By Courtney Singer
How do you get children to love reading?
Read aloud books that YOU enjoy! LOOK at Beautiful Books! COLLECT Books! Keep BOOKS in every room of the house! Keep Books in the CAR! Keep Books in the Stroller!
Stories link us together as humans sharing the human condition. Stories entertain us, stories inform us, stories heal us. And books in any form neatly package our shared experiences.
We tell our human stories over and over again with different characters, different plots, different landscapes. We find our favorites and, ideally, we eschew those stories that do not speak to us.
Right now in my Home Daycare, Hamish has four favorite books that we read all at the same time. A page from one with funny sounding words, a page from another with science facts about animals, a page from another that has a certain amount of thrill, and a page from another with beautiful illustrations. We have read them so many times and we both know the stories so well that there is pleasure in hopping from one book to another.
Why do children ask for the same books to be read over and over again?
The answer is similar to the reason that we as adults watch re-runs of TV shows, or read the same books over and over again: Predictability and Emotional Regulation. When we know the outcome of a plot in advance, and how the characters will meet challenges we can relax into the story and often find new dimensions to the journey.
When is the right time
to read to a child?
Read when YOU have energy. I CANNOT read aloud at bedtime. I am too tired.
I will however, stop in the middle of doing the dishes and drop to the floor to read the book that Marguerite has just brought to me. I always bring books wherever we go and read at the beach, at the park, in waiting rooms. I read to the children during meals because sometimes they take an extraordinarily long time to eat. And if I don’t have a book to hand I start to recite a line or two from memory and then we begin to talk about the story.
I prefer to read books that I enjoy, but I intentionally keep a copy of Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss just so I have an example of a book that I Do NOT like reading. ( I read it anyway, don’t worry.)
The kids I look after laugh with glee when I complain about reading Cat in the Hat. That gosh darn Cat stresses me out! The mess, the disregard for safety, the wanton destruction.
I CAN’T HANDLE IT. Sometimes when we finish Cat in the Hat the kids will give me a reassuring pat on the shoulder as if to say, “It all turned out okay in the end”. After Cat in the Hat I take a minute to rock in the rocking chair to recover from the emotional roller coaster of feelings that glorious BOOKS brings into our homes every day.
Courtney Singer cares for infants in her home. BLOOMIN’ CRADLE DAYCARE Small In-home Daycare for Infants here in Skye Canyon.
She has limited Enrollment with a Flexible Schedule; Special Dietary needs accommodated; Scent Free Hypo-Allergenic Home; CPR Trained.
Call (702) 476-8624 for more information. This is a Landline and doesn’t accept text messages. Phone call inquiries only.
Bloomin’ Cradle Daycare has no social media presence for the security of your family.