Image via Wikipedia

Taking a trip to the library with children should be a fun adventure, not a chore.  Helping children to select books can be a bonding experience and give you information about each child’s personality or interests.  On several occasions during my years in the classroom, children told me what books their parents had told them not to bring home.  Top on the lists were books without words.  However, books that include a series of illustrations without words can promote much needed oral language practice and expanded conversation.  Building vocabulary is vital to successful development of reading skills.  Ideally, sharing book time with your child is best.  So that, books without text can be explored by child and adult together.  Developing a storyline together makes the book more special to the child, and encourages the improvement of sentence syntaxing and the growth of a vocabulary base.  Also, creating a personal story will eventually add to the fuller, more richly enhanced writing that the child will be able to accomplish in later years. Many children have a knack for creating verbal stories without much adult intervention.  However, with a minimum of adult questions or suggestions, those stories can become even more delightful with just a few more details added.  

No matter what the books’ contents, children need to find reading material that interests them.  Knowing whether your child enjoys a particular sport, or can’t get enough information about horses, or delights in a good mystery, is very important to recreational reading decisions.  Parents should never just pick a book for a child, since most of us would not appreciate another person picking out our leisure reading.  However, it is important for parents to suggest changes in reading trends.  Generally, parents do not encouage children to read inappropriate texts, or questionable material.  Yet it is certainly appropriate to suggest a little more difficult reading, or an additional book in a different genre than a teenager usually checks out.  The bottom line is for the reader to enjoy the reading.  That includes reading material that seems too easy for your child.  Your children could be choosing easy text because they are afraid of failing with harder text.  But they might be choosing the easier reading just because they like reading more quickly.  Most folks eventually balance the need to read easily with interesting text.  But keeping an eye on your child will certainly give you some important information about that individual.  Having book talks with your children will also let you know what they are getting from their reading, and give you an opportunity to ask some questions or offer some opinions of your own.

Telling children to take their books and find someplace where they can read them is our routine, and provides necessary quiet reading time for all ages.  However, do not lose track of the time that should be made available for shared reading time between parents and kids, kids and siblings.  Show interest in what your kids are reading for fun and join them in discussions or conversation about those books.  Do not forget that magazines are reading material as well and need to be included in reading forums you might be having with your family.  Here’s to great times sharing reading time with your kids!