This March, the Museum is celebrating National Reading Month with Read Across America! All month long, you can look forward to several literacy-based programs, as well as book suggestions from staff.
Read Across America is a program headed by the NEA (National Education Association). It is a voluntary association made up of teachers, administrators, and other educators associated with elementary and secondary schools, colleges, and universities. The NEA is the world’s largest professional organization with over 3 million union members.
Here are some suggestions to make reading an enjoyable time for you and your child.
- Read Together Every Day. Building a reading routine is great for establishing habits. This can be reading the news at breakfast, or cuddling up for a bedtime book at night.
- Visit the Library. Local Libraries offer so much! Books, story times, programs, and lots of other resources.
- Talk and Build Vocabulary. Talking with your child is the best way for them to learn about the world around them and express themselves.
- Model Reading. Kids want to do what the grownups do. Make sure your kids get to see you reading and hear you talk about it.
- Point out print. Read and talk about the words you see in the world around you. There’s lots to read—signs, recipes, cereal boxes, instruction manuals, bus schedules, news, maps, and menus.
- Create a reading-rich home. The Children’s Museum at Saratoga partners with The Red Bookshelf to help free books find their way into children’s hands. Provide a special shelf or basket for kids to keep their own books and one for library books. Make sure there are quiet, comfortable places to read.
- Encourage your child’s reading. Praise the efforts of a soon-to-be or beginning reader. Make sure schedules of older readers include time for reading for pleasure.
- Keep books handy. Stash books in your bag to read aloud when you travel or have to wait at restaurants or for appointments. Or keep eBooks on your phone.
- Start reading traditions. Beyond bedtime stories, consider a special birthday book, holiday favorites, or a regular family read aloud at night.
- Let kids choose books. Offer titles that explore your child’s interests, expand horizons, and offer exposure to different writing. Show them there are books where they can see themselves and books where they can see the worlds of others.
- Make everyone comfortable. Find a spot to read together where you are both comfortable. Sometimes kids have to move around to be comfortable.
- Be an active reader. Use expressive voices for characters, make sound effects, and point things out in the text and illustrations when you read aloud.
- Discuss what you read. Give your child enough time to absorb the story and look at the pictures as you read. Think aloud about what you are reading and looking at and encourage your child to do the same.
- Ask questions when you read. Ask your child to guess what comes next. Ask open-ended questions that help them relate to characters or events in the book. Let your child get involved and ask questions too–interruptions are okay!
- Encourage re-reading. Repetition helps kids learn. Re-reading favorite books and poems helps kids make meaningful connections between themselves and books.
- Connect reading and writing. Write your own reading material, like a story about your life, a story featuring your kids, or a story kids make up.
- Make reading an experience. Link life experiences with books, like a trip to the zoo and books about animals, or planting a garden and reading The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin.
- Have fun. Your idea of fun may differ from your child’s, so appreciate your child’s special joy for learning new things. Try different approaches, such as having them read to you or acting out a favorite story. Even something as simple as a story time outside can make reading together livelier and more memorable for you and your child.
By investing time into building your child’s literacy skills, you are setting them up to potentially do better in school, and in life! Every storybook, funny comic, or even grocery store receipts read with you can help them learn and grow.