"Read aloud to your kids."
Parents know this. Cuddling up for 'Goodnight Moon' and Dr. Seuss before bedtime is a great way to introduce your non-readers to the world of books.
But once the child starts reading on his own, then what happens? Parents stop reading to them. It makes sense, right? If a child can tie his own shoes, he doesn't need Mom and Dad to tie them too.
But reading isn't like tying shoes. A beginning reader can only read at a beginning level. And even a more advanced reader is not going to tackle anything above his level. Bring Mom and Dad into the picture, though, and the child can be listening to books far beyond his reading level. The child is exposed to bigger vocabulary, bigger ideas, and a bigger world. And, sometimes, the child will surprise you with what they learn or fall in love with.
Take my nine-year-old, for example. He's an active boy who prefers scootering or climbing a tree to reading. I've tried enticing him with different stories to encourage him to read, and my only success so far is 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle'. But at dinner, my husband always reads something to the family–'The Lord of the Rings', 'The Phoenix and the Carpet', biographies and historical novels. One night, he chose a book of short stories by James Thurber.
If you've ever read James Thurber (known for writing 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty') you know that these are not stories a child would pick up to read. The paragraphs are long, the subjects are rather mundane, and Thurber loves to incorporate accents, spelling out the sounds of words so that English doesn't look like English anymore. But when my husband started reading 'The Black Magic of Barney Haller', the story came alive. He read without tripping over the long words. The accents were not a foreign language. The humor of the story came out easily and my son was laughing at the dinner table every time he heard "I go hunt grotches in de voods." He kept repeating the phrase for days on end.
A few days ago, my son took the James Thurber book off the shelf and flipped to 'The Black Magic of Barney Haller'. He proceeded to read the story aloud to all of us as we sat at dinner. Every time he read about the "grotches in de voods", he chuckled to himself like there was an inside joke, which made me chuckle. When he was done, he flipped to 'The Macbeth Murder Mystery' and started reading that story aloud.
"Why are you reading these?" my daughter asked.
"Because they're the best!" replied my son.
So don't stop reading to your children, no matter how old they are. Make it a family event. Reading is an easy and wonderful way to share experiences and make new memories!
