(Part 2 is here) A reader got in touch recently, asking about the amount my children read and if I had any thoughts on how this had happened. It turns out I do! Although I don’t understand how reading could be a genetic trait when written language is such a comparatively new invention, it’s true that my husband and I are both bookworms, so it’s not entirely surprising that our children are too. I understand that some people are just not that into books (although I don’t understand how!). Not all children are destined to be bookworms, and that’s fine, because the world needs more than people who can sit still for hours and forget to eat because they’re so engrossed in what they’re reading.
Excellent advice. I particularly like your recommendation to keep the easy books lying around. Children like going back to the easier books, not just because they are familiar and beloved, but because the experience of reading an easy, familiar book is so smooth; they feel accomplished, they feel they are good readers. Parents who take away the easy books as soon as they have been mastered are forcing their kids to always read books that they find hard. It's often well-meaning ("They aren't learning anything, rereading that old thing!"), but the message the children get is that reading is hard, and, worse, that they are bad readers (because it never becomes easy). Of course, learning IS hard. But the real reading experience, the experience one hopes to transmit to one's children, is the experience of easy, pleasurable reading. Of mastery of something difficult. And leaving them the easy books, to return to whenever they wish, gifts them that.
"...don’t worry about what your neighbour or friend recommends or rubbishes. The only judgement that matters is your child’s." Yes! Love this.
My 6 and 9yo still read their board books. I keep a small basket of the ones they treasured the most, and I'll find them reading them to each other, or to their dolls or stuffies, once in awhile. (And I've also noticed that my 6yo will grab one when she doesn't feel like slogging through her early readers or chapter books... it's almost as if she wants to read but her brain needs a break, so she chooses something below her level, that she basically has memorized, which of course serves it own purposes, too.) Thanks for making this point about easier books -- it's such a good one.
“Your baby was listening to your voice before they were born.” And your heart beat - the beginnings of sentence beats in iambic pentameter. This is a beautiful post you’ve written here. Thank you.
#5 is critical. If they see books wherever they go, they see it as part of the "essence" of the house. If they are all in a small corner, there's the implicit understanding they don't really matter.
It's also critical that if you want your kids to read, YOU must read also. If your kids just see you starting at a screen all day, you are transmitting what is important through your actions, regardless of the words you say.
Great concrete guidance for raising readers! I can affirm all of the points you made from our experience (we read to them since they were born, have mountains of books everywhere and read about anything, no tv, and they still like pulling out their old children's books for fun. My recent post included reading lists for kids in case you were interested:)
Excellent advice. I particularly like your recommendation to keep the easy books lying around. Children like going back to the easier books, not just because they are familiar and beloved, but because the experience of reading an easy, familiar book is so smooth; they feel accomplished, they feel they are good readers. Parents who take away the easy books as soon as they have been mastered are forcing their kids to always read books that they find hard. It's often well-meaning ("They aren't learning anything, rereading that old thing!"), but the message the children get is that reading is hard, and, worse, that they are bad readers (because it never becomes easy). Of course, learning IS hard. But the real reading experience, the experience one hopes to transmit to one's children, is the experience of easy, pleasurable reading. Of mastery of something difficult. And leaving them the easy books, to return to whenever they wish, gifts them that.
"...don’t worry about what your neighbour or friend recommends or rubbishes. The only judgement that matters is your child’s." Yes! Love this.
My 6 and 9yo still read their board books. I keep a small basket of the ones they treasured the most, and I'll find them reading them to each other, or to their dolls or stuffies, once in awhile. (And I've also noticed that my 6yo will grab one when she doesn't feel like slogging through her early readers or chapter books... it's almost as if she wants to read but her brain needs a break, so she chooses something below her level, that she basically has memorized, which of course serves it own purposes, too.) Thanks for making this point about easier books -- it's such a good one.
“Your baby was listening to your voice before they were born.” And your heart beat - the beginnings of sentence beats in iambic pentameter. This is a beautiful post you’ve written here. Thank you.
Reading creates a bond, and opens up our right brains to imagination!
Blue light from devices is digital heroin as it spikes dopamine, lowering other crucial hormones like DHEA, growth hormone, etc:
https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/the-1-emf-youve-forgotten-about
#5 is critical. If they see books wherever they go, they see it as part of the "essence" of the house. If they are all in a small corner, there's the implicit understanding they don't really matter.
It's also critical that if you want your kids to read, YOU must read also. If your kids just see you starting at a screen all day, you are transmitting what is important through your actions, regardless of the words you say.
Great concrete guidance for raising readers! I can affirm all of the points you made from our experience (we read to them since they were born, have mountains of books everywhere and read about anything, no tv, and they still like pulling out their old children's books for fun. My recent post included reading lists for kids in case you were interested:)