Quarantine parenting is tough, but it does have a positive side to it. Devoid of many community responsibilities and with many venues still closed, parents have a lot more time to devote to their families.
There are many activities that we can do now with our children. Cooking, baking, simple arts and crafts, biking, and playing catch. There is one thing though, that is an absolute favorite of mine, and is also critical to maintaining our children’s academic level, and that is reading to our kids.
Many parents have contacted me with concerns that their children are falling behind in either their newly acquired reading skills or their more advanced skills. Reading with children, either to them or alongside them can help them maintain the skills that they will need once school opens up again.
Read to your children:
The benefits of reading to our children are considerable. Reading establishes and builds neural pathways in a young child’s developing brain. It expands their vocabulary, encourages independent thinking, reasoning, and the ability to develop opinions. Morals and values can be imbued through literature. But most of all, it is a time to cuddle, connect, laugh, and enjoy the written word. This can lay the foundation for a love of reading. When children love to read, whether by themselves or with their parents, they are less likely to lose their literacy skills.
Reading is nostalgic:
One of the best parts of reading with kids is that you get to revisit your youth. As the adult, you are usually in charge of buying the books or checking them out of the library. I loved sharing my favorite books with my children. The Diggingest Dog, Red Hat Green Hat, Are You My Mother? As they got older, we read all the books in the series of: All in the Family, The Great Brain, Little House on the Prairie and Pippi Longstocking, just to name a few.
The more you enjoy reading with your children, the more you will read to them. A win-win proposition.
How to maintain your child’s reading skills:
As I mentioned above, many parents are concerned with all the virtual learning going on, that their children’s reading skills are suffering. We, as parents, can step in and up our game when we read with our children. We can make reading more interactive and light-hearted. As much as possible, we want to avoid reading drills and dry lessons.
One activity to help young children develop and maintain good reading skills, is to review the storybook pictures before you read the words. You can point to pictures, and name objects and characters. Encourage your children to notice the pictures and explain what they notice, and what they wonder about. Have them guess what the book is about, just from the pictures. You can also ask them some questions:
- What is happening on this page?
- What do you see on this page?
- Who do you think this is?
- Why do you think this character looks so sad (excited, happy)?
- Where is the character on this page?
- What just happened?
Older children, usually up until about 4th grade, may still enjoy having books read to them out loud. There might be fewer pictures in books geared to older readers, but some, more sophisticated questions could be asked:
What do you think is going to happen next?
What do you think of the character? Was it right what she did?
Do you think this is similar or different to another book or the character in another book?
Once you have finished the book, you can ask:
If you were the author, how would you have ended the book?
Were there any changes you would have made to the book?
Would you have added any characters?
The idea is to have fun. Have them use their imaginations and critical thinking skills.
Audiobooks:
Parents are overwhelmed right now. Somedays reading to our kids, along with all the other household chores, might just be too much. Not to worry, audiobooks can come to the rescue. Audiobooks are a great way to keep children engaged and entertained (and not attached to a screen). They are also helpful for children who are struggling with reading.
Audiobooks can actually help improve children’s reading skills by introducing them to books above their reading level and to new genres that they might otherwise have not considered.
They are also a great way to relax with your children. Well-written children’s books are often enjoyable for adults as well. They often provide a bridge to important topics of discussion for parents and kids.
Our children will have to do some catching up when schools open. Helping our children develop or maintain a love of books and reading can help.
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