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How To Get Your Kids to Read This Summer by Gwynne Spencer Are you one of those parents who say they want their kids to spend more time reading this summer? Are you one of those teachers that sends home carefully prepared lists of suggested titles that end up in the kitchen junk drawer? What's the answer? Here are ten solutions.1. Take your kids to where books live--the library--at least once a week. Plan to spend at least an hour while the kids browse, explore and peruse. It may only take an adult ten minutes to choose a book, but they are KIDS--they still quake at the thought of Conan the Librarian attacking them because they don't know their Dewey Decimal system. 2. Sign the kids up for the local library summer reading program and get them there for the events each week. If you're going to do battle with the one-eyed monster, it's going to take a little effort and gasoline. 3. Take kids to the bookstore. Go at least once every other week. It can be a used store, a big store, a little local store, but buy them a book now and then. In our relentelessly consumer-oriented world, if you love it, you buy it. 4. Read aloud to your kids, no matter how old they are, every day. Share something you love or something they love, but read to them. Car trips are an especially good time to do this, when you have a captive audience. You never outgrow the need to be read to! 5. Whenever you can connect books to food, DO IT! "What's Cooking in Children's Literature" (Linworth Publishing, 800/786-5017) has hundreds of book-related recipes. 6. Be a media monster--Take books on tape whenever you go on a trip. Some libraries have free tapes to lend. Don't rent book-based videos until after the kids have read the books. Cut the plug off the television. It's a drug. Limit computer game time to equal reading minutes. 7. Host kid book clubs for youngsters to discuss their favorite books. Provide pizza, drinks, dessert, tea, and give readers a chance to sit around and talk about their favorite authors and books. 8. Do you have books in the car, books stacked up in front of the television, books in the bathroom (especially dictionaries), books in the kitchen (especially on the microwave), books in the bedroom, books everywhere the kids sit still during the summer? 9. Don't make kids "finish what they start" reading! It will not build their love for that author or title. Instead, set a good example. Read while you nuke your coffee. Read while you are waiting for the carpool. Read while you are sitting with the TV off. Read when you're at the pool. Read while you're at the veterinarian's office. Tell them about what you're reading. Make it safe and fashionable to talk about books, about reading, about authors, about literature. 10. Keep a list on the refrigerator of the books each person in the family has read this summer. If you think of other ways to make reading fun and enticing this summer, share them with me..........Gwynne Spencer, PO Box 121 Mancos CO 81328 or fax to 970/533 9183.
Kindergarteners Seven year olds Eight year olds Nine Year olds Ten Year Olds Eleven Year olds Read alouds for older kids (that grownups will fall in love with) To stay up to date on new books on this topic, consider subscribing to The Children's Literature Comprehensive Database. For your free trial, click here.
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