Ideas for Reading with Kids

Here are few ideas for making reading an interactive journey.

1. Build. Many kids do love to sit and listen to stories, but all kids get restless and need to do things. Maria Montessori wrote, "The hands are the instrument of the human intelligence." Many books provide inspiration for building things in the real world. In the book Roxaboxen, a girl named Marian transforms a hill across from her house into a city using only natural objects and the help of her friends. Sticks and rocks are all that's needed to start building our own city with our kids. Books like If I Built a House and The Big Orange Splot allow us to dream of our own special house that matches our personalities. With pencil and paper, cardboard, or a set of blocks, kids can go about dreaming up their own homes.

2. Record. Many of us face the challenge of having parts of our family live in different places. We live in Mexico and Sandra's grandparents live in the United States. My mother records herself reading and singing along to various books and sends them to me. I create an iTunes playlist of my mother's readings and stack the corresponding books on the coffee table for Sandra. Sandra always insists on completing ALL the books we have recorded at one sitting. She loves getting these little gifts from her grandmother and best of all they can arrive to Mexico instantly over email.

3. Search. Goodnight Moon is a timeless book for a reason: kids love to look for things. Many children's books are filled with objects, people, and animals in rich landscapes (see for instance books illustrated by Graeme Base and Jimmy Liao). We often stop the story and I ask Sandra, "How many birds are in this picture?" or "Can you find the monster?" Such concrete tasks help her build a relationship to the book, and, on her own time, she opens the books and looks for the objects herself -- an early stage in her journey towards becoming an independent reader.

4. Perform. I often lead workshops for teachers on the topic of how they can have their students perform the books they teach in the classroom. One of my favorite books to do this with is Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. With Sandra I'll do the same thing. We swing through imaginary trees with the Wild Things. We dance the wild rumpus. She climbs on my back as we make the parade. Books and songs that lend themselves to physical movement include: Roll Over: A Counting Song, Baby Cakes, and The Tickle Monster.

5. Improvise. This is actually an idea that came from my daughter. One day she had all of her toy musical instruments laid out on the coffee table. She handed me a book and asked me to read it. She then ran over to the other side of the table and picked up the drum sticks. As I read, she accompanied my reading with various instruments thereby creating a soundtrack for the story.

6. Organize. Cleaning up may not be the most imaginative interaction with stories, but it certainly is an important one. At the end of the day, when all the reading, playing, and making is done, we tuck the books away in a series of plastic boxes to sleep.

50 ways to teach your child to READ

Learning to read is not a crash course that kids take and are done with once they can read Dick and Jane without any help. Learning to read is developmental and starts when a newborn looks at you and hears you talking to them. Below are 50 pieces to the reading puzzle . 50 ways that you and your child can have fun knowing that they are working on early literacy development and learning to love books. This is not definitive checklist it’s a buffet of options to help support your child as they develop literacy skills and become independent readers. Find ideas that work for your family with your child and their current development. Click through the linked items for more details and how to do the activity with your child.
1.Read to your child.
2.Play rhyming games.
3.Sing the alphabet song with them.
4.Label things with their names from an early age.
5.Go to the library even when they are at that loud voice only stage.
6.Have non fiction books as well as fiction available .
7.Tell stories.
8.Have books all over your house.
9.Teach the letter sounds by emphasizing the sounds in words they hear often from a young age.
10.Provide fun and interesting books for them to read.
11.Get a magazine subscription and read it together.
12.Make play dough letters.
13.Play the alphabet game on road trips.
14.Read the mail together.
15.Make a reading nook.
16.Clap out syllables.
17.Make letter crafts.
18.Make reading play time .
19.Notice letters in the environment.
20.Learn about how books work and other concepts of print.
21.Let them choose their own books at the library or bookstore.
22.Leave them notes in their lunchboxes .
23.Play with foam letters in the bath. Use bath toys to make up and tell stories.
24.Make your own books.
25.Play eye spy with letters and letter sounds. ” I spy something that starts with the letter B. Buh buh book!”
26.Give your children books as gifts.
27.Make up silly songs together.
28.Ask them to read the pictures to you before they can read the words.
29.Play library.
30.Read the book then see the movie for a family treat.
31.Play with word families.
32.Read books with no words and share storytelling duties.
33.Let them see you reading for fun.
34.Read nursery rhymes.
35.Explore and trace tactile letters.
36.Play listening games.
37.Retell and have your children retell stories after reading them.
38.Ask your child questions about elements of the story as you read with them. This works on comprehension.
39.Read books at lunchtime .
40.Take books with you when you travel.
41.Build with letter blocks or make your own.
42.Do word searches.
43.Play sight word games.
44.Download an e-reader app on your smartphone and instead of handing them it to play a game make it a treat to use it to read.
45.Read comics and graphic novels with them.
46.Talk your your kids using regular words not “kiddie” words.
47.Read them poetry.
48.Get their bodies moving to learn letters.
49.Read them their favorite book over and over and over even if it’s making you want to poke your eyes out.
50.Make reading part of their bedtime routine from day one.

Reading aloud

Reading aloud is fun, it open doors, and builds the desire to read.

It gives educational advantage for your child, and can establish bonds between the both of you. Reading aloud also develops the ability to read alone.

You can make reading aloud to your child more fun, if you speak in the voice of the characters in the book. For example, in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you can use different voices for the three different bears. For even more fun, your children can also act or playact the parts of their favourite stories.

Assign parts in the story which are fitting to the characters, for example, dad could be the Papa bear, mum could be the Mama bear, and your child, the baby bear. After doing this many times, the roles can be reversed, so your child gets chances to play the Papa bear or any other character. The game gets even more hilarious when the roles are mixed up.

Why is reading aloud to your child important

You child will be able to hear how reading sounds like when it's done by an adult, how it is different from his own reading. He carries the echo of the sound in his ear as he learns to read alone.


Even when a child develops enough confidence in himself by reading to his parents and younger siblings, he still needs to hear stories read aloud for him too. The growing independence in reading alone is strengthened by the praise he receives from his listeners.

Reading aloud is a social event, your child learns not only stories, he learns about life, his family, his place in the world. While reading a story, we tend to talk about it and even after the reading is over, we still continue to talk about it. Events from stories can be related to everyday life, reinforcing the story in your child's mind.

Hearing a story in a group at the library or school cannot compare to hearing a story read aloud to you by your own parent at home. When you read to your children, you are not only teaching them about the material they are reading. You are telling them that they are important to you, that they are safe and secure with you by their side.

All children needs to receive messages like these, to show that you feel that they are important to you.