Reading you will love

This week's post is brought to us by Shauna C. Read on and enjoy her insights and great style. Thanks for your contribution, Shauna!

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When I was very small there was a story book purge at my home. Two piles were made; books that were loved and books that were not. Each pile was sorted into a black plastic garbage bag. One bag was thrown out, one bag was kept, the wrong one. Every book that had been most loved and cherished by both the reader and the listener was now in the garbage. And I, the sixth child, was left with the books nobody wanted.

Fast forward to about fourth grade, I could read. I was very good at it, I read the closed captioning on the T.V. (I have a deaf brother) I read the cereal boxes and the soup cans. I read it all. I didn’t like any of it. I told my sister I hated to read, which was like uttering blasphemy in my house. Instead of arguing with me she looked at the books my teacher had me reading and declared that I was right, they sucked. Then she took me to the bookshelf in her bedroom. I found reading magic in the pages of Trixie Belden. I literally felt that Trixie was a great friend. As many of you know, I now read quite a lot. Okay, so I make my family crazy.

The trick was finding something I could love. The books my teachers wanted me to read probably had their own value, but until I could find something I loved to read I couldn’t enjoy the act of reading itself. That is such an important part of unlocking the code. Last year Fiona hated to read. It was hard and not at all fun. I tried, but it just wasn’t working and both of our frustrations were poisoning the experience. So I kept trying, that’s when we found Ivy and Bean. And that was that. A couple weeks later as she walked through the kitchen with a book in hand AJ said “she’s going to be as bad as you.” With a smile I told him “I hope so.”

Cracking the code, for your children, or yourselves, can be tricky. The key is to keep looking, there’s so much out there. There’s this idea that it has to be the “right” kind of book. The right kind is the kind that you like. If you like to read YA (as I do) there’s nothing that says you can’t. If your child doesn’t get into books without pictures fine, there’s a ton of Graphic Novels and Manga. Shannon Hale (writer) has a great article about this on her blog here. Then, in her next blog post she lists some of their families favorite graphic novels here.

Part of helping a child learn to love it is reading out loud to them. I have felt that spell that can fall on a room full of children as they wait to hear the story unfold. It’s a hush with an electric kind of tension. Another blog I follow, “A Brain Scientist's Take on Writing” has an article that discusses a fMRI study stating that the reader and listeners brain waves show the same patterns as a story is read. Click here to read the article.

A fascinating quote from the article states: “Some regions in the listener's brain actually predicted the speaker's activity, as if the listener was anticipating parts of the story. Later tests of listener comprehension support this. The more predictive activity in a listener’s brain, the better she scored on comprehension questions after the experiment.”

I’ll let you take from that what you will as there are many interesting things to be gleaned from the article. I experienced this in my daughter’s class at school last week. I could see the children mouthing the words they knew would come next, even the squirmiest kids watching my face, listening intently. The whole room had been woven into a spell and held their breath to find out if The Gingerbread Girl would meet the same fate as the Gingerbread Boy. And the trick to winding up in a satisfying way? Slow it down. Slow it way down. Just at the end. Wanting more is great, expecting more and not getting it is no fun at all. Slowing down the 2nd to last sentence lets the child know they’re almost at the end. Slowing down the very last sentence to the point that you’re practically stopping let’s the child savor it all. Every. Last. Tasty. Word.

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Thanks again, Shauna! To piggy-back off her comments, here are the top ten authors named by all of YOU as your favorites for young children:
 
Authors:                              One of the Books They Have Written:
Stan and Jan Berenstain                The Berenstain Bears
Felicia Bond                                 If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
Eric Carle                                     The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Bobby Lynn and John R. Maslen     BOB Books
Mercer Mayer                               Little Critter books
Jane O'Connor                              Fancy Nancy Books
Noel Streatfeild                             Ballet Shoes
Mo Willems                                  Knuffle Bunny
Karma Wilson                               Bear Wants More
Jane Yolen                                    How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?
 
Also check out Usborne books and the DK Discovery Series! Stay tuned for our early reader recommendations coming soon. And please leave a post with more of your favorites!