Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Reading

How to Raise Kids Who Love to Read

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Novelists Stephen and Tabitha King raised a family of wordsmiths. Their sons Joe and Owen are both published novelists, and their daughter Naomi, a Unitarian minister, writes daily prayers.

When Joe (Hill) published his first novel Heart Shaped Box, he explained why he wanted to join his parents in the storytelling vocation: “It sounds very Victorian, but we would sit around and read aloud nightly, in the living room or on the porch. This was something we kept on doing until I was in high school, at least.”

Gathering the entire family to read aloud probably sounds quaint in an era when some families communicate mostly via text message and others can hardly find time to eat together once a week. But like the King’s our family enjoys read together as a family a few times a week. Here’s why. Reading together has tremendous benefits for both kids and parents. It can:

  • Create lifelong readers

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has surveyed adult reading every year since 1982. In 2012, they reported that only 54 percent of adults in the U.S. had read a book that wasn’t required for work or school during the year.

Kids may learn how to read and write in school, but schools clearly aren’t creating lifelong readers. Books compete with an ever-growing contingent of television shows, video games, and hand-held devices for attention, and the sad reality is, books are losing.

The good news? It’s easy for parents to encourage kids to read for leisure. All we have to do is read! Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, calls it the “sponge-factor” of education.

“Parents can encourage reading by keeping print books in the home, reading themselves, and setting aside time daily for their children to read,” advises Common Sense Media.

Reading aloud as a family is an excellent way to foster a lifelong love for the written word.

  • Develop focus and listening skills in both parents and kids

“Is Google making us stupid?” Nicholas Carr asked in an Atlantic Monthly article. “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. . . . Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” 

We’re probably all a little too familiar with Carr’s sentiment.

Concentration is a powerful tool. It enables us to work efficiently, stay task-oriented, and enjoy our leisure time. But modern life encourages distraction—from the running news feeds on cable news, to the always-beckoning sirens of email, Facebook, and Twitter, to the skimming paradise that is the Internet.

Don’t be surprised if you find it hard to sit and focus on a story for even a half an hour a day. But practice makes perfect. Reading and listening to others read is a fun way to develop  listening and concentration skills. Our kids, who don’t remember life before the Internet, need to develop and practice these skills even more than we do.

  • Build kids’ literacy skills

Reading with parents exposes kids to materials they might not be able to tackle on their own yet. It helps kids increase vocabulary, work on pronunciation, speak confidently, and gives them a chance to ask questions and build comprehension skills. Reading well is also the foundation of writing well, which might explain why all those King kids are professional writers.

  • Provide more reading and bonding time for families

A family reading tradition allows you to spend more of your day cuddling with the people you love the most and reading.

  • Fuel the imagination

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. . . . Imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution,” Albert Einstein wrote.

Unlike television or video games, reading forces us to paint pictures in our minds. Kids are naturally imaginative and creative, and they’re masters of make-believe.

But a lot of adults are so swamped with the details of daily life that we don’t have time for creativity. Nearly everything around us is the result of someone’s imagination – desks, computers, houses, skyscrapers, sewing machines, novels, clothes, etc. An active imagination is perhaps the most powerful tool we have as humans. Reading every day is a great way to exercise our imagination muscles.

  • Encourage relaxation and restful sleep

In just six minutes, reading can reduce stress levels by 68 percent, according to one study. It’s more relaxing than listening to music or drinking a cup of tea.

Some sleep experts warn that using any electronic device before bed can rob us of a good night’s sleep because the light from the screen halts production of sleep-producing melatonin. They recommend shutting TVs, laptops, PDAs, and cell phones off an hour before bed. Reading together by lamplight is a perfect, relaxing, sleep-friendly pre-bedtime activity.

  • Allow parents to reread favorites and explore new titles

It’s been fun to revisit many of my favorite children’s books with my kids and to discover new titles. Our kids explore the world through books, so we’re especially excited to read more diverse books.

Here are some popular kids’ book series to read aloud as a family:

  • Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis
  • Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
  • Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and its sequels by Judy Blume
  • Henry Huggins or Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary
  • The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R Tolkein
  • The Mysterious Benedict Society trilogy by Trenton Lee Stewart
  • Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull
  • Magic series by Edgar Eager

And here are some diverse, contemporary middle-grade books to read aloud as a family:

  • George by Alex Nino
  • Front Desk by Kelly Yang
  • Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish by Pablo Cartaya
  • Charlie and Frog: A Mystery by Karen Kane
  • Ana Maria Reyes Does Not Live in a Castle by Hilda Eunice Burgos
  • Zoe in Wonderland by Brenda Woods
  • Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart
  • Eagle Song by Joseph Bruchac
  • Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  • The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy

Tips for creating a family reading tradition

  1. Get comfortable. Pull out the pillows, drop into your sofa, or stretch out on your porch swing or Adirondack chairs. Make some snacks and cuddle. Family reading time shouldn’t be a chore. It should be a fun, relaxing leisure activity that everyone in the family looks forward to.
  2. Choose fun books with engaging story lines. Don’t feel like you need to plow through the classics. If you’re struggling to find a good book, go talk to your local children’s librarians. They read a lot, and they have loads of resources to help you find the perfect book. They can help you discover new authors who write like your favorite authors, find books in a particular genre, and access lists of award-winning books.
  3. Be dramatic – Create voices, read expressively, and practice your pacing. Show your kids that books can be even more entertaining than TV. If you need some inspiration, pick up some audio books at your local library and learn from experts at reading aloud.
  4. Give everyone a turn reading. When kids are old enough, let them take turns running the show.
  5. Get creative. Incorporate crafts, drama, or puppetry into what you’re reading. When I was in third grade, my dad read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey aloud to my sister and me. Those may sound like ambitious books for elementary school kids. But we followed along and loved every second of it, partly because he encouraged us to make costumes and act out scenes. For the Iliad, I played Hector and my sister played Achilles, and we spent weeks making swords and armor for the big battle scene. (I wish someone had told me how that ended before I chose to be Hector.) I still have an intimate connection with those two books. Years later, I aced the grueling exam on the Iliad in my freshman college literature class.
  6. Entertain younger kids. One of the challenges of reading as a family is appealing to different age groups. Pick a book that engages most of the family, and provide special toys for younger kids to play with just during reading time. Babies and younger kids benefit from seeing and hearing parents and siblings having fun reading, even if the story line eludes them. (Of course, they’ll need some additional one-on-one time to read books at their own level too.)
  7. Read together because it’s fun, not because it’s good for you. Resist the temptation to make everything into a lesson for your kids. Talk about what you read, but don’t drill them with questions.
  8. You don’t need kids to have fun reading aloud. My husband and I read aloud to each other long before we had a baby. Some couples read books on marriage or tackle religious texts. We stuck mostly to short stories and novels. Reading aloud is an entertaining way to spend time with anyone you love.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

[Editor’s note: This is a revamped and updated version of a post originally published on July 21, 2009.]

Does your family have a reading tradition? When and what do you like to read aloud together?

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Cruising the Blogosphere

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Last week I asked you for your favorite blogs, and you gave me so many to explore. Thanks for your feedback! I’m already familiar with some of them, but it’s exciting to find a few new ones.

For anyone looking for new reading material, here’s a small sampling of the recommendations, described in the bloggers’ own words.

“I created the Art of Doing Stuff  because let’s face it, I’m going to do all this stuff anyway so I might as use my self diagnosed OCD to make the world a better, cleaner and more organized place. Because currently, my know-how only benefits my ungrateful friends and family members who make fun of my somewhat fanatical approach to figuring stuff out, and yet, call ME when they want to know how to rip the membrane off a rack of ribs. They can suck it.” – Karen Bertelson

“The idea of foregoing the convenience of modern America and embracing a do-it-yourself attitude is a daunting one for many people. But mostly? It’s about a change in attitude. In a world where soup comes in a can, pudding from a box, and bread from a bag it’s easy to forget that just a few decades ago those items were made at home from scratch – maybe even from foods grown right outside the door.” – Kris Bordessa

“After a conversation with my neighbor on Memorial Day 2008, we decided to become minimalist. This blog is about our journey. … This blog is about the joys and the struggles. It is written to inspire you to live with less. And find more life because of it.” – Joshua Becker

“My hope for this blog has always been to share kind honesty, beauty, and simple guidance through a hectic world.” – Heather Bruggeman

“This is a journal of my small organic gardens in north eastern Ohio, zone 5(a).” – Susy Morris

“I write about old-fashioned cooking, which means: from scratch, with real food, and great taste is more important than fancy presentation.” – Drew Kime

“As humans, our priorities have been skewed. We have lost sight of what true happiness is and can bring, succumbing to a lifestyle that is unsustainable, unhealthy, and so disconnected from the natural world that we have resorted to “saving” it. We have found false solace in the material while being dominated by its pursuit. This blog is about changing that.” – Bill Gerlach

Still don’t have enough to read?

There are many, many other great suggestions in the comments section here, and be sure to check out all the suggesters’ fabulous blogs as well.  In addition, here are a few blogs that I’ve discovered recently in other ways, which I think you may enjoy:

“6512 and growing is the story of growing a family (plus 7 chickens, thousands of honeybee, a large garden and a small orchard, while butchering an elk or two) at 6512 feet, our Colorado hometown elevation.” – Rachel Turiel

“FOTL is the intersection of food, foraging, and the outdoors.” – Langston Cook

“I created this blog because I saw a need to formalize the advice I was sharing with friends and family about ‘green living’ including habits and routines that are better for your health, the health of those around you and the planet.” – Lane’ Richards

“The Urban Country‘s mission is simple. We publish 2-3 quality articles per week to advocate for using bicycles as transportation in North America to improve our cities, our people, and the world. – James D. Schwartz

Happy reading!

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What’s Your Favorite Blog?

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Lately I’ve been cleaning, and when I say cleaning, I mean emptying dressers, stripping closets, and purging file cabinets and hard drives. I feel agitated when the kitchen counter is not scrubbed clean. I eye the newspaper moments after bringing it in from the porch, eager to recycle it.

The other day, as I was uttering “Why are these (fill in the blank: trains, balls, cars, clothes) always on the floor?” while I zipped around the house tidying, it occurred to me that the intensity of all of this scouring, scrubbing, and sanitizing isn’t, um, exactly normal for me.

Then I remembered something my friend said during her first pregnancy. “I knew I was nesting when I finished vacuuming and then took the vacuum apart to clean it.”

Oh, right, nesting. Is that what I’ve been doing?

Here’s what Pregnancy Weekly says about it:

Nesting brings about some unique and seemingly irrational behaviors in pregnant women and all of them experience it differently. Women have reported throwing away perfectly good sheets and towels because they felt the strong need to have “brand new, clean” sheets and towels in their home. They have also reported doing things like taking apart the knobs on kitchen cupboards, just so they could disinfect the screws attached to the knobs. Women have discussed taking on cleaning their entire house, armed with a toothbrush.

Okay, so that does sound curiously like what I’ve been doing. But I’m still clinging to the idea that I rationally make decisions about my day-to-day activities.

In any case, I figured I’d put all of this organizing mojo to use and attack a few of the more messy, disheveled, bedraggled corners of my life.

Enter: my Google feed reader.

A minimalist blogger recommends regularly purging your feed reader entirely and adding back only the blogs you miss. Sounds like a great idea, right?

I opened my reader, resolved to click on “delete all”. Except first I had to browse through my list of blogs … and then read through a few recent posts … and then click on a few of the posts those posts mentioned.

Full confession: I added seven blogs to my feed reader and deleted maybe six. Oops. So much for purging. But I fully intend to return to said reader with a more discerning eye in the near future.

There are just so many great blogs out there. Recently a reader recommended Drawing America by Bike, where Eric Clausen documents his 14-month round-the-country bike tour with ink drawings. It’s very cool, and it made me wonder what else I don’t know about.

I know it’s the opposite of purging, but in the interest of making my feed reader more interesting (albeit a little cluttered) will you help me by answering a few questions:

What’s your favorite blog? What blog(s) deserves to be on my feed reader? If you have time, I’m also curious, approximately how many blogs do you read? How do you keep up with them? Do you use a feed reader or some other method? Do you read blogs every day, once a week, or less often?

Thanks for your feedback! I’ll check out all of your recommendations and report back next week on my favorite new finds.

(To reach me, you can leave a comment below, email newurbanhabitat at gmail dot com, or tweet @newurbanhabitat.)

Six Books That Could Change Your Outlook on Life

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Photo credit: austinevan

My husband and I don’t collect many things, but our house is full of books. I love to read fiction, but I tend to collect more practical books, ones that I’ll look at hundreds of times – almanacs,  reference books, plant-identification guides, cookbooks, and how-to guides. My husband’s into the decidedly unpractical – first edition novels.

I spent many years working in libraries and bookstores; I loved being surrounded by books and people who love books. At the last library I worked in, I sometimes wandered the shelves in the afternoons as the sun streamed through the stained glass windows and just gazed up at all the books. Each represents months, years, or decades of brainstorming, writing, revising, editing, and proofreading; it seemed that any of them could alter your life, shift your viewpoint … change everything.

Here are a few of the non-fiction books I’ve found particularly thought-provoking over the years:

1. Material World: A Global Family Portrait by Peter Metzel and Faith DeLusia

A team of photographers traveled the world, got to know 30 different families in 30 different countries, and asked each family to pile all of their possessions in their front yards for a giant photograph. The result is a surprising and unforgettable book. It’s 16 years old now, but I still pick it up all the time, study the photographs, scan the statistics, and read about the different families, and every time I learn something new.

2. Hungry Planet by Peter Metzel and Faith DeLusia

For this volume, Metzel and DeLusia photograph a week’s worth of food bought or grown by 30 different families in 24 different countries. The photographs are accompanied by a detailed listing of the food; a discussion of how the food is raised and used; a variety of family photos; and a treasured family recipe. Like Material World, this is a book I read over and over again.

3. No Contest: the Case Against Competition by Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn argues that Americans have a difficult time seeing how competitive our society is, because we’re like fish trying to come to terms with being in water. Kohn cites more than 100 studies showing that competition is not inevitable, that it doesn’t make people perform at their best, that it undermines self-esteem, and that it damages relationships. He also offers ways that we might restructure our lives, classrooms, and society to encourage cooperation instead of competition. It made me take a critical look at the structured competitive activities in my life and my own inner competitiveness, and I came away feeling that both were often keeping me from reaching out, learning, and connecting with others.

4. Slow is Beautiful by Cecile Andrews

Andrews envisions that people can find more fulfilling lives through the “rediscovery of caring community, unhurried leisure, and life-affirming joie de vivre.” I read this book years ago, but I still think about it often. It reminds me to slow down and think of joy, itself, as an important and worthwhile goal.

5. Your Money or Your life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

Dominguez and Robin encourage readers to think of money as something we trade life energy for. They lay out nine steps for readers to assess their finances and decide how much energy they need to spend earning money, with the goal of achieving financial independence. My family still has a long way to go toward financial independence, but this book and others helped me to think about earning and spending money in an intentional way.

6. Between Parent and Child by Haim G. Ginott

Ginott encourages parents to look at situations from their child’s viewpoint and help him or her vocalize emotions. The book, itself, is a bit repetitive, but I found Ginott’s advice incredibly helpful in communicating with my two-year-old. Tantrums and midnight wakings go infinitely better when I remember Ginott’s advice; it helps me to get to the root of why my son’s upset, help him vocalize his emotions, and reminds me to empathize with him. Ginott’s approach almost invariably calms him down instantly. Amazingly, the book also has helped me to communicate more effectively with my husband. I’ve read heaps of books on communicating and attended various workshops on the subject at past jobs, but this book is the first I’d describe as truly helpful.

What books have you found particularly thought-provoking? Has a book ever changed your outlook on life? I can’t wait to hear your suggestions.