How to Raise a Reader | The New York Times | Books

Children's literature | Reading | Parenting

By Pamela Paul and Maria Russo

 

From the moment you’re expecting your first child, you are bombarded with messages about the importance of reading. For good reason: The benefits of reading at every stage of a child’s development are well documented. Happily, raising a reader is fun, rewarding and relatively easy.

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Start Them Early

First, Reacquaint Yourself With Reading

If you’ve let reading slide to the margins of your life, now is the time to bring it back. Make the space, and time, for books you read for yourself, and books you read with your child. If you want to raise a reader, be a reader.
 

Baby Books Are a Necessity

 

You may think you’re off the hook with books until your baby is at least vertical, but not so. Even newborns benefit from the experience of hearing stories (and they can’t complain about your taste in books). So take advantage. Here’s how:
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Science Says You Should Still Keep Reading Print Books Over e-Books

Reading

Penn Collins | December 19, 2016 

E-book devices like the Kindle and Nook have already changed the industry of publishing in their relatively short lives. Much as the iPod did with music, now authors can self-publish right from their laptops and readers can carry with them every book they own in something about the size and weight of a paperback.

But while the e-book readers might seem good, uh, on paper, you might consider continuing to read print books for the foreseeable future. Science has given us several reasons why the health and wellness benefits of reading printed material outweigh the convenience and affordability of their digital brethren.

Daily Mail

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15 Children's Books That Teach Your Child Not To Be Entitled by Sarah Bunton

Sergey Nivens/Fotolia

A lot of critics of the millennial generation believe those born between the '80s and '90s as being entitled, spoiled, and the "me generation." With the instant gratification modern technology like smartphones, the internet, and social media can provide, it might seem like Generation Y is used to getting everything they want in a short amount of time. Obviously this isn't necessarily true and it seems millennial parents have an uphill battle to prove this isn't the case, especially with their kids. Thankfully there are children's books that teach your child not to be entitled.
A false sense that the world owes you something isn't a new thing at all. Yet it appears that topics like entitlement, empathy, and privilege have finally gotten the attention they deserve in modern society. Gone are the days of turning a blind eye to unkind behavior and not discussing real issues in polite conversation. Being able to understand the different ways in which people experience the world around them has become an increasingly necessary skill for parents to teach their children.
So if you're looking to teach your child how to be self-aware, empathetic, and patient check out these children's books that help kids understand entitlement.

1. 'Thing-Thing' by Carly Fagan

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7 Facts About Kids Who Learned To Read Early by E. CE MILLER

I’m pretty sure I learned to read before I was born — OK, so maybe not quitethat early, but I do know for a fact that I was being read to before I was born, and immediately after I was born, and just about every single day of my young life until I learned to read all by myself at the ripe old age of 4. (Sure, I hadn’t quite mastered Pride and Prejudice yet, but The Rainbow Fish is an awfully impressive literary achievement when you’re three-and-a-half feet tall.) And looking back, I think all that reading definitely played an essential part in shaping the word-obsessed, always-reading, book-loving fool that I grew up to be. (And thank goodness, since my whole life pretty much revolves around books today.)

Research in early childhood development has long demonstrated the benefits of learning to read early in life. Sure, there are those who disagree with the benefits of reading young (there always has to be one) but the overall general consensus is that learning to read is good (duh) and learning to read at a young age is even better. Here are seven facts about kids who learned to learned to read early, aka: seven reasons why your next Auntie-outing is totally going to include a trip to the local library.

1. Reading Improves Brain Development

This fact might seem totally self-explanatory, but research has shown that between birth and the age of 6 is when children are able to learn at the fastest rate they ever will in their lives. The active brain cells a child is born with are constantly forming connections, which are strengthened by activities like reading — so reading to a little one, and later teaching them to read, can influence healthy brain function that will last a lifetime.

12 Ways Your Parents Turned You Into A Book-Lover by Julia Seales

My mom got her degree as a reading specialist. So, it'd probably be an understatement to say that when I was growing up, books were a pretty important part of everyday life. There's no way I could have grown up NOT loving books, because I was surrounded by them all day, every day.

At one point, my mom actually owned a used book business, and she would take me to book sales and let me get as many five-cent Nancy Drew Notebooks as I could fit in my scrawny arms... and then some. (Side note: If you’ve never experienced a book sale, you’re missing out. We would wake up at about 4 a.m., go to a huge warehouse, and straight-up fight other lit-lovers over old library copies of rare books. Literally, imagine a fashion sample-sale scene, replace the Louboutins with books, and you’d have an accurate mental picture of a book sale.)

Anyway, if you're a fellow book-lover, you probably have a similar story. No, I don’t mean you fought some woman with a blonde updo over a rare children’s book… I mean that if you love to read, your parents are at least partially to thank for that. After all, chances are they're the first people who even told you what this beautiful and wonderful thing called a "book" was, and that's just one of the many ways they turned you into the lit-lover you are today.

Read more: http://www.bustle.com/articles/107146-12-ways-your-parents-turned-you-into-a-book-lover

How Mrs. Grady Transformed Olly Neal - NYTimes.com

How Mrs. Grady Transformed Olly Neal - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed by Nicholas D. Kristof

IF you want to understand how great teachers transform lives, listen to the story of Olly Neal. 

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