Comic Books And Pulling Reluctant Readers

Comic books can be utilized to motivate young children to read for a number of reasons. They are short, while still containing a complete and compelling story; they have detailed pictures on every page, which will hold young readers interested; and they have a distinctly 'fun' style, with the superhuman characters.
   
The average comic book is around thirty pages, and for a younger reader who isn't so keen on reading, a thirty page story is much more manageable. While these stories are only thirty pages per book, they are released in monthly issues. These monthly issues are very easy to follow, with such short issues, while still telling a full story. These stories can be followed for many years, most of the reader's life even. For example, the X-Men comic Uncanny X-Men has run since 1963, and is currently on its 532 issue. The reader doesn't necessarily have to follow a single story, as even five or six issues would be easy to read over the course of an entire month.
   
A unique aspect of comic books is the dual mediums that are used to tell the story, the pictures and the words. Comic books have a defining style to their illustrations that is very lucrative to readers of any age, but would be especially eye-catching to a young reader. The presence of pictures on every page would also prevent young readers from getting lost and bored in the wall of text, by separating the words into paragraphs of exposition and individual lines of dialogue.
   
The characters of most comic books are superhuman beings, normally superheroes saving the world from monsters and even aliens. The superheroes are ordinary people most of the time, with real concerns and problems that are easily related to, as well as the responsibilities of their superhuman positions. There are even comic books that portrays on teenage characters, such as New X-Men: Academy X, Young Avengers, and Teen Titans. These comics also have the characters go through teenage problems, for instance growing up and fitting in, as well as the superhero problems.
   
The stories still maintain a mature touch with the comic book feel, which means a parent could enjoy following a story alongside their child. If a parent already reads comic books, they could introduce them to their child, and read through their collection with them. Comic books can also be a very social hobby, with a close-knit and friendly following who frequent hobby shops.
   
All in all, comic books can be a very entertaining way to stimulate young children to begin reading and to enjoy what they read. They are short and manageable, have cool pictures, have an elegance and fun style, and star characters that children can easily identify and empathize with. They also relates to other mediums, and motivates young readers to continue reading and to read more often.

A Reading To My Infant

A lot of people begin reading books to their children from the time they are brand new babies. Why do they do this and should you do the same? Many experts agree that this is actually a good practice to maintain. It might seem strange reading a book to your three month old baby, but, it is a wonderful bonding experience for you and your baby.

Certainly, one best reason that it does is permit you precious time when you are speaking directly to your baby. Babies that are spoken to a lot score higher on standard tests when they are three years old than infants that were not spoken to often. So reading to your baby is just a better idea to add variety to the time you spend talking and adding to their growing vocabulary.

Generally, your baby hears what you read. He hears what a narrative sounds like. He hears the different tones and inflections in your voice and his rapidly-growing brain starts to wrap around the idea of what a story sounds like. Perhaps he unconsciously understand that, but, the brain grows faster at this time in our lives than at any other.  Helping all of those dendrites networks connect is one of the best things we can do for our babies.

More than anything, though, your baby will begin to associate books/reading with happy, cozy times spent with you cuddling. As we humans are pleasure-seekers, this is an awesome foundation to lay for your child in the world of reading. The more and more we stimulate our kids to equate reading with pleasant, happy times, the better!

The interesting part is that when our babies are very young, the words of the book don't actually matter. They hear the variety sounds of our voice as well as emotions and that is what is important. It simply means that we can basically read almost anything to them. We might even read the novel we've been enjoying to them, as long as we use lots of emotion and maybe even different voices for the different characters. It can be quite comical, but, it will all be teaching our baby vocabulary and helping their imaginations blossom.

They will, of course, be drawn to bright colors and stark contrasts that a lot of infant books have. They will entice looking at that brightness and sharpness. And as your baby gets older, they will become more and more acquainted with the books themselves. They will even soon start grabbing for them and even sucking and chewing on them. So board books and cloth books are definitely in order.

About this same time, your child will really begin to relate the books to special time with you. They will understand that when they see you get the book out, it is time for a great cuddle on your lap and lots of lovely social interaction with you.

Reading to your baby, if nothing else, is a wonderful serene time to spend together. Try it, you might be pleasantly surprised by the long term results.

Utilize On Toddler Obsessions To Get Them Excited About Books

It is so common for toddlers to become obsessed with things that almost every parent you talk to has countless stories to tell you about their child's obsessions and the funny stories that came about because of them.

Stopping at every dock you see to sit for a while and watch.
Grandpa calling to tell you every time boats and ships passing by, telling you to pack up the kids to come watch.
Renting a really interesting new marine lives movie, only to watch it, literally, three times in a row.

We all get the image and we have all been there, in one way or another. Whether it's ships or trains or Princess Barbie, the drill is the same. Those sweet, little munchkins live it and breathe it until we think we just can't stand to watch any more the sailor movies for the rest of our lives.

There is a really productive way that we can mold with all of this toddler obsession, though. We can utilize it as an opportunity to turn out little ones into bookworms! When little Deen wants nothing but more plans, airplanes, airplanes and give him just that. Take him to the library and show him just how many books about airplanes there are.

This would be a fabulous opportunity to get your child their own library card and let them begin to check out a few books at a time. Let your child notice that they can go back and check out more books when they finish the ones they have. They will begin to enjoy and understand the concept of libraries and that they work on a borrow system and that the books are not theirs to keep.

As a special surprise, you can bring home a book about airplanes (or cars, trains, princesses....) from the bookstore that is their very own to keep. You can put it on their bed so they find it when they go in their room and then you can explain to them that that one is their very own to keep. 

Toddlers don't, of course, have the longest focus spans, so they might not want to read entire books. And that is just fine and let them have ample time to decide how much of the book they'd like to hear. They might want to just look at it all by themselves.

They might not express interest in the books at all. The best approach in that case, is just to leave the book where they can get to it and/or see it. (If it's a paper book and they need supervision, you can leave it on a high shelf where it is still visible.) Leave it 'lying around' and let them discover it or re-discover it on their own. Forcing them to sit down and listen to it before they are ready will send the wrong message about books not exactly being pleasant. If it is where they can see it, and they watch you reading from time to time, they will eventually come back around to it. After all, it is a book about airplanes!

Cozy Corner and Your Children

A wonderful way to stimulate your children to read at home is to provide them with a really conducive place to do so. Find a place in your home that you can dedicate to reading time only and make it super cozy and totally awesome in the eyes of your child. You can even make it almost fort-like and it will become a special place that everyone loves.

You can name it 'Cozy Corner' or 'Reading Corner' or even better would be to let the children help to brand it. That would make it even more personal to them and would help them feel more involved in the process of creating this snuggly place to enjoy books.

Now that you have found a place, you need to work on getting it wonderfully cozy. Working from the floor up, two inexpensive napping mats laid side by side would make a nice foundation layer. On top of the mats, a few blankets that are really soft would be great. And next, a pile of pillows will help ensure that your readers can get comfortable in just their own way. Some may want to lie all the way down and some may want to prop themselves up on some stacked, squished-up pillows.

A quick, easy way to add a table for your books is to get a milk crate from the dollar store and turn it upside down in the corner. If you decide to let the children take snacks and drinks with them in the corner and you need the table to put them on, you can use a large, hardcover book on top of the milk crate for a nice, hard surface.

Depending on the lighting in the room you choose, you might need to add some light to your cozy corner. Some type of light that hangs from the wall or the ceiling would be best, so there is no worry of the children knocking it over. You will want to steer away from the harsh, bright bulbs and select soft, reader-friendly bulbs.

Decorating for your cozy corner might just get you and your kids busy with some arts and crafts time. You can make a sign for your reading haven, perhaps even calling it by your family name. For instance, you might call it "Firdaus Cozy Corner". Again, you can get the kids involved in the naming process and you might just get creative with alliteration or even rhyming. Alliteration would be quick and easy if your last name starts with 'D', you could call it "Dayang Cozy Corner if your name is Dayang. This will be fun to brainstorm with the kids. Other things you could make to decorate your reading corner are pictures of books, bookworms, or even airplanes if your son loves airplanes.

Another thing you can do to make each child's time in cozy corner really special is to have them reserve their time there. You can set it up so it is similar to checking out books in the library. A schedule on the wall at the entrance would let everyone know when their appointed time is. This could be a laminated chart, so that you can use dry erase markers to use it over and over. Having your own alloted time in cozy corner makes it even more special.