Make reading relevant

Conversations in our house often circle back to literature. It takes no extra time to bring books into our daily life. Connecting books to real life is a very powerful learning tool, and it is also just plain fun! Here are a few examples:

We often have "mice and beans" for dinner. Whenever I serve rice and beans, our beloved friend Skippyjon Jones comes up in conversation. He also gets brought up frequently in our house because we have a chihuahua who thinks he's a siamese cat. If you don't know Skippyjon, brush up on your Spanish accentito, head to your neighborhood biblioteca, and get ready for some imaginative adventure.

Sometimes it's fun to bring food into your literature. Not long ago we got some delicious animal crackers and dunked them in melted chocolate (mud) to go along with the story of Mrs. Wishy Washy - a fabulous, fun story for early readers. My daughter loved it as a baby because it is action packed. If you remember in an earlier post, she's a mover. Bringing that book back and adding some snacks gives it a whole new life.

Some books have recipes built into them, so it takes no extra creativity on your part. Just read the book and make the recipe!  One that comes to mind is Thunder Cake by Patricia Polocco. We loved making Thunder Cake in kindergarten! Or you could get multiculture with Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park. A story full of rhythm, rhyme and Korean cuisine as the family prepares a meal together. Recipes are always great for practicing reading (and writing - you have to make your shopping list). Tying in great literature can add that much more.

Fun! That's the name of the game. Be creative with your child's favorite book. Look for openings to reference a book you have read together. Take the time to make that recipe in the back of the book. Make reading relevant.

Stealing

Today I am linking to this mom's blog post. I subscribe to her blog because I love her creative lunch ideas and today she included a book list! Some I have never heard of and want to check out. What are the read alouds that you and your children have loved the most? Right now my son and I are reading yet another Magic Tree House book and we have The Borrowers on the night stand. My daughter and I just finished another Junie B. Jones book and enjoyed the picture books: A Sick Day for Amos McGee and Where's Jamela?

Comprehension strategies

I hear so many great things about Pinterest, but haven't joined. I just got on to look at what's out there today and found this cute video to demonstrate comprehension strategies of monitor, clarify and reread. I decided to share it here. As parents, we have the luxury of being able to work one-on-one with our children, enjoying a good book together. This gives us the opportunity to be detectives. What areas does your child need to improve? Do they need more sight words in their vocabulary? Are there certain sound combinations that are giving them trouble? Are they struggling with fluency? Without fluency it is difficult to hold concepts in memory and achieve comprehension or understanding. Reading programs can be helpful, especially in classrooms when you have many children to teach and can't sit down individually as much as you would like. But they cannot replace one-on-one time reading and enjoying books. This is also why classroom teachers utilize guided reading or small group reading so they can focus on each child, hear them read at their own reading level, and intervene exactly where they need help most in the moment. Maybe these comprehension strategies are what your child needs most. If not, there's always Pinterest :)

Updated to add: I should have used these strategies myself today. If it sounds too good to be true (monitor), it probably is. I should have clarified and carefully reread that recipe a little sooner to realize that my meat needed to cook for 50 minutes PER POUND, not just 50 minutes. Looks like it's tuna for dinner tonight. On the the plus side, dinner is figured out for tomorrow night, which never happens because I am obviously not much of a planner.