Lucky the children who have parents and extended family and friends who read to them
August 11, 2015
I just received an email from a mother who took a children’s literature class with me when her children were young. Now they are in college but they have not forgotten the pleasure their favorite picture books of long ago offered and they certainly remember the love that came along with being read to. The young woman, while eating peaches asked her mom if they could read Peach and Blue when they got home.
More than likely it is the experience of being read those dearly loved picture books of childhood that turn children into adult lifelong readers. No one ever forgets the kind of love and attention that comes from a “Reading Relationship” where parents and children share their thoughts and feelings.
The email brought to mind the well-known poem by Strickland Gillian.
I quote a little of it here—
I had a mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
“Blackbirds” stowed in the hold beneath…
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be —
I had a Mother who read to me.
Summertime and reading go together like ice cream and a cone
August 6, 2015
Summer time reading liberates reading from the long list of assignments that often accompany reading during the school year. The tyranny of the assignment— Read for 20 minutes Keep a journal of your reading Answer these questions Write a book report— Assignments so often rob the pleasure out of reading. Lets hear it for— Read […]
Parents face a challenge to overcome the ubiquitous presence of screen technology.
July 27, 2015
A recent article in the WSJ The Great Gifts of Reading Aloud was a nice wake-up call about the importance of reading aloud to children. It made me think what a daunting challenge parents face today to overcome the ubiquitous presence of screen technology. A dad recently shared with me his personal experience of reading […]
Talk to your baby.
July 16, 2015
A recent article, Brain exercises for your baby, highlights how talking to babies helps them learn and develops their brain. Studies show that the vocabulary a child learns in the first three years of their life directly affects their future IQ. Babies best learn vocabulary inside face-to-face conversations, not from screen technology. But, just as […]
What you have in common with Tolstoy
July 8, 2015
Looking for the right word, the words that will best express what you want to say or write? You are not alone. The great writer Tolstoy often found himself in a similar predicament. His solution might prove helpful Nabokov, a Scholar of Russian Literature in addition to being a great novelist, said this about Tolstoy’s […]
