Tuesday Tip- Reading= love and affection

One of my goals for starting this blog is to try to encourage reading to children (or with children) in the home. As a teacher I've seen this fall by the wayside in our busy home lives far too often- and it breaks my heart! So... I want to share practical solutions for increasing literacy activities in the home.

So here's your first Tuesday Tip! - Read to your children even before they can understand.

I don't know who said this quote (if anyone knows please comment and tell me!) But I found it the other day and loved it!

One of my favorite things to do when I was pregnant with my little Mini was to read to her. I had a few books that I would read over and over again. When she was born one of the first things we did with her (right after delivery) was read to her one of those books.



Today she is 5 months old and we continue to read together every day. She loves it! She smiles big when I do funny voices, she grabs the books and tries to hold them herself, and even tries to turn the pages as we read! It is amazing, and I'm thrilled with how she enjoys that time together.

I had a Literacy Professor at BYU tell us about how even when his crazy grandchild was running around the room, he would sit on the couch and read a story book aloud. Because he believed even if it didn't seem like the child was listening, or even if it seemed they were too young to understand, they will still associate books with "love and affection" and in the future those special moments will help them love reading for themselves.

So your Literacy Challenge today is to read a book aloud to your child (even if he/she won't sit still and is running around the room or if he/she is a little one like mine).





If you want to learn more about the topic read this article:

New York Times Article

This is an article that I browsed through this morning that talks about the importance of children being exposed to talking and how it affects their development. One way to expose your child to more words- reading aloud!