The holiday season is quickly approaching once again. This is the time of year where you hear your child say "I want that" about 100 times a day. The hot toy of the year, the toy they did not get last year or the one that their friends must have. You will be bombarded by ideas from your child. How many of these toys will your child play with after the first week after Christmas has past. If they are anything like my kids, may be one toy they will still play with. Then they resort back to playing with the toys that they already had. By getting them some kids books they can use time after time. Sure after a couple of days or a week they will forget all about the book. This is when you just file it away on the book shelf and after a few months pass they notice the book once again. What a great feeling it is to see your children entertaining themselves by reading.
Does your child read books that are at their reading level? If they are then you may need to rethink your strategy. They should be reading at three different levels on a consistant basis. Your child should read one book below their reading level. The purpose of this is to build their self-confidence and tone the skills that they already have. Then they should move to books at their reading level. This will help them in their development in becoming life-time readers. Next is reading books above their level. This will challenge them and give them a goal to work towards. While they will find it difficult to read, their minds need to be challenged periodically. Always give praise to your child for their hard work and effort.
Do you read to your children? Do they read to you? This is a great way to get them motivated to read. When you sit down to read them a book, let them take a turn reading to you. A way you could do this is for you to read one page and then let them read a page. Do this throughout the entire book. It will give them a sense of accomplishment and increase their self-esteem and confidence. If you have a child that is too young to read have them tell you what is happening by looking at the pictures on the page without you reading the page first. This will help develop their communication skills by association. Another thing that you can do is after reading the book have them retell the story in their own words. If they have difficulty with this at first keep encouraging them and with time they will be able to recite the story to you. Remember to check out our back-to-school sale going on right now for a limited time. Every childrens book on the site is on sale.
It is just about summer time. This is a time for relaxing and enjoying the good weather. It is also a time to soak up some good reading. Don't let the summer slip by without reading a few good books. Most local libraries have a reading program geared for kids. They also give out prizes to those children who spent quality time with their books. This is a great way to keep reading all summer long. The added bonus in it for you is that it is FREE!