Family Traditions: Passing Down a Love of Reading

by Angie Lee on December 19th, 2010 | 9 Comments »

One of my most vivid childhood memories involved three very important elements: A red leather book, my mom, and The Old Hag's Long Leather Bag.

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

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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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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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.

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Bio: In a former life, Carissa Rogers was a molecular biologist. In her current life, she is the chief researcher of bloggy karma, parenting dos (and some don’ts), new recipes, and for spice she pretends to be a photographer. She started blogging in February of 2008 and publishes her good & crazy thoughts on GoodNCrazy.com. Find her on Twitter and Facebook.