Friday Favorites ~ Reading

When I was younger I loved to read. No one ever had to make me read or tell me how important literacy was. To me it was just plain fun. You could go anywhere and do anything and be anyone you wanted. Yes, I grew up in the Reading Rainbow era, and I loved it. Things sure have changed since then, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate technology, but in some ways it is making us all lazier. Have you seen these books that come with a pen that you kids can point at the words on the page and the "book" will read the word? I'm sure it was suppose to help kids read, but in my opinion, it wasn’t the most brilliant idea to make books that actually read the story to kids. It makes getting them to like reading that much harder.
I was talking to the literacy teacher at Ethan’s school about this and she directed me to this great website; www.trelease-on-reading.com. There is a lot of information on this website, but my favorite part is the lists of suggested books to help make reading fun. I took the list to the library and checked out several of the “read-aloud” books to read at bedtime. My kids absolutely loved every book I brought home. I love hearing their laughter and these books sure made them laugh. I will be using more of these lists in the future. Hopefully I’ll be able to spread the reading bug onto my kids.

Here are two of their favorites:

Chewy Louie by Howie Schneider

Rotten Teeth by Laura Simms