This past weekend I went to Chicago and spent the weekend with my friend Erin, her husband and their two small children. While I was there, I saw some of my favorite children's books and was reminded of all the happy hours I spent reading to my kids. As you know, reading is my favorite thing to do, so needless to say, it was my favorite thing to do with my kids. When I couldn't play another game of Chutes and Ladders or my daughter's favorite imaginary game, "pretend preschool," I would declare it reading time.
For sometimes an hour or more, my kiddies and I would sit on the couch cuddled up under a blanket and read book after book. I really like reading out loud (and fancy myself rather good at reading kids' books--How I Became a Pirate and Chica Chica Boom Boom are my specialties!) and the kids miraculously would sit enraptured by the sounds and the pictures. Of course, they had their favorites and I was not above hiding books I couldn't bear to read one more time. When my daughter was really little (around two) her absolute favorite was this big book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes. They are classics and I enjoyed the book, but it got to the point where I just couldn't read the book the twenty five times a day she wanted with her favorites repeated even more times than that. So one day she came to me asking for it. I knew it was on the floor at my feet in front of the couch, so before she could notice, I slid it right under the couch with my foot. It stayed "lost" for about two weeks while I regained my sanity and she got a little less obsessed.
On a side note, another time after we had not read that book for a while, she asked if we could read the book with, in her words, "Little Bo Muffet" and "Little Bit Poop." We still joke about that! :-)
Not only did my husband and I read with the kids all the time, but we both also read on our own all the time and our house overflows with books, newspapers and magazines. People always ask what we did with our kids to get them to be such early and voracious readers ("flash cards?" they ask, or "Hooked on Phonics?") We tell them quite honestly that we did nothing except read with them. We've never had enforced reading time or rewards for reading or done any special program. Instead, we just live in a reading household.
That, I think, is the best way to get kids to read. Have lots of books around so they always have something interesting to pick up. Do lots of reading yourself so they see how fun and "normal" it is. Read with them as kids--help them see how books open and close and how writing goes from left to right, see the front and back of the book, see the pictures and the words, and most importantly see the pure entertainment value of a good story. Turning kids into readers doesn't require any special knowledge or program. It just requires a library card and carving out lots of time for reading. Something I am always up for! :-)
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Obsessive Reading
So here's what I'm struggling with right now. Sitting right next to me on the couch is the book my book club is reading for this month. It's staring at me, luring me in, trying to tell me that I can always do my school work later. I could pick up that heavy hardcover and just read a chapter or two and maybe THEN do my work. I could just read until ten. Or even better, I could stretch out on the couch and read for the next two hours and then do all my work first thing tomorrow morning. It will keep, my book tells me. Nighttime is perfect for reading. It's really better to do schoolwork in the daylight anyway. Yeah, right!
This is my problem. If I have a good book going, reading is all I want to do. I can make up all sorts of crazy excuses for why it really would be better for me to be reading than doing whatever else I should be doing. In the winter when my kids were little, I would take them to that play area in the mall (outside Macy's). I'd station myself on the bench next to the exit, open my book and read for as long as I possibly could. While all of the other parents had to make deals with their kids to get them to leave, I was making deals with my kids to make them STAY. If we went home, I'd have to play with them, feed them, whatever. But if we stayed, I could just keep reading.
When I was teaching high school, I could only read during the summer and during school vacations. I had so much school work to do, that I could not afford to get sucked into a book and do no work. Much as I loved my job, not reading new books was the worst part of it. But the BEST part of it, the part I still can't get over, is that I had and still have a job where I am paid (paid!!) to read books and talk about them with interesting other readers. It's like being paid to be in a book club. In fact, last semester, I'd come home from my 6-9pm Women in Lit class on Thursday nights, and my husband would say, "How was your book club tonight?" And he was right. That class which lasted three hours at the end of the week could have been pretty dull and long, but, in fact, (at least for me) the time just flew by as we debated whether characters were right to do what they did, the symbolism of broken-winged birds, the themes we saw being developed, and the many ways authors use language to communicate with their readers.
So I'd write more about this topic (like how I spent my entire childhood with my nose in a book), but there's this big yellow hardcover book sitting next to me on the couch and I really can't resist its call any longer! I'm off to read. I'll let you know how the book is once I'm done. :-)
Read on! Kristen
This is my problem. If I have a good book going, reading is all I want to do. I can make up all sorts of crazy excuses for why it really would be better for me to be reading than doing whatever else I should be doing. In the winter when my kids were little, I would take them to that play area in the mall (outside Macy's). I'd station myself on the bench next to the exit, open my book and read for as long as I possibly could. While all of the other parents had to make deals with their kids to get them to leave, I was making deals with my kids to make them STAY. If we went home, I'd have to play with them, feed them, whatever. But if we stayed, I could just keep reading.
When I was teaching high school, I could only read during the summer and during school vacations. I had so much school work to do, that I could not afford to get sucked into a book and do no work. Much as I loved my job, not reading new books was the worst part of it. But the BEST part of it, the part I still can't get over, is that I had and still have a job where I am paid (paid!!) to read books and talk about them with interesting other readers. It's like being paid to be in a book club. In fact, last semester, I'd come home from my 6-9pm Women in Lit class on Thursday nights, and my husband would say, "How was your book club tonight?" And he was right. That class which lasted three hours at the end of the week could have been pretty dull and long, but, in fact, (at least for me) the time just flew by as we debated whether characters were right to do what they did, the symbolism of broken-winged birds, the themes we saw being developed, and the many ways authors use language to communicate with their readers.
So I'd write more about this topic (like how I spent my entire childhood with my nose in a book), but there's this big yellow hardcover book sitting next to me on the couch and I really can't resist its call any longer! I'm off to read. I'll let you know how the book is once I'm done. :-)
Read on! Kristen
Friday, February 13, 2009
Welcome
Hello Fellow Booklovers!
This blog is going to be about books and the role they have played and are playing in my life. I have always loved reading. In fact, I can still vividly remember the first time I realized that I was really reading. It was a sunny day, and I was sitting in our kitchen. My mom and a friend of hers were chatting in the dining room and I was sitting on a stool with the book "In a People House." I was just looking through it, when all of the sudden it dawned on me that I was really actually reading. I can't remember how old I was, but I don't think I was quite in school yet. I felt this huge excitement and ran to tell me mom that I was finally really doing it--I was reading!
From then on, it's just been one big read-fest! I spent my whole childhood reading. Now, I wasn't one of those prodigies who breezed through War and Peace or all of Shakespeare's tragedies. I read typical kid fare: all of the Judy Blume books, some of the Little House on the Prairie books(though I was sort of turned off by Farmer Boy so I never got past the first two books until I read them to my kids and discovered that all the rest of the books are AWESOME!), all the Nancy Drews, etc.
I'm a long way past my childhood now, but my love for reading hasn't diminished. It's still all I want to do. In fact, it's often getting in the way of all the other things that I really SHOULD be doing like making dinner, playing outside with my kids, grading papers, or planning lessons.
As I work on this blog, I hope to cover a lot of different topics, but I'm hoping to hit at least some of the following:
This blog is going to be about books and the role they have played and are playing in my life. I have always loved reading. In fact, I can still vividly remember the first time I realized that I was really reading. It was a sunny day, and I was sitting in our kitchen. My mom and a friend of hers were chatting in the dining room and I was sitting on a stool with the book "In a People House." I was just looking through it, when all of the sudden it dawned on me that I was really actually reading. I can't remember how old I was, but I don't think I was quite in school yet. I felt this huge excitement and ran to tell me mom that I was finally really doing it--I was reading!
From then on, it's just been one big read-fest! I spent my whole childhood reading. Now, I wasn't one of those prodigies who breezed through War and Peace or all of Shakespeare's tragedies. I read typical kid fare: all of the Judy Blume books, some of the Little House on the Prairie books(though I was sort of turned off by Farmer Boy so I never got past the first two books until I read them to my kids and discovered that all the rest of the books are AWESOME!), all the Nancy Drews, etc.
I'm a long way past my childhood now, but my love for reading hasn't diminished. It's still all I want to do. In fact, it's often getting in the way of all the other things that I really SHOULD be doing like making dinner, playing outside with my kids, grading papers, or planning lessons.
As I work on this blog, I hope to cover a lot of different topics, but I'm hoping to hit at least some of the following:
- making time to read in the middle of my busy life
- books I'm reading or have read that I think others might like or that have really made me think
- the beauty of a book club
- reading with my kids
- reading for school vs. reading for fun
- good books to teach or use in as outside/suggested readings in class
- book ideas from you, my readers, especially suggestions for the ENG 99 suggested reading list at the end of the year
I will welcome your comments and thoughts about reading so feel free to join the conversation as we book our way through life! :-)
Kristen
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