Why Read Aloud? (part three)
Granddaughter Cecilia ran through the children’s section in Barnes and Noble and headed straight for the stuffed animals.
“Cecilia, honey, put that down, we are here to look at the books,” her daddy said as she picked up a stuffed animal.
She did and went straight for the shiny, big books with sparkles and Elmo on them. She went for the eye-candy and familiar characters. When it came time to leave the book store and the Grandparents (Jerry and I) were ready to make a purchase for her, we chose a book that her mama had loved, not one that she had picked.
One mistake parents make (guilty) is not introducing children to new read alouds. We let children direct the selection and what gets read aloud to them or purchased at the book store. This can backfire. The books, if not well written and illustrated are stale and boring. We parents can quickly assume that the child just doesn’t like books. That is usually not the case. The child just hasn’t been introduced to the proper diet of books.
The day after Jerry and I purchased Miss Suzy for Cecilia, Amerey texted me , “Cecilia loves the book, we read it three times last night and five times this morning already!”
We don’t let children make all the choices when it comes to their nutrition, why should we let them make all the choices when it comes to their literary diet? It’s okay to choose for them. They may not ALWAYS like the selection, but they will be introduced to some variety. In general, kids just don’t know what is available, so they go to the same thing over and over again, peanut butter and jelly or Elmo and Sesame Street.
If your child isn’t used to listening to anything being read aloud, be prepared for him not to last very long listening. Don’t take this as a sign that you should give up altogether. When you introduce a toddler to a new food, you don’t give up the first try, do you? It’s normal for a toddler to reject new foods and ask for the same foods every day, yet parents know to keep trying a variety. The same is true with literature. If you can get a child to sit still for a few pages of a book, do it, the next day add another page or try another genre of literature. Don’t give up!
There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book. —Frank Serafini
Check out The Whole House tomorrow when I am gifting a set of couple’s tickets to the Empowered to Connect Simulcast held on April 8,9!
Book suggestion for today:
Linking up with Kristin Hill Taylor. Join us!