http://www.readtothem.org/blog Read To Them Blog Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:32:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en On a recent Saturday morning I had a curious, unexpected experience - I witnessed something delightful and intriguing. It has stayed with me and I feel the need to share it with you - let you ponder it a little. My daughter had some early testing for high school so ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=17 Several years ago I was preparing to speak before my children's elementary school. It was the first time I was asked to speak at the full PTA meeting (the one where half the parents are just there to see their children perform during the entertainment portion of the evening). I ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=16 “Fostering resilience in children requires family environments that are caring and structured, hold high expectations for children’s behavior, and encourage participation in the life of the family.” Sounds like social science boilerplate, doesn’t it?  What is resilience anyway? But let’s take a step back from cynicism and think about what this sentence ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=15 So I'm reading the Iliad with my two oldest daughters.  No, don't roll your eyes.  That's not what this post is actually about.  It's just the premise.  (Why and how we're reading the Iliad is perhaps an interesting and worthy subject, but I'll leave it out for now because I've ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=14 I recently found this brief anecdote - in document form - from 2003.  But the lesson is still valuable in any year... 3 lessons from reading The Hobbit last night: 1) Take pleasure in the words. 2) The qualitative experience is more important than efficiency. 3) They appreciate things you don’t. - Last night I’m ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=13 The Liberating Power of the Twang Some books don’t seem to lend themselves as well to being read aloud.  No matter how great they are, for whatever reason, they are harder to present orally. One such book is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the touchstone of American fiction.  Central to the book ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=12 A guest entry from a correspondent in northern California: (My son) Kyle is a big Star Wars fan and recently got (for his birthday) the novelization of the recent animated Star Wars movie.   First off, the movie itself was beyond awful (of course, the kids enjoyed it, but it was truly ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=11 Aim Low My own daughters are getting older now. Entering high school. I can recall wistfully the moment not long ago when we realized we had purchased “the last picture book.” So sometimes my musings can tend toward the high minded, what to do with your older children, ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=10 Be Prepared How to Make the Time.  That’s Tip #2 from my list of ten reading tips.  In order to read aloud consistently, and especially to be able to start and finish chapter books, you have to make the time.  You have to preserve the time, commit to the time, exploit ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=9 Reading aloud to your children starts when your children are small, before they can read to themselves.  It starts with toddlers learning that those spines on the shelf contain a world of color and variety and surprise, pages filled with animals and imaginative places - a limitless world of mountains ... http://www.readtothem.org/blog/?p=8