Please share!

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​Enjoy!

Here are a few practical parenting tips to help you read out loud with your older kid. 
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When you first get back to reading with your bigger kid, do it more than once per week. You'll obviously work around your schedule and your child's schedule, but start with 15-20 minutes twice per week. 

Do it early in the morning or during downtime in the afternoon. Before bedtime might seem rushed or more stressful than other parts of the day. Try it early on a Saturday morning at breakfast to start the day or late Sunday afternoon to wrap up a busy weekend. Just try it! 
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Moms do the bulk of reading with kids at home. Especially if you have boys, consider having Dad read out loud with your kids. Reading Dads are fantastic.

But also, consider other adults. Grandparents, babysitters, aunts and uncles can all be looped in here. They can read a whole book with your child or a chapter here and there. One caveat - someone needs to know the entire book so your kid can discuss consistently with the same person.
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Audiobooks are a fantastic option, especially if you want to read with your child, but aren't yourself a great reader. Or you're tired. 

A few tips with this one - still have the hard copy book so you can follow along. Listening to a book and also tracking the words has been shown to help with comprehension. Listen to the audiobook together so you can debrief together or you can stop and chat about something as you listen. 
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This is a more upfront time intensive option. In case you don't have time or your schedules don't line up at all, you can record yourself reading chapters of a book. Then, have your child listen to you reading the book, without you being there. You can set up each chapter like a track of music to listen to. 

You're still reading the book so you can still discuss it later. And, when you record, you should still stop and ask questions (just pause after you do). It might feel weird at first, but it's a great feeling to know that you are still reading to your child even if you can't be there to do it in real-time. 

​You can record yourself on your phone or use a voice recorder. We use this one in our house. For more details on recording your own audiobooks and benefits, read through this literacy quick tip. ​
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For less pressure, pick a collection of short stories to read. This is a really great collection from Louis Sachar - Sideways Stories from Wayside School. It will be quick and is appropriate for end of 2nd-early 5th grade students.

If you both don't like the book or someone is really bored, abandon the book and choose another. It's okay and a good exercise in why you don't like a book or why you don't think it will get any better. If it's not worth your time and you're not enjoying it, don't read that book. Read one you like. ​

Enjoy!

P.S. The companion post to this is What to Do with Big Kid Readers.

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Remember sending postcards as a kid? I used to love sending postcards when we went on vacations or even better, receiving them in the mail. Who doesn't love getting mail?!

Liliana and I were in Dallas this past weekend and we visited the zoo. As souvenirs, I put pictures up from the trip in her picture frames instead of getting tchotchkes. And as something fun to do, we always get postcards to send. Liliana has a lot to say (always) so she thought it was great when I told her postcards are a way of "telling stories" to other people who live far away.  

​Plus, writing postcards is a quick way to get literacy into your day and works for little kids all the way up to big kids! 

Dads are awesome in all sorts of ways. 

Now that that's out of the way...

​Dads who read are more awesome. 

​Reading aloud to your kids is a great skill to have. As we discussed last week, reading aloud to your kids is important and there are ways to make it fun at home and reachable. You can read stories over and over and over again. Day after day. You can focus on the art one day, words another day, story the next. For bigger kids, you can practice your inflection while reading. You can choral read. You can do it at the library. You can can do it in a new place altogether. There are lots of possibilities - and we'll get to them. But one of the best is, handing reading aloud to your kid off to your partner.

I love reading. And, I love reading to Liliana. I love getting lost in the story - getting loud, whispering, pointing out pictures, catching funny words in a story and seeing the bigger picture. I love listening to her say, out loud, the parts of stories that she knows - showing me that she's latched on to a story. I used to love reading to bigger kids and middle school kids because they get so into a story. You can see them analyzing its believability as you read it. You can see the wheels turning.

And sometimes, Dads are the best to get those wheels turning.

By second grade, most students start to identify reading as a feminine activity. Moms do the bulk of the reading aloud at home and many elementary school teachers are women. Boys see girls reading more at school and this contributes to the cycle. 

And it follows, fathers only read to their children an average of 15% of the time. Jim Trelease, in The Read Aloud Handbook, posits that boys who are read to by their fathers enjoy higher reading achievement scores. And sons who see their fathers read recreationally, read more themselves. Makes a lot of sense.

So, what's the big deal? This is not new, but girls are outperforming boys in overall reading achievement. Anecdotally, I always had a harder time getting my middle school boys to read for fun. And, I'm not the only one - engaging boys in the classroom is a topic of discussion for many teachers.

Much of this is due to the differences in motivation to read, having good reading choices and having good reading role models. Studies show girls are more intrinsically motivated to read and have an easier time finding books to read. Boys have a harder time and start to shy away from reading in the classroom (and at home). A lot of my boy students wanted to read about dinosaurs and sports and that starts to wear thin after awhile.

Boys also perceive themselves to have a lower ability to read than girls. This perception of lower ability starts early in elementary school and persists through to high school and you guessed it - this perception concurs in timing. It's right when reading is identified as a girls' activity. 

Let's make it an everybody activity. And, let me amend my earlier statement.

​Mom, hand off the reading aloud time every once in awhile because Dads who read to their kids and read recreationally in front of their kids are the most awesome. Dads who read to their boys have an extra level of awesome added on.

Enjoy!

And, in case you're wondering, it's Judy Blume's, Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing, that's getting those two reading goofballs laughing. And, Joe will read it to Liliana for real one day. 

​And lastly, if you have or know a kid who loves art, make sure to check out the very helpful blog, The Artful Parent. 

​Go inspire Reading and Art together!

Reading books with no words can be incredibly liberating.  Here's Why.
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Illustrations are stories unto themselves. When you strip a book of its words, you are free to decide the story for yourself, time and again. 

Consider this. You have more than one kid with you. One kid is big, one kid is small and you. And you need something to do to keep everyone occupied. Books without pictures are perfect for this situation since everyone can access the text - there are no words!

​I've used true picture only books with middle schoolers and upper elementary school students with great success. Often, they are hesitant at first but once they trust that you're not going to tell they are wrong, they can get really into it. Journey is my favorite with older kids.

You can read and make-up the story as you go with a few kids at a time or you can let the oldest tell the smallest a story based upon the pictures. Or my personal favorite, the role reversal, let the littlest one of them all be the storyteller for everyone else. 

Picture only books are also fantastic at allowing for revisionist storytelling. Kids will want to tell their stories immediately again because they thought of new and better details to add. They are drafting out loud. This kind of picture book fosters a sense of collaboration since everyone can contribute. It's inclusive and makes you feel safe. And, everyone wants their story to be heard.

Every story is correct as long as its based on the pictures. Storytelling with no words encourages risk-taking, inventiveness and fun! You will be surprised at how proud everyone is when they are finished telling their story.

Here are a few of our favorites (you are also welcome to click on the pictures above):

• Flashlight: Liliana's favorite. This book is great to read with an actual flashlight (with a toddler, bigger kids won't want that prop). This is a great bedtime book that explores what happens outside the comfort of your tent (or house, apartment, you get the gist). 
• Journey: One of my all-time favorite books. This is a Caldecott Honor book about a child who escapes her room into her own fantasyland by drawing a door on her wall. It has wisps of The Chronicles of Narnia and Alice in Wonderland and could spark a great conversation about what you'd imagine your world to be if you got to create it. And, why is it called Journey?
• Tuesday: Also a Caldecott winner, this book has vivid pictures that you can look at time and time again. Enjoy telling stories about frogs on their lily pads and what they see! 
• Lion and the Mouse: This particular book is fantastic, not only because of its stunning drawings, but also because it is a clear adaptation of an Aesop fable. If you are looking for a lead-in to a book with words, or a book that connects, this book clearly is a companion toAesop's Fables.

​Enjoy!

​​I went to a play a few weeks ago. By myself.

It was a play with dark content. I had wanted to see it because I liked the actors who were in it and thought the story sounded interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining. So, I went.

I was one of the only people there by myself. I didn't think it would be a big deal and it wasn't...

Until it was.

​As I was leaving the theatre, I saw pairs of people around me discussing the play. I could overhear snippets of conversation - "I didn't buy the love story part..." - "I liked the set design - that made it more believable as a story..." - they were all debriefing the play.

I so badly wanted to jump into anyone's conversation - I needed to discuss and debrief too!

Alas, no one I knew could debrief with me because I didn't share the experience. Even now, as I reflect, there is still a void. I couldn't fully analyze the material and therefore couldn't come to appreciate the play as much. I realized, it's part of why you don't see people going to the movies on their own very often. Part of the value is being able to share the experience and then talk about it afterward.

​Reading is no different. 

​We read out loud to our kids from birth on. Sometimes before. But something happens when kids get a bit older and it seems like.....we suddenly stop. At first, it might seem like a fantastic adventure into independence. We're proud of our kids when they can read on their own - and they want to. After all, isn't this exactly what we've wanted?
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​Hooray, we cheer! And, we savor those few stolen moments on our own - now not having to shoulder reading every night to our kids. Or when our kids aren't tired for bedtime, but can sit and read their own book triumphantly, it feels awesome.

But, we miss things too. Our kids, who we know so well when they are young, start to become a little strange to us. We might miss what their favorite book is, because we're not reading it together night after night. Or, we don't know what they are reading because we haven't read the book at all - so there is no dynamic way to talk about it together.

There is a part of them we stop knowing when we stop reading with them.

But of course, this is part of growing up. Right? Yes, it is. But we can and should hold on longer.

Let me make my case based on research.

The reason for reading aloud to our kids when they are little are many. It helps build confidence and motivates young ones to want to grow up and be able to read on their own. But, it's also to support a love of reading, to build a reading community at home and to be able to allow you to spot any gaps in your child's understandings as they read. When you read and think aloud with your kids, you are showing them how good readers ask questions about what they are reading. You are exposing them to vocabulary and explaining new words.

You are helping them to understand. And you are showing them that reading is important and enjoyable. You are giving them someone to talk about the book with - you have a book club of two. 

None of this changes when they learn to read on their own.

As Nancie Atwell, a prominent reading researcher, notes about middle school students, "Everyone is enthralled by  good read-aloud...it becomes a bridge for kids, taking them into territories they might never have explored because they don't yet have schemas for a genre, subject, author or period...And they provide a communal reading experience in which we enter and love a book together."

She follows this up with mentioning that she only reads literatures she, herself likes. I am a big proponent of this - Read joyfully. Together.

In a recently published study, researchers compared comprehension levels of students after they have read through passages silently, on their own to valid comparisons from kids in 1960. The findings reported were a little startling. Kids in 2nd grade comprehended more or less on the same level as their counterparts in 1960. After 2nd grade, the growth curve for kids now is less than that of the kids in 1960. In other words, our kids now are not doing as well as kids who were in school in 1960 when it comes to reading comprehension. 
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In short, 

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​And we've known this. In 2000, the National Reading Panel concluded that there was not enough evidence to support sustained silent reading as a practice on its own in classrooms to effectively increase comprehension. This would extend to its use at home, too. 

The add-on conclusion to this is that it can be difficult to gauge comprehension when kids engage in silent reading. Teachers know this and they use silent reading time to conference with kids, check-in and track progress. Teachers ask their students to keep reading journals and reflect on their reading. Silent reading in school is not usually just silent reading - it's packed with extras.

There is usually a class read-aloud in your child's classroom all the way up to 8th grade and sometimes into high school. Sharing books allows for discussing together - and for evaluating comprehension. Reading aloud allows teachers the opportunity to model good fluency, explain vocabulary, ask questions and have a shared, bonding experience with their students. 

This is not to say that silent reading is not at all useful. It is. It allows for choice, a little experimentation and independence in reading. Those are all important for motivation - a key component in creating happy readers.

But having stories read out loud to kids, is still one of the best evidence-based ways to teach good reading habits to kids. Even as they get bigger. 

Enjoy!

P.S. This is not a stand-alone post. There is a companion post with suggestions on how to do great reading with your older kids at home so that it's not overly burdensome and enjoyable for you both.

I mentioned a couple studies above that you might be interested in reading more fully. If you are, here are downloadable pdf files for the studies.

Alexandra N. Spichtig, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Christian Vorstius, Jeffrey P. Pascoe, P. David Pearson, Ralph Radach (2016). The Decline of Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Efficiency in the United States: A Comparison of Current Data With Performance in 1960. Reading Research Quarterly, 51(2), 239–259. ​

National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.