Reading With Your Child

I am passionate about reading with your child.  As a parent, I made a commitment to read with my children, but my four sons remember best and fondest the read-alouds with their dad.  My husband had a favorite book that he loved to read to the boys: The Greatest Sandwich Ever.  Now as young fathers, they have found copies of the book and are now reading it aloud to their children (and many other books too).  Our youngest had a hearing loss until he had surgery to implant tubes in his ears.  He loved for his father to read aloud because he could FEEL him read to him.  He would cuddle up to his dad and the vibration of his deep voice would comfort Jordan. 

As a grandmother, I have read-aloud sessions with my grandchildren.  One regret I have is not continuing the read alouds past preschool and early elementary with my sons. My eldest granddaughter and I read some harder chapter books this summer and discussed some of the issues presented in the text.  We had so much fun reading together that we have more books picked out to read.

The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma is about the reading relationship between a father and daughter that lasted nearly nine years.  Alice and her father tackled hard books and hard times together through their reading journey.  Here is their story from an article published in June, 2011.

The poster below describes 7 ways to build a better reader from birth to age five, but I think it can be applied to a child much older.  "Good readers are made on the lap of a parent".