Tag: personalized books

How Do I Keep My Kids Reading During the Summer?

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Now that the end of school year is in sight, kids are probably gearing up for the summer holiday. The summer months are when most families go on vacation, relax and spend time with one another. The season may go by in the blink of an eye for parents, but summers can feel quite long for kids, and it’s a rather long time for kids to go without reading. In order to keep kids on the reading level they finished with in the school year, it is important that parents remember to keep reading a constant throughout the summer vacation in order to keep their kids’ minds sharp and ready to learn once the new school year rolls around.

Encourage Them to Keep a Journal
If your summer is full of family time, trips and vacations, then a great way to maintain your kid’s reading skills and even enhance them is to inspire them to write. Ask them to write about your adventures as a family. Encourage them to share their thoughts, memories and experiences. Even though writing is not the same as reading, it uses the same parts of the brain and even helps to improve reading and comprehension skills. If you want, you can ask your kids to read you their entries once they’ve finished or at the end of the summer to look back on everything, while also bolstering their reading skills.

Read Before Bed

One of the best ways to help kids build a strong relationship with reading is to make it a habit. Having books around makes them a part of their life, especially their life at home, but actively reading books as a part of their day can help instill reading as a daily activity that will continue for years and years to come. Share a story before bed, or pick a chapter book to read a section from each night throughout the summer. Take turns reading, act out scenes, and do the voices to make it more exciting and interesting.

Read Everything, Read Everywhere

Reading does not have to occur with books alone. Encourage your kids to read road signs that you pass on the highway, teach them how to read a map, ask them what’s written on the cereal box they eat from every morning, or even ask them to read off the ingredients for the recipes you whip up for your next summer barbecue. Reading is an invaluable skill and it is used to help people understand letters, pay bills, and make a plethora of other daily decisions. Reading other things can help kids understand a broader range of concepts and ideas and can help encourage them to read everything everywhere they go. It can help prevent them from getting lost, accidentally eating something that they may be allergic too, or it could help them read the signs and labels they see every day.

Summer Reading
Many schools and classrooms now incorporate summer reading as a means to help make sure that kids read during the long break. Some schools may provide specific lists for certain teachers or grades whereas other schools may simply provide a list of recommendations with incentives to read as many books on the list as possible. The last thing that most kids want to think about over the summer vacation is homework, but there are ways in which you can make reading fun and interesting. First off, you can incorporate any of the ideas above: ask your kids to start a journal about the things they read, encourage them to read with you every day, act out scenes and storylines, draw and color pictures of characters and places from the books they have to read, or even offer incentives of your own for every book that they complete on their own. Choose a personalized book where they will star as the main character, this will sure get them excited about reading too!

Reading is vital and it is a skill-set that helps people learn about so many other things. A love of books is often synonymous with a love of learning; so make sure that you keep your children up to speed with their reading over the summer and to help them enjoy the process, too.

8 Ways to Help Your Struggling Reader

Posted on | by KD Novelties
Struggling Readers

Reading is an essential skill, and it is important that it is taught early on. In order for children to do well in school, it is imperative that their literacy skills are adequate or at least measured before they begin any academic training or instruction. It is common for children to struggle when it comes to learning new things, but some struggles are more significant than others. Some children may be reluctant readers and may simply need encouragement, whereas other children may have other problems that prevent them from reading at the level that they should – and it is vital that parents figure out why their children are struggling with reading as soon as they possibly can.

Did you know that about 40% of children struggle with reading? Luckily, with early help most issues can be addressed and overcome, but unfortunately many parents wait a year or more before getting help. This is usually because parents may not be fully aware of why their children are struggling with reading or they believe that their kids simply just don’t want to read. Whether your child does not wish to read and needs to be nudged in the right direction, or whether your child has dyslexia or other related reading disorders, it is important that it is addressed early. In either case, your child may suffer as a result and fall behind. The longer a reading issues goes unchecked, the more difficult it will be to reverse and correct. There are some ways you can help struggling readers.

1. Acknowledge Your Child’s Successes. As a parent, it may be difficult to look at anything other than your child’s reading skills especially when they factor in so much when it comes to other skills and abilities. But by focusing on your child’s other strengths, you can help instill a powerful sense of self-esteem that will help them develop the confidence to get better at reading and any other skills they may need to learn along the way.

2. Set realistic goals. If your child has problems reading, they are not going to overcome the difficulties overnight. It is important to set realistic goals and milestones and to celebrate each one as they come.

3. Don’t limit your child. Poor reading skills can affect other skills as well, namely spelling, but even if your child is a bad speller do not let this setback keep them mute. It is important that children learn to express themselves and communicate, and it is an important skill that they need to learn early on. Waiting around for their reading or spelling to get better will not change things, so it is important that you help them write in any way that they can. You can use a dictionary, practice self spell-check and other skills that they can apply to their writing afterwards. It is important that kids learn to get their thoughts on paper and that they understand how to properly express how they feel.

4. Share your own difficulties with your kids. If your child is feeling down on themselves for their reading problems or disabilities, it can be discouraging, even if you keep encouraging them to improve or if you congratulate achievements in other areas. They want to hear how you overcame your difficulty, make it real for them so they can associate with the problem.

5. Read aloud. Even if your child has issues reading on their own, reading along with them or to them can be incredibly beneficial. Reading aloud can help bolster their language skills and it could also help spark interest and creativity as well.

6. Take care in the small strides. Having a struggling reader is not easy and the journey may be a long one. Kids who have trouble reading do not usually get better all of a sudden, but they can develop skills slowly over time. Help your child with these smaller steps, help them go over the alphabet, help them sound out words, play games with them including the labeling of your groceries to the signs on the road.

7. Remember that it is okay to read slowly. Kids who have a hard time reading, especially those with disorders, may be especially slow readers, but slow reading is not a bad thing. Remember that your child is working at their own pace, and that the way in which their brains process and understand information is what is best for them. If your child needs a little more time to read or get through a sentence, it’s okay.

8. Make sure that you’re a team. Reading problems and other learning disabilities don’t have to be private affairs. By letting family members and teachers in on the struggle, they can help form a supportive team for your child. By working at home and at school, your child can make huge improvements and can feel better about themselves and motivated to improve.

SPECIAL NOTE: With struggling readers let them choose the books they want to read to entice them to read more and help with the situation.  Books personalized for kids can boost their motivation and even forget that they have a problem to begin with since they will be so engulfed in reading about themselves.  It always helps to take their mind off their problem while still working on it without them really noticing.  Get creative!

Are You Reading Aloud With Your Child or Do They Read On Their Own?

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Why Reading Aloud is Important

Reading is an essential skill to have. It allows people to learn, it gives them access to information and ideas, it allows them to communicate with others and become an active and productive part of their living community. So how do you go about teaching your child to read at their full potential?

One of the best things you can do is read aloud with them.

Reading to children, or having them read aloud along with you, can yield a great many benefits when it comes to reading, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Reading to your child is often their first experience with reading itself. It is important that children develop relationships with books early on. This can be accomplished with books read to children as well as allowing children to play with baby books, typically of the plastic or thick cardboard variety that allows kids to chomp and play with them physically. While kids grow comfortable with books as objects from the standpoint of a plaything, reading to children will help familiarize them with the action.  It will also help boost vocabulary and communication skills as well.

As children get older, reading aloud to them remains important. Reading out loud can help boost their reading comprehension skills on several levels.  “Children learn when they make connections between what they hear and what they know. One method parents can use to help make these connections is called a think aloud, where you talk through your thoughts as you read (Gold, Gibson – Reading Rockets).” This method utilizes their imagination in order to visualize the story being told. If your child is reading along with you, they can begin to familiarize words by sight with their sound, making them much more effective readers. Books personalized for children can boost the read aloud, think aloud, method.  As you verbalize thoughts when reading, children can associate with the story as they become the stars of the storyline.  These types of customized books can be especially helpful with reluctant readers or struggling readers as well.

Your Child is the Star of Each Story!

Having your child read aloud to you can be helpful for them, too. You can hear where their strengths are and where they may be having trouble, but having your child read aloud to you on their own can help build their confidence, find their own voice, and learn how to build their own vocabulary, enunciation and other basic communication aspects as well.

Above all, as beneficial as reading aloud can be, it ultimately provides you and your child with ample quality time that you will cherish for years to come. Setting aside time for reading with your child will help build your relationship and can allow you to share interests, stories and imaginative ideas.