Raising Readers: A New Series

A couple of months ago, I wrote a review about Raising a Reader: A Mother's Tale of Desperation and Delight.  Ever since finishing that book (and probably even before I read it), I've been thinking about the things I've done (and am currently doing) in my own life to foster a love of reading in my kids.

Rather than just making a bulleted list of ideas (there will probably still be many of those anyway), I decided to give this topic its own spotlight on my blog.

It's still in the planning stages, but I've been thinking about it for months, and I finally decided if I didn't just start with something, I would never start with anything.

So forgive me for brainstorming a little with you right now . . .

I'll probably do a post in this series one to two times a month, although I'm not opposed to more (if I have a backlog of ideas) or less (if I have nothing to share).

I'll be writing about such topics as "how to make time for reading," "finding the right level for your early reader," "teaching reading on the sly," etc. Since I have no professional background in teaching (unless the thing being taught includes musical notes), my "knowledge" will all be experiential and restricted to young children (five and under), until my test subjects grow up a little more. :-)

At this point, all three of my kids love books, but if there's one thing I've learned about parenting in the last five years, it's that kids are anything but predictable; they might wake up tomorrow morning and refuse to even cast a glance at a book; they might have learning disabilities; they might (gasp!) prefer other activities. Why, just the other day, I asked Aaron if he thought I liked to read (sometimes my children's perceptions can be most enlightening). "Yes," he said, "you love to read. But I don't." Oh, stab me in the heart, why don't you?!

So just know that this series will be a continuing and evolving one. It will probably be fairly disorganized--sometimes it will be about toddlers or preschoolers or kindergarteners or all three together; there may be times where I say one thing, and then in the next post I have to reclaim it or add an addendum; hopefully, I'll be able to convince a few of you to contribute your own ideas in the form of a guest post. What I'm saying is it will definitely be an "in the trenches" type of series.

Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to address specifically (ha! as if I'm in a position to be taking questions...). And if you have a good idea for the title of this series, I'd love to hear that as well.

Look for the first post next week!