Parenting Tips Where Can You Find the Time To Read Aloud To Your Children
As a busy parent, when can you find the time to read aloud to your children? Even if you don’t have large blocks of time to devote to reading, you can seize random moments throughout the day.
For example, when you’re waiting at the pediatrician or dentist with your kids, take along a couple of books to read aloud. You can read to your children almost anywhere. Take along a book and read at the park or the beach. Let your kids listen to books on tape or CD at bedtime to help them wind down.
For one family I know, the favorite read-aloud place is the kitchen. Dad has to be away some evenings, but when he’s home, he always does the dishes after dinner so the children can pull up chairs around Mom, who sits at the table and reads aloud to the whole family.
Wherever and whenever you do it, reading together fosters family closeness and bonding. Time spent reading to your children at bedtime produces benefits for the relationship, whatever the age. Reading aloud is equally important for older children. Don’t stop reading to them just because they｡ｯve learned how! Even after kids are proficient readers, they need to keep hearing books read aloud. After a time, reading aloud as a family becomes a habit nobody wants to give up. Besides meeting their personal needs, it helps kids continue enjoying books for entertainment so they won｡ｯt automatically associate reading with workbooks, drills, and tests.
Independent reading
Having time to read silently is also important for your children’s development because independent reading increases reading speed, comprehension, and vocabulary. Giving fifteen or twenty extra minutes of lights-on time at bedtime for kids to read can inspire their interest in books. It also helps to establish some quiet times and places at home for reading. For example, you could put a sheet over a table and add a few pillows.
You might want to have silent reading time each week, in which all of you get comfy in the family room and read independently. Periodically, take a few minutes to discuss what each person has been reading.
Kicking the TV habit
Just as reading aloud multiplies a child’s learning, a steady diet of television nullifies it. Each family is different, but we can all develop some strategies for dealing with the TV and make a conscious effort to reduce the part it plays in our family lifestyle. Why? The low quality of morals and high degree of violence portrayed on many shows is destructive to your child’s developing character. During viewing times, kids generally aren’t interacting with others, reading, playing, talking, or helping anyone.
Further, television watching stunts the imagination.4 Students who cant picture the characters and action from the written word (because they｡ｯve done little reading) are handicapped when they have more lengthy, advanced reading without illustrations. Because too much television viewing handicaps learning, what can we do to limit it? The best way is to provide appealing alternatives, such as family projects, board games, sports, art, and outdoor activities.
Another way to reduce the impact of TV is to have the school week be a “no TV zone.” You can limit TV viewing to the weekend and then watch only in moderation. Some families allow their children to record their favorite shows during the week and watch them on the weekend.
For many families, the most difficult part of limiting kids’ television viewing is the example set by parents. Sometimes we have to take a long, hard look at our own habits and make some initially painful decisions for the best interests of our children. Do we often have the television on in the background, even when we’re not really watching it? Do we turn the set on every night after dinner just out of habit? Is the TV the largest piece of furniture in the family room? We each need to make an assessment of how much importance we’re placing on the television as compared to other family and individual activities. Taking even one step in the direction of decreasing screen time can quickly produce noticeable results, and if you combine that with other strategies for encouraging reading, you’ll be well on your way to raising a lifelong bookworm.
