My favorite books I have read with my boys lately have featured art or architecture as a central part of the story: I'm listening now to the Wright Three, in which a central feature is a Frank Lloyd Wright House. Christopher enjoyed reading Masterpiece this summer, and we all loved Hugo where early film and photography played such a central role in the book. One of my favorite childhood books was From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Kantwiler, which stars a lost Michaelangelo.
Books are such a good way to provide a bridge into a work of art. The frame may be fiction, but it creates an interest another way of seeing the world.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Easy Listening
Here are some easy (and free) ways to listen to books with your childen.
The easiest is probably to check out audiobooks on CD from your local library. The advantage to these books is that you can brouse what is on the shelf, take a chance with something new, and play the books in the car or at home. It is easy to listen in your CD player at home or in the car, and children can even listen on their own in the rooms during down time. The only downside is keeping up with the CDs and due dates. Libraries even still have cassette tapes around, so if you have a player, those are probably good bets.
My favorite way to listen to audiobooks is to check out titles from my local library and then transfer the books to either an MP3 player or iPod shuffle. Each of my boys have iPod shuffles and can listen to books at home or in the car with earphones or on the stereo or computer. They enjoy drawing or building while listening to stories.
You can also purchase audiobooks at Audible and Amazon, but I prefer first to search on OverDrive or NetLibrary to see if I can find the books for free.
Here are some series that my boys have enjoyed listening to:
Wacky Humor
Classics
Boxcar Children
Misty of Chincoteague
Everything on a Waffle
Bunnicula
James and the Giant Peach
Fantasy
Narnia
The Frog Princess Series
Younger Grade Schoolers
Junie B. Jones
Magic Tree House
A to Z Mysteries
CAM Jansen
Older Grade Schoolers
Harry Potter
Rick Riordan
Guardians of Gahoole
Holes
Lois Lowry
Susan Cooper
The easiest is probably to check out audiobooks on CD from your local library. The advantage to these books is that you can brouse what is on the shelf, take a chance with something new, and play the books in the car or at home. It is easy to listen in your CD player at home or in the car, and children can even listen on their own in the rooms during down time. The only downside is keeping up with the CDs and due dates. Libraries even still have cassette tapes around, so if you have a player, those are probably good bets.
My favorite way to listen to audiobooks is to check out titles from my local library and then transfer the books to either an MP3 player or iPod shuffle. Each of my boys have iPod shuffles and can listen to books at home or in the car with earphones or on the stereo or computer. They enjoy drawing or building while listening to stories.
You can also purchase audiobooks at Audible and Amazon, but I prefer first to search on OverDrive or NetLibrary to see if I can find the books for free.
Here are some series that my boys have enjoyed listening to:
Wacky Humor
Classics
Boxcar Children
Misty of Chincoteague
Everything on a Waffle
Bunnicula
James and the Giant Peach
Fantasy
Narnia
The Frog Princess Series
Younger Grade Schoolers
Junie B. Jones
Magic Tree House
A to Z Mysteries
CAM Jansen
Older Grade Schoolers
Harry Potter
Rick Riordan
Guardians of Gahoole
Holes
Lois Lowry
Susan Cooper
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Read to Your Child...And If You Can't Read, Listen!
The best thing your can do to help your child love books is to read to her from infancy and throughout childhood. There is something special about the time when everything stops or just pauses for reading, whether it is morning, noon, afternoon, or evening. It helps create a rhythm and ritual to the day. My youngest son has an early start to school, and his father helps him get going by reading 10 or 15 minutes from his current favorite. I might pick it up to read to him at some point during the day, but he ends the day with his father again reading to him. What a nice way to bookend the day!
I wish we had more such times, but we are often on the go. As much as I love reading blogs about moms homeschooling their six children on a farm (my favorite is Ann Voskamp's A Holy Experience) that is not my life and probably not yours. Most of us live in a city or in the suburbs and send our children to public schools. Even if we are stay-at-home moms, our lives are busy and technology is part of them. I spend far too much time in the car ferrying my childen to school, sports, and errands.
Audiobooks have been the next best thing to reading aloud and have made our time in the car more than just moving from one place to another. We had started reading Harry Potter aloud to our oldest years ago, but after having been kept captive through the fourth book, we checked out the following books from the library on CD. If your child has a large difference between the books that he can enjoy and the books he can decode, audiobooks help him keep his language skills progressing. Even if there is no deficit, hearing books aloud in the car is a way to enjoy time together on the road.
I wish we had more such times, but we are often on the go. As much as I love reading blogs about moms homeschooling their six children on a farm (my favorite is Ann Voskamp's A Holy Experience) that is not my life and probably not yours. Most of us live in a city or in the suburbs and send our children to public schools. Even if we are stay-at-home moms, our lives are busy and technology is part of them. I spend far too much time in the car ferrying my childen to school, sports, and errands.
Audiobooks have been the next best thing to reading aloud and have made our time in the car more than just moving from one place to another. We had started reading Harry Potter aloud to our oldest years ago, but after having been kept captive through the fourth book, we checked out the following books from the library on CD. If your child has a large difference between the books that he can enjoy and the books he can decode, audiobooks help him keep his language skills progressing. Even if there is no deficit, hearing books aloud in the car is a way to enjoy time together on the road.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Getting Started
My new blog is dedicated to helping your children become passionate readers. I'm looking forward to telling my story and learning from you. Even though I have a Ph.D. in English, transfering my love of books to my two boys has been far from easy. My boys are now 12 and 8, have been diagnosed with dyslexia, and enjoy books in different ways every day. The journey has been bumpy and is far from over.
This summer was particularly challenging as it seemed electronics had taken over our lives. I still feel that way on some days as we have just added in a cell phone for my tween. The other day felt as if I were living in the Matrix and needed the ship to swoop down and pull us out. Yet some technologies have been key in helping us make books part of our everyday lives.
I didn't really know what to call this blog: some working titles were, "The good, the bad, and the ugly," "All the mixed up crazy things I did to get my boys to read," but in the end I went with what I hope them to one day be, passionate readers.
This summer was particularly challenging as it seemed electronics had taken over our lives. I still feel that way on some days as we have just added in a cell phone for my tween. The other day felt as if I were living in the Matrix and needed the ship to swoop down and pull us out. Yet some technologies have been key in helping us make books part of our everyday lives.
I didn't really know what to call this blog: some working titles were, "The good, the bad, and the ugly," "All the mixed up crazy things I did to get my boys to read," but in the end I went with what I hope them to one day be, passionate readers.
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