not so much. While I respect the plain fact that something that’s that popular with kids has to be on to something, I find Bone kind of hard to relate to. But that’s probably good (for me, and for Bone) since I’m not the target audience.
Remember the Scholastic poll we told you about awhile ago?
The one where kids could vote for one of three plots–in effect, choosing what Robert Munsch’s next book will be?
Well, more than 170,000 kids voted and their verdict is in!
As you can see, we’re in the process of upgrading Getting Kids Reading.
All of the posts from the “old” site are here, but we’re still working on the look of the site.
So please continue to use GKR as normal… and in the meantime, if you have any ideas or suggestions for the new site, please let us know. Thanks for hanging in there while we reconfigure!
-Joyce
Beautiful PSA about reading. This brilliant and moving public-service ad expresses perfectly how I feel about kids and reading. It really touched me and I want everyone to see it, so please do share it. It was created for a second-year Media Arts class at Sheridan College, Ontario. Mike Rilstone, […]
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