Fostering the love of reading and writing in children

It's interesting:
"I know it's Catherine and Stuart's wedding day, but all week I've only been thinking about what might have been … We were this close to a British ..."

Fostering a love of reading and writing at home benefits children as they enter their schooling years. In fact, a 2000 National Center for Education Statistics study found that 26 percent of children who were read to at home three to four times per week recognized all the letters of the alphabet compared to only 14 percent of those children who were not. Encouraging children to read and write from a young age creates an environment for children to be successful during their academic career.

1. Cross-Platform Entertainment

   • Many children are drawn to the characters they meet on television and in movies. One way to inspire reading is to encourage children to read books associated with those characters or titles. Younger children might delve into age-appropriate cartoon books with only a few words, while older children might read a series of books based on their favorite movie. For example, the cartoons "-My Little Pony"- or "-Scooby Doo"- also have books with the same characters. Older readers might want to read the "-Twilight"- or "-Harry Potter"- series after enjoying the movies.

   Writing Prompt Generators

   • After asking your student or child to write a story he might look at you, hand at the side of his head and say "-I don't know what to write about!"- Enter writing prompt generators. These websites offer story starters for children writing at a multitude of levels. Some sites ask children about favorite memories to jog their imagination, while others will ask children about their favorite noun or adjective. Whatever the method, the point of these sites is to inspire so that the pen moves from resting on the paper to furiously writing across it.

   Library Activities

   • Many libraries offer programs aimed at fostering and building the love of reading in children. These programs often group children who are about the same age or reading level together and direct those children to all read the same book. The book is then discussed amongst the group. Additionally, some libraries offer contests for children. For example, a local library might sponsor a summer mystery where for every book that a child reads, she gets a clue to solve a larger mystery. Each child who solves that mystery receives a small prize. Other library activities include story time and arts and crafts sessions, which are based around the book a larger group is reading.

   Role Playing

   • Role playing takes characters or stories that children have read and allows them to become those same characters in a story or play session. For example, if a group of children just read "-The Velveteen Rabbit"- by Margery Williams Bianco, ask them to play the various toys, such as "-Skin Horse,"- "-Race Car"- or "-Mouse-"- or, they could play human characters, such as the "-Boy,"- "-Doctor"- or "-Aunt."- You might choose to write a new ending or story with the same characters that the children perform or simply hold a play session where they dress up and act as those characters.

Source: www.ehow.com

Tags: love reading, children about, children read, Fostering love, Fostering love reading, love reading writing, reading writing