Kids love rewards. If you’re having a tough time getting your child to read, try a reading reward chart. Make a graph with a week’s worth of days. Your child puts a sticker on each day you read together. (Fifteen to 30 minutes is ideal.) Or, your chart can be […]
Reading theory
How to foster a "reading culture"
Kids who live in a “reading home” will be readers, it’s as simple as that. What does that mean, and how do you create a reading culture in your home? Here are some key things you can do to create a “reading home”: *Read to your child every day. *Have […]
Use words, not pictures, for labels
This is kind of counter-intuitive, so bear with me. Let’s say you’re labelling bins in your young child’s playroom. This one is for cars, this one is for balls, this is where the action figures go. It can be really tempting to draw a car, rather than write the word […]
Dogs help kids read
It makes sense, when you think about it.Dogs enjoy any story you read to them, they don’t judge when you get a word wrong, and they have an enormous attention span. A non-profit organization in Chicago, Sit Stay Read!, uses trained dogs to help children read. The kids read to […]
How will we read our Christmas books?
Let me count the ways. It’s important that children discover that books can be used many different ways. Here’s how we’re using the books we got for Christmas. *My husband and our son had a great time going through his new Guiness Book of Records, giggling over the disgusting records […]
Donate your gently used children’s books
Give the gift of reading. Your child is surrounded by books, but just doesn’t want to read. (Don’t worry – we’re working on that.) In Toronto, there are thousands of kids who love to read, but can’t afford books of their own. Fortunately, the Children’s Book Bank gives free books […]
Singin’ in the Brain
Singing helps children learn to read When my son was little, our life was a musical. If I could sing something rather than say it, I would. “We’re… puttin’ our shoes now, tying up the laces, goin’ to the park!” (to the tune of Top Hat, White Tie and Tails). […]
For kinesthetic learners
Reading doesn’t have to be on a page. If your child is a kinesthetic learner – he learns by touching and doing rather than by seeing or hearing – here are some great ideas. Use letters made from blocks, cards, fridge magnets or Scrabble tiles. Toss seven large letters (blocks, […]
Literacy is more than reading
Have you taught your child how to read a newspaper? I don’t mean the words themselves. I mean how a newspaper works. What a headline is. Where the author’s name is, and how to tell what’s happening in the pictures. Where does the rest of the article go off the […]
Will your child be a reader?
I’m reading Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, by Maryanne Wolf, a researcher who explains, among other things, how the brain learns to read. She underscores how essential it is that children be read to often: “Learning to read begins the first time an […]
