Share the Comics With Your Kids

A tried and true way for children to learn to enjoy reading is to read the daily comics. Some of the benefits are developing a more sophisticated sense of humor, following a continuing storyline over days or weeks, and exposure to many writing and illustration styles. The children will naturally skip over the boring adult oriented strips, and find their favorites. Reading small bites daily (during breakfast?) helps to instill the reading habit.

A very informal survey of your children tells me that many of you get a daily newspaper.  How about casually putting the comics on the table tomorrow?

No newspaper? Try http://www.gocomics.com/explore/comics where you can discover new comic strips. Just keep a parental eye out, just as you would with any online resource.

Create a Summer Reading Habit

If you are blessed with a child whose natural habitat is between the covers of a book, summer reading is a cool breeze. For the rest of us, the annual question is how to set the scene for a relaxing, enjoyable reading time.

In school we often talk about reading,  and the students discuss when and where they like to read.The number one choice is the one you'd predict-- bedtime. There are many reasons kids choose to read at bedtime, but I think the most powerful one is habit. Ever since they were little, bedtime and stories have been hooked together.

So, to encourage reading, we need to create another habit. In the article 18 Ways to Make New Habits Stick, one of the suggestions is to use the cues of "time, place and circumstance"to create a daily reading time. To do this, we need to look at our summer schedule and see what regularly occurring event we can tie to reading.

Since most of us eat meats at regular intervals, why not tie reading to a meal or snack? You are all gathered together, so you can just move the party to a comfortable place, indoor or out, and read. Whatever you plan, go for consistency and stick to it. For more ideas, check out these specific strategies for building the reading habit.

April is Poetry Month. Here we go!

It is warmish, and I am sitting in a sunny spot paging through poetry books. Poems pull at my sleeve and try to climb into my lap. They clamor to be included in the month's festivities. I think of my stalwart contest participants from previous years, and I picture them reciting these poems from memory.

Why memorize a poem? In her gorgeous anthology, Poems to Learn by Heart, Caroline Kennedy, says, "Poets distill life's lessons into the fewest possible words. If...things seem to be falling apart, we can recall a poem that reassures us. If we find ourselves in unfamiliar or frightening surroundings, a poem can remind us that others have journeyed far and returned safely home. If we learn poems by heart, we will always have their wisdom to draw on, and we gain understanding that no one can take away."

I want to close by thanking my 8th grade teachers for making us memorize Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. I don't think any of us cared one bit about it at the time, but all these years later is is still there, like a soundtrack to my life.

"Big brick building, how sweet it looks, 
take me in to the land of books.
It's been in your town for a hundred years, 
let's give the library three big cheers!hip-hip-hooray!
hip-hip-hooray!
hip-hip-hooray!"

Garrison Keillor  got it right in his Library Cheer*. I'm sure we can all recall our childhood library. Mine was the Hillsdale Public Library, and I remember kneeling down in front of a dim corner shelf to get the next Little House in the series. It was such a thrill when the book I needed was in.

But now, with any and all information immediately available, do we still have something to cheer about in our library?

The answer is a firm, strong, and loud (no shushing here) yes! Please stop back to read about all the new things happening in the East Brook and West Ridge libraries, as well as ideas to help your child make reading memories to savor.

*(Presenting Readers Theater. Caroline Feller Bauer. 1987)