I don’t think it is an accident that coming from a family of readers, I in turn, absolutely love to read. I enjoy Young Adult (YA) Books, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and even Middle Grade (MG) Books! My husband does think I am (a bit) silly for reading MG and YA Books, but the good ones have interesting characters and storylines such as The Ember Series by Jeanne DuPrau and The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.

Research has found that the most important aspect of reading is how the child feels about reading. This means that positive reinforcement from parents and educators does help. For a child to see that their parents enjoy reading is one of the best ways to encourage them to read. Research has also found that forcing a child to read does not yield positive results. Instead of forcing the issue, it might work to have a reading time that the whole family enjoys together (Source: www.creativeteachingsite.com).

How To Increase a Child’s Literacy Skills

Here are some suggestions that can help your child build the necessary literacy skills.

Model Reading and Writing

My parents were always reading and I just thought that all families enjoyed reading growing up. As we know, children learn best by what we model. You can ask your middle-grade or teenager to write out to-do lists, shopping lists, letters, and invitations. Another great idea is to have them find a pen pal from another state or even another country. Also, read an MG or YA book together and discuss the characters, storyline, and what you hope will happen next if it is part of a series such as The Hunger Games. This might be fun to do together as it is coming out as a movie this March.

Participate in Everyday Activities

This could include discussing newspaper articles you read together, journals, or magazines. Another idea is to have them compare prices of items they want at different department stores or sporting equipment to find the best deal. Playing language and spelling games together like Scrabble, Boggle, or Trivial Pursuit can help improve literacy skills by looking up the meaning of certain words together.

Turn Family Vacations and Trips Into Learning Opportunities

My daughter loves to go the local museum, planetariums, and zoo. This provides a wonderful opportunity for me to explain how things work and about the animals. Maybe put together a scrapbook of a family vacation together and have them write out funny captions above the pictures.

These are all simple ideas to help to encourage your child to enjoy reading and writing. The less it feels like a chore and more a way of life, the more likely they will grow up with a positive association with reading.

What books are you and your family reading? How can you encourage your kids to read more?

References:

1. How To Encourage Students To Read (http://www.creativeteachingsite.com/read1).
2. Peel District School Board.  Help your teen build literacy skills (www.peelschools.org).

Picture courtesy of Flickr.

Melissa Northway, M.S. Human Nutrition, is a mom, writer and her storybook app Penelope the Purple Pirate has been chosen as a Top 10 Must-Have eBook by lilsugar of Popsugar.com and a Top 10 Educational iPad App by Digital Storytime.  She does consulting work for companies interested in marketing their apps or eBooks. She can be reached at: mcube@sbcglobal.net and http://www.melissanorthway.com or @melissanorthway. See my review of The Hunger Games coming next week.

5 Ways to Get Your Kids Excited About Reading

It is important to be actively involved in your child’s literacy experiences. The following are five suggestions to help you raise a reader in your home:

• Listen carefully to your child when he/she shows an interest in something. For example, if he/she tells you about a cool animal on the Discovery Channel or a new student who is coming to school from Japan, make a mental note. Find a book about that “hot topic” and remember: a child’s interest fades quickly, so don’t wait too long to get a book!
• Allow choice to be a strong motivator. Let your child choose some books that he/she likes. Reading Rockets, a website dedicated to teaching kids to read and helping those who struggle, offers a themed book list that you can browse to find the best book for your child.
• Don’t make reading difficult! Let your child read a few pages to you. If he/she misses five words out of 100, the book is too difficult for him/her to read by himself. Choose another book, or read it to your child. In addition to a wealth of books, your library most likely will have tapes and CDs of books, musical CDs and tapes, movies, computers that you can use, and many more resources. You also might find books in languages other than English, or programs to help adults improve their reading. You can also pick up some reading tips on the U.S. Department of Education’s website.
• Model reading in your home. Set a time when the whole family reads together. Each of you can share something about what you read.
• Set small goals with your child, such as reading one page every night. Use chart paper and chart the nights she reads. He/she can see for herself if she’s achieving her goal. Do an internet search for a template to use or you can make your own reading log.

How do you get your kids excited about reading? How do you make reading fun for your kids?

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Desiree Allen is a thirty-something single parent with two children. A native of Denver, Colorado, she lived there until 2009, when she moved across the country to northern New Jersey with her kids. She is doing her best to avoid ‘picking up’ a Jersey accent, but she’s not making promises that she won’t eventually start sounding like some of her new friends. You can find her blogging at Writing to Sanity and tweeting @writingtosanity.

If the vibe of MomItForward’s #gno (Twitter girls’ night out) is any indication, the secret is to make reading a part of that summer exploration and incorporate it into your daily or weekly routine, whatever that may be, in creative ways. While that may make sense in general, specific ideas and apps as to how to do that can be hard to come by. In a recent #gno Twitter party with panelists from PBS Kids, ideas were plentiful, though. Here are some suggestions for summer reading:

Ideas for Encouraging Summer Reading

@theaumsmama: “Love lazy summer reading. We participate in our libraries smr reading pgrm. Kids earn $20 to spend locally. Also, I have recorded myself reading books for the car esp. road trips.”

@PBSParents: “School may be out in the summer, but reading is always in. Keeping books in the car is key.”

@momonashoe: “I offer a reading incentives and we make a graph that goes up to the ceiling.”

@realmomsluv2eat: “My kids are self motivated by the idea that we get to go buy new books, or trade them w/ friends.”

@heatherd13: “One hour of reading a day, period. It’s not that hard to do and they pick the books.”

@7onashoestring: “My girls like to do puppet shows and use books for their scripts.”

Helpful Sites and Apps

@appsforipads: “ There is an iPad app called StoryPatch that will allow your child to make their OWN storybooks!”

@iVillage:  “http://www.ivillage.com/get-your-kids-reading-throughout-summer/8-a-349754″

@spanglishbaby: “I wrote a post linking to all the 2011 Kid’s Summer Reading Challenges http://bit.ly/iyOXGU.”

@iambrimful: “Book blogs like @SevenImp and @FuseEight great new book resources. And Starfall is wonderful. And of course PBSkids.”

@coolmomtech: “ Love Brain Pop Jr. http://ow.ly/52ii6″

@mrspstorytime: “My free reading challenge game rewards reading with a pot of gold! http://tinyurl.com/yl9dkxe.”

Mom It Forward community member, @ThinkMaya, recently developed an app called MemeTales, which is perfect for encouraging kids to read at home or on the go this summer! Their website even offers a way for parents and kids alike to write and publish their own books.

And, of course, PBS Parents offers a wealth of ideas. These are just a few of so many awesome tips offered, and so many resources available for some good summer reading!

What tips do you have for encouraging your kids to read during the summer break?

10 Tips to Serve By Reading

Here are 10 bite-size ideas:

1. Donate your gently-used paperback books to the Prison Book Program to improve prisoners’ access to educational materials.
2. Order an extra book in your child’s next Scholastic book order, and donate it to your child’s school or to Reader to Reader, a nonprofit that distributes books to needy school libraries across the country.
3. Donate your used books abroad through Books for Africa, International Book Project, and Biblioworks.org. Visit the American Library Association’s page on sending books to needy libraries for a longer list of possible recipients. There are many.
4. Attend, sponsor, or host an event, such as a read-a-thon, for Reach Out and Read, a nonprofit that promotes early literacy and school readiness in pediatric exam rooms nationwide by giving new books to children and advice to parents about the importance of reading aloud.
5. Participate in a Virtual Book Drive for First Book
6. Attend your local storytelling festival, maybe taking along a friend who couldn’t otherwise afford to go.
7. Volunteer for one month at your local literacy center.
8. Ask the librarian of your local middle school or high school if you can prepare a poster or other type of visual summary of a good book, to motivate their students to read.
9. Donate books or money to a charity, like the Ronald McDonald Houses, that provides assistance to families of hospital patients.
10. Donate a Borders gift card to a Christmas Box House.

How Will You Give to Others This Week?

• What other ideas do you have for giving to others by reading?
• How has serving others made a meaningful difference for you this week?
• How have others given to you this week and what difference has that made in your life?

How Else Can You Make a Difference This Season?

Make a meaningful difference this season by taking the Season of Service (SOS) Challenge. Here’s how you can participate:

• Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week’s challenge.
• Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week’s challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
• Enter to win each week’s giveaway. Check out this week’s prizes from ONE.org by clicking here.
• Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.

Tips to Serving Others in Foreign Countries

There are so many possibilities. Here are some ideas:

• Read 31 Ways to Change the World by 4,386 Children, produced by Nick Stanhope, with your kids.
• Buy a $16 pineapple bowl at Heart of Haiti.com to help a Haitian artist and his or her family get back on their feet.
• Help fight illegal child labor, torture, summary executions, enforced disappearances, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by going to the World Organization Against Torture and taking a few minutes to write a government official to demand change.
• Read a book online for We Give Books and help donate 20,000 new Tinga Tinga Tales books to children in East Africa.
• Buy a calendar from the Central Asia Institute, which builds and supports schools for girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Take a spelling test at FreeRice.com. For each answer you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
• Sign up for the Mothers2Mothers newsletter to increase your awareness of efforts to provide education and support for pregnant women and new mothers living with HIV/AIDS in Africa.
• Make a $5 donation to Vital Voices Global Partnership, which is a non-governmental organization that identifies, trains and empowers emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs around the globe, enabling them to create a better world for everyone.
• Check out Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World by Bill Clinton from your local library and read it.
• “Like,” in Facebook, the Working Women’s Forum, which empowers poor women in southern India by providing microcredits, a trade union, health care and training.

How Will You Give to Others This Week?

• What other ideas do you have for giving to others in foreign countries?
• How has giving to others made a meaningful difference for you this week?
• How have others given to you this week and what difference has that made in your life?

How Else Can You Make a Difference This Season?

Make a meaningful difference this season by taking the Season of Service (SOS) Challenge. Here’s how you can participate:

• Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week’s challenge.
• Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week’s challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
• Enter to win each week’s giveaway. Check out this week’s prizes from Heart of Haiti by clicking here.
• Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.

So when I saw a box of Cheerios in the store with a book inside, I bought it. It was a no-brainer: I got something that nourishes both my sons’ bodies and their minds, for the price of a box of cereal.  That is, come to find out, the thinking behind Cheerios Spoonful of Stories program, to make it easy for children to get their hands on books. The whole project involves providing five books, determined through a rigorous and interactive selection process (including a contest for new authors to get original content), and providing the books free in specially-marked boxes of regular Cheerios starting in the month of November. Since 2001, when the program started, Cheerios has given away more than 50 million books that way.

It’s all part of Cheerios’ manufacturer General Mills‘ ongoing commitment to nurturing the whole child and connecting families by fostering a shared love of reading. This year alone, they will be providing 6 million books on-package. Cheerios themselves conducted a study of moms of children ages two to six about the role reading plays in their daily lives. The survey found that although today’s moms are prioritizing reading—67 percent read to their child at least once a day—nearly two-thirds (61 percent) say “busy schedules” prevent them from spending more time reading. The survey also examined moms’ perceptions of one of the greatest barriers to literacy today—lack of access to books.

In fact, the study showed that while in middle income neighborhoods the ratio of books per child is 13 to 1, in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is one age-appropriate book for every 300 children. That’s why Cheerios has also donated more than $3.5 million to First Book, a children’s literacy non-profit that provides children from low-income families the opportunity to own their first new books. And, to celebrate the launch of the Cheerios® Facebook Fan Page, they  teamed up with First Book to launch the Cheerios® 6 Million Minute Read-A-Thon. The Challenge called upon individuals to pledge to read with their children 15 minutes each day.   By reaching the goal of 6 million minutes pledged, Cheerios fans on Facebook generated the donation of 250,000 new books to children in need. The books were distributed in partnership with First Book and Feeding America in fall 2010.

“Parents play a key role in helping their children become readers,” says Meredith Tutterow, Cheerios marketing manager. They’re hoping that by providing books in their cereal boxes, parents will take advantage of the opportunity to take a few short minutes over breakfast together to read with their children.  I have all five of these books now, and have enjoyed read them with my son: No T Rex in the Library by Tony Buzzeo, All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, Jump! by Scott M. Fischer, Purple Kangaroo by Michael Ian Black, and Chaucer’s First Winter by Stephen Krensky.

What do you do to make time to read with your children?

Because of a contribution from them of $350 in books, local Salt Lake City moms and members of the Mom It Forward team and our kids were able to brighten the faces, and even the minds, of the children staying at The Christmas Box House in Salt Lake City, an experience which we wrote about last week. These books will help make a good Christmas possible for children who would not otherwise have one, as they’ve been taken out of their parents’ custody due to abuse, abandonment, or neglect.

Nestle’s gift is part of their support of Reading is Fundamental, which is a 44-year-old program dedicated to motivating children, particularly under-served children from birth to age 8, to make reading a fun and beneficial part of everyday life. It almost goes without saying that education is fundamental to progress in life. It is also evident that reading is a fundamental part of that education, since those who can read well generally do better in other disciplines as well. Hopefully, these gifts will make possible not only a happy Christmas morning, but the possibility of a better life through education.

It is, in fact, also the goal of The Christmas Box House to help provide the possibility of a better life for children, by providing not only temporary housing for kids up to the age of eighteen, but also a school, therapy, recreation activities, and health services. They keep a Christmas tree decorated year round, from which each child is allowed to choose a toy. They work with a number of service partners to prevent child abuse by working with at-risk families in their homes. They provide literacy programs for parents. They are also working to provide a program that helps support the thousands of youth aging out of foster care every year. The Christmas Box House International helped over 5,000 children last year.

Nestle also hopes that buyers of their products will support the cause of reading through their “Share the Joy of Reading” project, which kicked off in September of 2010. Through this program, consumers will have the chance to help a child receive a new book every time they open a variety of specially-marked bags of Nestlé candy. By entering the package promotion code on the inside of those bags at the program site www.CelebrationCorner.com/RIF, consumers have a chance to become an instant winner, for which they’ll receive a $10 book certificate. Additionally, they’ll be entered into a monthly $5,000 cash drawing. Each time a consumer enters a valid package promotion code to play the instant win game, Nestlé will donate $.10 to RIF. Additionally, Nestlé will donate a book in the form of $2 to RIF for each valid instant win prize claimed.

While it is tragic that some children don’t have the same opportunities as others to enjoy Christmas or to excel in school, we can take heart in the knowledge that The Christmas Box House, Nestle, and other organizations out there are helping to meet that need.They cannot do what they do, though, without the support of people like us. Every single one of us can lend a hand, even if our time or finances are limited. Believe me: it is so worth it. Please think of The Christmas Box House and other similar charities not only at this time of year, but throughout the year.

The story, written by Seumas MacManus, came from Vol. I of The New Junior Classics and kept me spellbound time and time, and time again as my mother read it to me.

Now that I’m a mother, I’ve found that although my children don’t necessarily love the same books I loved as a child, they are drawn to the same basic elements.

3 Tips to Teaching Kids to Love Reading

1. Repetition. From toddlers to tween, repetition is an element that stands the test of time. Beginning stories like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? eventually make way for more complex stories that can be enjoyed again, and again. Like the Harry Potter Series for my tween, or Little Women for me.
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2. Scheduled Time for Reading. For me, there is nothing quite like watching my children stop wiggling, talking, jumping and moving in order to be read to aloud, to do the reading aloud or just spend some quiet time reading silently something that captivates them.
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3. Variety. They love it when I substitute silly words for the real words or read with extra gusto. In return they mix things up for me, which is always an adventure.

I’ve been trying hour upon joyful hour to make the sort of memories for my children that my mother made with me. I’ve also been attempting to make my children bookworms.

Just like me.

I think it’s working.

And I couldn’t be happier.

Thanks to Kabongo for bringing reading games to 4-7 year olds and for sponsoring this post.

Angie is a word loving, sunshine hoarding, book devouring, organizationally devout mama to a lot. When she’s not juggling the tasks requisite of a mother of 5, you will probably find her trying to steal time for her not-so-guilty pleasure of reading and writing, or promoting literacy within her home, community and on-line. She originated and hosts the meme Wordful Wednesday and
shares her “Tales From Under the Big Top”, on her blog, Seven Clown Circus.

The push for parents to read to their children is increasing. Why? Is it really worth taking the time to read to your child? Is it really worth the effort of stopping their play or TV watching? Is it really worth repeatedly trying to keep your 4 year-old on the couch so he’ll listen? Yes! Study after study shows that reading is one of the best ways to increase a child’s attention span, improve parent-child relationships, and increase the odds of success in a child’s life (again, see Jim Trelease’s The Read-Aloud Handbook).

So how can you make reading to your child easier and funner? I suggest the following:

• Buy a Hallmark recordable book. This product enables parents to read to their children, even if they can’t be right there with them, due to work or deployment or other factors. It’s a recordable storybook. You record yourself reading the book, into the book, then lock in your recording, and when your child opens the book, your voice is played back, reading each page as it is turned. It’s available in five titles: Frosty the Snowman, The Night Before Christmas, The Very First Christmas, All the Ways I Love You, and My Little Princess. The instructions provided are clear, and the process of recording is intuitive and easy. Check out Hallmark.com for more information.

• Make home-made “flash-pages.” When my oldest was learning to read, I printed out simple pictures on 8 ½ x 11 white cardstock, with each letter of their three-letter word spread across the bottom of the page. I would cut the picture into 3 different puzzle pieces, each piece containing a letter. He would put the puzzle pieces together, and in so doing, would put the letters together. That was his first real reading. Later, we would tape the puzzle pieces together, and I would read a simple story with, say, a dog in it, if that was the picture/word, and every time I read the word “dog,” he would hold up the picture and laugh.

• Buy Jim Trelease’s The Read-Aloud Handbook (Penguin Books, 2001). This invaluable resource contains everything you need: lists of good titles, suggestions on how to get your husband to read to your child, and all sorts of data confirming the need to read to your child.

These are not techniques for teaching your child to read, that is the subject of many other posts, websites, books, and products.  These are a few suggestions to help you make reading to your child an enjoyable habit, one with which positive memories are associated and one that will help him or her for many years to come.

What tips do you have for reading aloud to your children?

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