Raising children who read voraciously – both now and for the rest of their lives is a worthy goal. And it’s a doable one.
It’s helpful to know your why and revisit those “why’s” over and over again.
Here are a few resources for you to explore this topic more in-depth.
Creating a desire and maintaining opportunity for reading is a priority: How do we do this?
Model it! If we want our children to read, we need to be reading ourselves. I’ve been freshly convicted of this in recent years. I compiled my 2014 Reading list and then the last several years I set a yearly goal and kept track of my progress in an Evernote file to see how I was doing and remind myself to put my phone down and read a BOOK instead. We intentionally talk about what we are reading in front of the kids and are ready to listen to their thoughts on what they are reading!
Read-Aloud! Find more ways to read-aloud to your children. The benefits are amazing!
* Seven Benefits of Reading Aloud
* How to Cultivate Read-Aloud Time
* Tea-time Talk and Popcorn Reading – ideas to incorporate more read-aloud time during afternoon lull’s.
* Sweet-Rewards of Reading {Some fun hands-on ideas to add some spice to your read-aloud time}
* Narration Cube: This printable provides a fun way to talk about the elements in the book you are reading!
Provide Good Books
* Books: When to Borrow, When to Buy
* Books to Build a Boys Faith
* Books to Build a Girls Faith
* The Wonder of Wordless Books
* Archives of blog posts about Children’s books we’ve read!
Books/Blogs with Book Lists
* Honey for a Child’s Heart < love this resource!
* The Read-Aloud Handbook
* 1,000 Great Books – sorted by reading level
* SimplyCharlotteMason book finder database
My Books, Books, Books Pinterest board.
We highly recommend The Unlikely Homeschool & Our Journey Westward for book recommendations as well. They personally read and vet their books for being both well-written as well as content considerations that we align with.
Limit Distractions
How to Waste Brain-Boosting Opportunities: The Effects of Too Much Screentime
I’ve pinned many articles and resources to my ScreenTime Balance pinterest board.
Reading Readiness
>> Reading Readiness Activities << Here’s the handout that we told you about! Download this list of ways to help your Pre-reader and Emerging reader be set to make the leap into fluent reading.
Teaching Our Children to Read, Write and Spell: A Developmental Approach. Written by a Behavioral and Developmental Pediatritian. She explains how the brain is wired and what needs to be in place for reading readiness and decreasing risks of later learning/reading problems.
Why Johnny Doesn’t Like to Read – Interesting article on the pitfalls of the whole language (meaning-based or sight word reading) approach.
Dyslexia and the Connection to Whole-Language Instruction. Many programs under the guise of ‘including’ phonics still have a lot of whole word instruction and have children memorizing lists of sight words. This excellent article calls for a return to extensive, intensive phonics and avoiding confusing the brain with sight reading.
Reading Comprehension: Constructing vs. Extracting Meaning ~ An article which makes the case for explicit over implicit phonics instruction.
Recent research showing no advantage to early reading instruction.