Weekend Reflections: Encouraging Reading (Changing Strategy)

Dominique Parenting and Kids, Weekend Reflections Reading, weekend reflections

Books on a ledge

School is into it’s 3rd week and the boys are now back into the school routine for 2013.  This year my focus with them is to encourage them to read more and add in more varieties of books  to exposure them to the vast amount of literature that is out there. Many times they stick to only the types of books that interest them – Non fiction science facts and the Adventures of Geronimo Stilton which does not help in developing their creativity and analytical thinking.

I personally do read a great variety of books on a monthly basis. You just need to click on the category- book reviews to see my latest reads. I’m really hoping that the kids will be exposed to more a great selection of  books from the authors which I used to read during my childhood. There are also many new good books out that I will be slowly introducing to them.

From this month I am going to chance the way we borrow books from the library. We used to let the kids pick out the books which they would like to read. Now I’m not going to let them have free reign of what to add to the library check out bag. They will still get their choice of books but I will limit it to the maximum 2 books. The other books that they read will be selected by me.

We normally check out about 16 books but most of the time do not get around to reading all of them as the kids are caught up with school work or  the extra activities which they need to do. From next week we are only going to check out a maximum of 8 books. Half the original number.  This way it will be easier for me to monitor which book is being read and  the kids will have to write out book reviews after they have completed reading so I can assess their understanding of what they had recently read.

Doggie boy needs to ramp up his vocabulary in order to be on par with his peers in school. From the Thinkersbox assessment I learned that I need to do a lot more reading together with him and giving him more opportunities to vocalize and use whatever new vocabulary he has learned in daily context.

I will be doing daily reading and  weekly activity sessions in regards to reading with all 3 kids. Hopefully this would boost their interest in reading.

What do you have plan to encourage your child to read?

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