There’s a fourth promoter of literacy. You know that I’m always going on about the three most important things you can do to turn your kid into a great reader: 1) Read to her every day. 2) Have lots of books scattered throughout your house. 3) Let her see you […]
Tag: reading theory
Literacy Lava – excellent (free) resource
Literacy Lava 5 I’ve got an article in the latest edition of Susan Stephenson’s (The Book Chook) great e-newsletter, “Literacy Lava.” “Literacy Lava” is a free .pdf for parents and educators, and is basically a collection of great articles on helping kids to read. This is the 5th edition of […]
Quick and easy literacy activities
Our school board issued a list of great literacy activities. They’re simple and fun, and are great examples of what I like to call “guerilla literacy” – using tons of little tactics here and there that add up to… a kid who likes to read. You may want to print […]
A good teacher – the most important thing
Sometimes, the research catches up with what mothers already know. “Everything the world has learned about education shows that the quality of the teacher is the most important factor in a student’s success.” –The Toronto Star, reporting on a speech given by Malcolm Gladwell, author of the bestselling Blink and […]
More books = more education
Books lead to education. There are three things that you can do to help ensure your child will become a reader:1) Read to him every day.2) Have lots of books in your home.3) Read, yourself. The research is very consistent. Statistically, families that do these three things end up having […]
Read the signs
Signs are great “flash cards.” The other day, I was speaking with a mom whose son is having some trouble with reading. It was recommended that he start learning “whole words.” (As opposed to phonetically sounding things out.) I’m all for the whole-word approach to learning to read. It’s a […]
Read to your child. Every day.
It’s the single most important thing you can do to get your kid reading. Statistics show that if you read to your child, every day, even for 10 minutes – it’s likely that your child will grow up to become a reader. The New York Times recently published a heartwarming […]
Bubblegum writing
Another tip from Lori Jamison, speaking at the recent Reading for the Love of It conference. When she’s trying to get young children to sound out words, she calls it “bubblegum writing.” She tells them to pretend the word they want to write–let’s say, “camping”–is a piece of bubblegum. With […]
Seen in Blockbuster: books!
Get your kids reading by telling them about the movie or TV show. I don’t visit Blockbuster very often. So it was a revelation to to me that they had a book rack filled with the book versions of about a dozen popular movies. That is great. I’m a big […]
The argument for making Harry wait
There’s an interesting post on a blog called Kidliterate – here.The author, Melissa, argues that parents shouldn’t be in a big hurry to read the Harry Potter books to their children. She says there are lots of books kids should experience first, and if they dive into Harry Potter too […]
