Getting kids reading: What does work

What does work. (By Getting Kids Reading.)

Reading to your kid every day. The number-one thing you can do to create a reader.

Letting him see you read. Kids do what their parents do. If you don't enjoy reading - fake it. Or read magazines or comic books or something.

Surrounding your kid with books. Access to books gives a kid ownership and once they feel entitled to books they're more likely to casually pick them up - now and throughout their life.

Reading extensions. I'm referring to other media that are associated with certain books - movies, a TV series, cartoons, merchandise - that may interest the child in a book. Who cares what hooks the child into reading? As long as he eventually reads the book, it's all useful.

Letting your kid choose what he reads. Many schools now go by the maxim that "any reading is good reading" and, barring violence or inappropriate content, I agree. If you don't like his choices, then find something similar that you do approve of. For instance, if he's reading Superman comics, find him novels with superheroes.

Treating books like treasures. Books contain: secrets, surprises, gems, rewards, new friends, adventures, useful facts, gross stuff, silliness and lots of other things your kid values. Let your kid see that a book is something precious and exciting and cool.

Turning off the TV. Much as I hate being the bad cop, you've gotta, gotta limit screen-time. Create space for reading time. Here's a GKR article about the reading bubble.

Sharing books with friends. The next time your child's friend is over, casually mention that your kid is reading "....." book, and ask what they're reading. Before you know it, the two will be having a conversation about books. And that will reinforce what you're trying to do in a way that only peers can.

Letting girls be girls and boys be boys. Your boy may want to walk around while he reads. Boys need to move, especially when they're thinking. Your daughter may want to read stuff about dogs and love and celebrities. Girls often gravitate towards books with detailed relationships. (Advice: get your boy an exercise ball to sit on instead of a chair; get your girl a book with an empowered heroine who has sophisticated relationships.)

Never giving up. Don't stop trying to get your kid to read. It's so important. So, so important. If one thing doesn't work, try something else. One day it will click and your kid will be a reader. And spend the rest of his or her life thanking you.

Access to printed materials does help

What impact, if any, does access to print materials have on our children's reading?

A lot, according to extensive research by RIF, Reading Is Fundamental, a non-profit children's literacy organization based in Washington, DC.

Owning and borrowing books from the library causes, "positive behavioural, educational and psychological outcomes."

In other words, kids who have access to books do better socially and at school.
(Does this sound familiar to regular GKR readers? But I digress.)

RIF found that having access to printed materials:

...improves children's reading performance. Children, and kindergarten students in particular, read better when they're often surrounded by books.

...is instrumental in helping children learn the basics of reading. Kids who have lots of different books become better at identifying words, being able to sound out words, and read sentences.

...causes children to read more and for longer lengths of time. There is more shared reading between parents and children. Kids read more often and for longer stretches.

...produces improved attitudes toward reading and learning among children. Kids who own, borrow or who are given books say they like reading and schoolwork more than kids who don't have access to books.

So there you have it. It's what this blog has been advocating for more than a year, and I'm thrilled to see another significant study that backs it up: kids who have access to books are much more likely to become great readers, and to love reading.

Scatter books around the house
Please check out these ideas for surrounding your kid with books.
Mom got her son reading!
Percy Jackson and the Olympians (let him find books on his bed)
Get your six-year-old reading
More books = more education

How the RIF study was done
Researchers searched 11,000 reports and analyzed 108 of the most relevant studies. They then chose "the most thorough and carefully conducted 44" of the 108 and did further analysis in order to draw their conclusions. That's a lot of stuff.

Survey for research on "enhanced books"

GKR readers, the U of C needs our help.

The University of Connecticut is doing a study on illustrated children's books. They'd like GKR readers to help by taking a brief (four-minute) online survey.

Before passing along their request to you, I called them and spoke to them about their research. It sounds pretty interesting.

It's an academic study - not funded by any toy company or book publisher. They're interested in investigating a product that would enhance an illustrated book with online information. So for instance, it might be that a child clicks on a picture of a dolphin and gets some facts about dolphins. Or maybe the child is instructed to click on all of the nouns on a page and the device counts the number of nouns the child successfully finds.

The survey is intended for parents of children 8 and under, but if you've got an older child and can simply cast your mind back to the time when they were 8, they'd like your input too.

I've asked them to share with us the results of their survey so we can blog about it. The results should ready in August.

Here's the survey:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22ATY56VF98

Canadian (and other non-US) GKRers - when you come to the question "What state do you live in?" resist the temptation to type "state of bliss" and just leave it blank. Their research includes Canadians and non-Americans, but not to the extent where they'll actually let you select a province. Whatevah.

Literacy Lava - excellent (free) resource

Literacy Lava 5

I've got an article in the latest edition of Susan Stephenson's (The Book Chook) great e-newsletter, "Literacy Lava."

"Literacy Lava" is a free .pdf for parents and educators, and is basically a collection of great articles on helping kids to read.

This is the 5th edition of the newsletter and it includes:
*my article, on getting your video-loving kid to read;
*developing spelling skills;
*whether graphic novels are real reading;
*encouraging kids to write poetry;
and much, much more.

It's a tremendous resource, very professionally done, with articles taken from various experts on children's literacy. Stephenson does it as a labour of love, and to help promote her excellent blog, "The Book Chook."

I'm honoured to have been asked to contribute to the e-newsletter; I'm in excellent company.

Click here to download a free copy of the .pdf. While you're on the site, click around and you'll find lots of gems - including back issues of Literacy Lava.

A good teacher - the most important thing

Sometimes, the research catches up with what mothers already know.

"Everything the world has learned about education shows that the quality of the teacher is the most important factor in a student's success." -The Toronto Star, reporting on a speech given by Malcolm Gladwell, author of the bestselling Blink and The Tipping Point. Gladwell was speaking to Ontario's Liberals at a fundraiser in Collingwood, Ont.

Let's look at that again.

The quality of the teacher is the most important factor.

And I'm going to add, "equally important is whether or not the parents play an active role in supporting the child's education," but I think Gladwell's talking about an "all-things-being-equal" scenario here.

So what he's saying - and what the research says - is that if a kid has a lousy teacher, he's likely not going to do well that year. And if he has a lousy teacher three years in a row, he "will fall three years behind a child lucky enough to have a good teacher three years in a row," Gladwell said.

Gladwell says it's much more important than classroom size, and that "even if you were to cut every class in Ontario in half, you'd (only) improve the performance of Ontario's schoolchildren by about five percentile points."

So back to the parents. I don't know about your school, but this is the time at our school when we can let our principal and our current teacher know what our child needs. We are encouraged to write a letter outlining our child's strengths and weaknesses, and what kind of teacher we think could best help our child.

So for instance if your child is having trouble reading, you could let the principal know that reading instruction would be a priority for you next year. Or if your kid's a really good reader, you could ask for "learning extensions" in reading so he's challenged.

No teacher is good at everything. And getting a good teacher who is proficient in the areas in which your child needs help is really important to a successful year. So talking to the principal about what your child needs is a good idea. It's something parents can do to advocate for their child, and I don't think we should be shy about doing it.

After all, teachers and principals can't be expected to read our minds. And as long as we're respectful and talk about the teaching qualities our child needs, then I think it's a good thing to do.

Here's a link to the Toronto Star article.

And here's a link to Malcolm Gladwell's website.

The Internet helps kids read

The Internet can help to get kids reading, according to a 2008 Scholastic Kids and Family Reading study. In an article in the Bismarck Tribune (North Dakota), journalist Pamela Krueger says the study shows that:

*Kids who use the Internet are more likely to read a book for fun.
*Two-thirds of children aged 9 to 17 go online in order to broaden their reading experience (in other words, for reading extensions).
*Kids who are low-frequency readers prefer to read online rather than books.

The article suggests that your child look up their favourite author on the Internet to learn more about them and find other books written by them, e-mail family and friends, or visit the American Library Association's "Great Websites for Kids" page.

Here's the article in full.
And here's an article from GKR about how to get your video-loving kid reading books.

(Via a tweet from @JeanetteMcLeod.)

More books = more education

Books lead to education.

There are three things that you can do to help ensure your child will become a reader:
1) Read to him every day.
2) Have lots of books in your home.
3) Read, yourself.

The research is very consistent. Statistically, families that do these three things end up having kids who read.

Yesterday, the Toronto Star ran an article about the benefits of having lots of books in your home.

Basically, the more books in the home, the more education the child is likely to get. The effect is very profound in less-developed countries like China and among low-income families.

"In China the study found a child whose parents own 500 books will average 6.6 more years of education than a child from a home without books. Amongst blacks in South Africa it is 4 years. In the U.S. the figure is 2.4 years. In Canada it is 1.6 years. According to Evans a child from a family rich in books is 19 percentage points more likely to complete university than a child who grew up without a home library." (-Toronto Star.)

Why?

It's a statistical correlation. In other words, having books doesn't send a kid to university. But in homes with lots of books, kids tend to go to university. And if parents are poor and uneducated, kids are much more likely to go to school longer when there are lots of books in the home.

There is another link, brilliantly outlined in the book Freakanomics. When a child is surrounded by books, she feels entitled to them. Whether or not she even opens up a book at home, she becomes comfortable with them, understands them and feels that she is entitled to be in a place where there are lots of books - ie, a university.

The article and associated research also speaks to my third point - that reading, yourself, will get your child reading.

"If you get parents reading even a small amount, Evans said, you gain in cognition, learning capacities and vocabulary in children. “This study says having bookish parents no matter where they sit in social stratification if they stick to their books they can improve their children’s futures,” she said." (-Toronto Star.)

So number one, read to your child every day.
Number two, give your child his own books.
Number three, read yourself.

Here is a link to the article in The Star, by Debra Black.

And are some past GKR articles that talk about the three most important things parents can do to get their kids reading:

Read to your child. Every day.

Get your six-year-old reading.

The three main factors.

Another reason to read to your child.

How to foster a "reading culture."

I know it sounds like I'm beating on the same drum--read to your child, scatter books, read yourself. But everything, everything I read about literacy points to the same things. It's like saying, "If you want to lose weight, eat less and exercise more." Yes, it's simple.

But yes, it's true.

Thank you to my wonderful husband for pointing this article out to me. Good get.

Read to your child. Every day.

It's the single most important thing you can do to get your kid reading.

Statistics show that if you read to your child, every day, even for 10 minutes - it's likely that your child will grow up to become a reader.

The New York Times recently published a heartwarming true-life story about a father who read to his daughter every night, without missing a single night. For more than nine years.

It's a wonderful article about a single father who wanted to create a bond with his youngest daughter. He proposed "The Streak" - to see if they could read together for 100 straight bedtimes without skipping.

That 100 became 1,000. And then 2,000. And they didn't miss a single night right up until she went to college. (Are you tearing up yet? You will, read on.)

An excerpt from the beautifully written New York Times article by Michael Winerip:

"In those nine-plus years, they survived many close calls. When Kristen was still in elementary school, her father and older sister went to Washington. "The phone rings at 10:45 in the hotel and it's Kristen," Mr. Brozina recalled. "She says, 'Dad, we forgot The Streak!' Fortunately, I always travel with several books and we read right then and there."

The Streak brought the pair much more than a love of reading. It brought them a shared language, taken from the pages of the Dr. Seuss and Dickens and Shakespeare books they read together.

But more importantly, it was something they both could count on, through the hectic days. No matter what happened during the day, they knew where they would both be that evening.

Together - reading.

Here's a link to the article.

You can do this, too. Don't think of it as a nine-year streak. Think of it as - tonight I'm going to read with my kids. Just 10 minutes.

Thank you to Jen Robinson, for bringing this story to my attention through your tweet. And to Michael Winerip for being "that" kind of journalist.

Bonus nonsense: Did you catch that I've used a picture from Family Affair, that great 1966 sitcom about a single dad bringing up two children (and of course featuring their butler, Mr. French)? If you look at the picture accompanying the New York Times article, you'll see why. I hope. Or maybe it's just me.

For the Love of Reading

I'm covering the Reading for the Love of it conference today.

I've never been before, and I'm really excited about it. It's a two-day "language arts" conference in Toronto aimed at educators. I consider myself one of those--after all, if this blog isn't about educating, what is it about? ("Fun!" screams the sassy voice in my head, but I shush it.)

For every workshop time-slot, there are dozens of speakers. Impossible to choose. I can only imagine how many booths there will be. I had 100 business cards printed up yesterday, and I hope I give them all away.

From this literacy cornucopia, I will try to distill the best and most useful information and present it here in upcoming posts. In the meantime, I'm bringing my laptop and my camera and my good shoes.

Here's a link to the conference's home page.

Stephen Lewis is speaking on "Education: the world's greatest force for good." Good lord, how does anyone take the stage after that? It's like trying to follow Al Gore at an ecology conference.

Boys don't like school

Send the message, "I want to hear the story you want to tell."

OK, here are some final highlights from the Leonard Sax seminar:

1) Many more girls than boys graduate from university. This is true for Canada, the UK, and the US. Sax says boys have given up on school and on marks - they been given the unintentional message that "school is for girls." His theory is that boys have been marked according to girl-based systems. When boys get low marks because they haven't put enough colour in a drawing, or because the drawing is violent, they give up; they figure they just can't do it. Then they say, "school is for girls."

2) The same applies to reading. When they're faced with a book like Jane Eyre, which doesn't immediately appeal to the "boy brain" they say, "reading is for girls."

3) And writing: When a boy writes a story that contains action (and/or violence) and limited character development, they get marked down for it. So they say, "Writing is for girls."

4) It's our job - as parents and educators - to find a way to make boys find reading, writing and studying relevant to them. Sax says, "want to hear the story your boy wants to tell." They want to tell a story that has action, excitement, car crashes! Why do we insist they tell stories the "girl way"?

5) The top three factors at age 15 that determine who will graduate:
-grades at age 15
-reading ability
-study habits
Gender in ability isn't a factor! So boys can do it - they've just become demotivated to do it. (See 1-3, above.) They think that "school is for girls."

6) This isn't to say that girls don't have problems. They do. They're more likely to have an eating disorder, be clinically anxious or depressed and become moody.

7) Boys understand boundaries. Instead of saying, "no throwing snowballs," make some boundaries. "Snowball throwing within this area only." Boys get "inbounds vs. out-of-bounds." And they're good with it.

8) Boys like action and that includes violence. Give them boundaries, says Sax. "generic and classic violence (wars, car crashes) is allowed; personal/threatening (specific to a person) violence is not allowed."

9) 40-year-old men and women can sit still for the same amount of time. But a six-year-old girl can sit still and pay attention about twice as long as the average six-year-old boy.

10) There are boy-oriented teachers, and girl-oriented teachers. Sax says very few teachers are both - nearly all teachers prefer to teach one gender over the other. And it has nothing to do with the gender of the teacher.

11) Boys learn better when they're standing. It's been researched. (At our school, one grade-six teacher offers exercise balls rather than chairs if kids want to use them. Great idea.)

12) When girls have a personal bond with a teacher, they'll work harder for them, so as not to disappoint them.

13) Girls' eyes and brains process colour and texture earlier than boys. Boys' brains process movement. It explains why girls use 10+ crayons in drawings, while boys use one or two. It explains why boys' drawings have scribbles (it's hard to draw action!) and car crashes. It explains why girls like dolls and boys like trucks.

I talked to my son about colour. Without prompting, he said, "Mom, when I draw at home I use one colour. But if I'm at school and I want to get a good mark, I use lots of colours." That could have come right from Sax's lecture. Boys prefer to use one colour, but are graded on using many colours. (Having said that, my son's teachers are awesome - and very empathetic to boys, so I'm definitely not dissing anyone here. But he definitely has gotten the message that more colour is better.)

Boys' and girls' brains develop differently

Part II of our coverage of Dr. Leonard Sax's seminar in Toronto about how boys and girls learn.

It's not that boys' brains develop more slowly than girls' brains, according to Leonard Sax. "It's more nuanced than that."

Researchers have found that:
* the areas of the brain involved in language and fine motor skills mature about six years earlier in girls than in boys;
* the areas of the brain involved in targetting and spatial memory mature about four years earlier in boys than in girls.

Boys mature faster in some areas than girls (for instance, at age two, a boy is likely to be able to build a bridge out of blocks more easily than a two-year-old girl).

And girls mature faster in some areas than boys (3.5-year-old girls may be able to interpret facial expressions than boys who are five years old).

The bottom line - rather than getting frustrated that your son is "being lazy" or "not trying hard enough," it may simply be that his brain just isn't ready for that particular skill.

And in that case, it's more helpful to focus on what he is doing well, and help him work on those areas.

In reading, it's often best to take a step back - and breathe. If he has a parent who cares enough to be reading a blog like this, then chances are he'll be fine. Scatter books around the house. Read to him every day. Let him see you reading. These are the single most important elements that help to build a great reader.

Getting boys reading - start in the middle

Start from the middle.

This was Leonard Sax’s counter-intuitive (and possibly brilliant) suggestion to English teachers who want boys to enjoy great literature.

Boys’ and girls’ brains process information differently. Girls process emotional information throughout their cerebral cortex, where language and analysis are also processed.

Boys, however, process emotional information in the amygdala – which doesn’t connect with the “talking” part of the brain.

So girls take in emotional scenes and can talk about them, analyse the characters, and empathise easily. The boy's brain is more attracted to action.

And if there’s nothing “happening” in a book, boys’ brains aren’t going to find it engaging. So Dr. Sax says, skip right to the action. In Jane Eyre, that’s page 233, when Mason is having his shoulder bandaged – for teeth marks that have punctured his skin.

The boys will be instantly hooked by the action and the mystery. Ask them, “why would someone bite a person, rather than use a knife, which would be more efficient?”

“Maybe the person didn’t have a knife!” one boy will offer. “Maybe the person was crazy!” another might say.

A-ha… now you have them. And now you can take them back to the beginning of the novel, looking for signs of the crazy person who, you know, bites Mason on page 233. Now the boy is engaged in the action of Jane Eyre, rather than having been turned off during the actionless opening scenes.

Boys learn differently

Here’s an interesting educational development.

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is proposing a boys-only public school and boy-friendly teaching strategies. The TDSB is Canada’s largest school board.

“When every bone in your body is telling you to get up and move around, we’re telling (boys) to sit down,” Chris Spence, the TDSB’s education director, told the CBC yesterday.

An editorial in today’s Globe and Mail noted that, “26 per cent of (Canadian) girls scored at the top level in reading, compared with just 19 per cent of boys.” And there were many more boys than girls at the bottom level. I suspect these statistics would bear out for other countries as well.

It gets worse. Only 57 per cent of boys were at the national standard on Ontario’s Grade 6 writing exam (compared with 78 per cent of girls). And the Globe points out that “the testing arm of the Education Ministry says it has no publicly available research on the reasons” for that.

Well, I think we know. Spence was right on the money when he said that boys have to move around when they learn, which is the polar opposite of what the school system generally demands of them.

But that's fine. Because if our schools can't handle it, then parents can just fill the gap.

Walk outside with your boy – let him read the signs and ads that are all around us. When you’re reading to him, give him a ball to quietly toss from hand to hand. Talk to him about long and short vowel sounds while you’re kicking a soccer ball. "That tree - short or long vowel? This ball - short or long?"

The new boy-centric school could be open as early as next year. In the meantime, there’s a ton that parents can do to get their boys reading.

By the way, Chris Spence is the author of a number of books, including The Joys of Teaching Boys and Creating a Literacy Environment for Boys. He also has a blog.

The props for this picture were immediately at hand. They're six of the ba-zillion balls we have around the house. Boys need to bounce, toss, throw, catch and generally move around. They just do. And if you're smart, you'll use that moving-around time to discuss important stuff with them, because when their bodies are in gear, so are their minds.

Get your six-year-old reading

A mom came up to me in the schoolyard this morning.

She said she wanted some help getting her child reading. Her son is six years old and in grade one.

He’s frustrated because he’s not picking up reading a bit faster – so he’s clearly motivated to read.

I know there are lots of other parents out there in the same dilemma.

Here’s some basic advice to start with:
1) Most kids in grade one aren’t reading by October. In any grade one class, you’ll find a very wide range – from kids who can’t yet sound out the letters, to (a very few) kids who are reading books by themselves. So don’t panic.

2) Read to your child every night. Every single night. Studies show that this is the number-one most important thing.

3) Scatter books all around the house. In the bathroom. On his bed. On the floor. In the kitchen. On the couch. In the basement. On your bed. Have them available everywhere.

4) Read, yourself. Let him see you and your husband and other children reading - a lot.

The above steps create a “reading environment” for your child. It’s very important that your home be a reading environment.

The next step, at his age, is to make sure he knows his alphabet and the sounds each letter makes. There are lots of fun ways of doing that, including making up songs about each letter (B says Buh!) to simply pointing to pictures and saying “What letter does dog start with? Duh – Dog! What letter is that? Right! D!”

Stay with this step for as long as it takes – it’s fundamental. Spend days, weeks, months working on the sounds the letters make. Point out letters on outdoor signs. In books. On T-shirts. On the cereal box. Everywhere!

The next step is understanding what your child’s interests are, and then teaching him that he can find out information about that interest in… books. This will create a sustainable, life-long attraction to books because there will be a pay-off to his reading.

The picture? It's supposed to represent "books scattered all over the house." Yeah, I'm a writer not a photographer, that's for sure...

Brain-training exercise

Brains - especially young brains - benefit from exercise.

Here’s an exercise that Bernadette Tynen (the brain researcher) does with her students. She says that if you do it with your child once a week, it will help to make his thinking more flexible and creative.

She gives the child an object. It could be a stuffed animal, like a snake or a gorilla, or it could be a hat or a scarf – any kind of object. Then she asks the child to tell her what could be done with the object.

At first, the child may say, “you can sit on it,” or “you can put it on your head,” and his thinking may stall there.

You can prompt him by saying, “what else could it be used for?” and he may start to come up with less conventional uses: “You could wear it as a bracelet,” or “you could use it as a frying pan,” or “it could be a garden decoration.”

In Tynen's documentaries (“Make Your Child Brilliant”), it’s astounding to see how quickly children change their thinking from the usual, normal ways of looking at an object, to finding truly creative and out-of-the-box ideas for things.

We know that brain-training exercises like this help the young brain become more agile, which helps with future learning. Plus, it's fun!

I tried this with my son - I gave him my glasses case. Within a few seconds it became a hat, something you could balance or float, a toy... I was laughing my head off at the crazy and wonderful things he came up with. Playing with your kid like that is better than TV, I tell ya.

Reading the paper on the floor

Life imitates blog.

Having recently reminded myself what boys like (in terms of their reading material), I’ve been on the lookout for something to encourage my son to read during these busy summer days.

This afternoon, I found it. The Toronto Star newspaper ran a great story on what Toronto was like in the pioneer days.

The article had everything boys like:
1) Short info-bites
2) Pictures corresponding to each info-bite.
3) It was about history.
4) It was factual.
5) Gross stuff – “Diapering: Women used moss, which could be discarded, tucked inside a swaddling cloth.”
6) Violence (sort of) – and this was my son’s favourite part – “Cooking: Women tested the temperature of the oven by rolling up a sleeve, inserting an arm all the way in and counting. If they had to withdraw their arm by the count of 10, the oven was the right temperature…”
7) Physicality. I put the paper on the floor, and he read it there. Plus, he got to wrestle the cat, who was trying to lie on the paper.

After he read the article, we talked a bit about it. And then I tossed the comics page down to him to encourage him to keep reading (which he did). And then he even did the Word Search.

Hurray!

You can do this, too. Keep your child's preferences in mind, and when an opportunity presents itself, toss him some reading material. For boys, think: car manual; a videogame user’s guide; a map; the sports section… it’s all reading.

I'm going to be doing girls' preferences, in upcoming posts. I've done some in the past, but I'm going to do more. If you have any comments about boys' or girls' reading preferences, please post a comment. Thanks!

Summer reading tips

How's your summer going?

Have the kids been reading? It's mid-summer; now's the time to encourage them to pick up a book. You know the research - kids who don't read during the summer experience a big slip when they get back to school in September. Let's make sure that doesn't happen this year.

The kids have done some camp, they've done some cottage, they've done some staying up late and watching extra TV, going to movies. C'mon, it's time to get those kids reading.

In many libraries, you can sign your children up for a summer reading program. You child gets a big poster for his wall, and every time he reads a book the librarian gives him a sticker.

The wonderful part for you is that you get to overhear him telling the librarian about the book he's read. Or, since my son didn't want to tell the librarian, he told me - outlined the entire plot of The Wizard of Oz the whole way to the library. It was a special moment that I'll remember for a long time.

So c'mon - no excuses! Turn off the TV. Let them get mad at you. And then let them stumble across the pile of interesting books you've just happened to put on their bed.

For some excellent summer reading tips, take a look at this article.

And here's information about the Toronto library's summer reading program. You don't even need a library card to sign up - just walk in. And you get a great booklet with games, mazes and stories.

I know they'd rather be playing on the Wii. I know they're going to be mad at you (at first). But it's time. It's tiiiiime. Check the categories on this blog for fun activities and books that will make reading less like punishment and more like fun. Like, maybe you can read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory together and then watch the movie? That's fun!

Trampoline - for your brain

Want to create a smart reader? Get your child on a trampoline.

According to brain researcher Bernadette Tynan, trampolines are so good for the brain, "even NASA astronauts use it to boost their brain power."

Trampolines improve your meta-cognative ability - your ability to "think about thinking."

That's because on a trampoline, you never land the same way twice. So your brain has to constantly work at keeping you upright. Thinking about staying in the middle of the trampoline or staying in synch with another bouncer, " gives the brain extra focus," says Tynan.

Regular sessions with a trampoline will help your child's brain's ability to focus, she says.

Tynan, of course, is the brains behind the wonderful TVO series, Make Your Child Brilliant. (I'm a huge fan.)

However, at this point, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Safe Kids Canada advises against backyard trampolines. More than 500 kids are injured by backyard trampolines in Canada every year.

So - a really brilliant idea? Go to a trampoline club like the Just Bounce Trampoline Club in Toronto, where your kid can get brainier and be safe all at the same time. Now that's brilliant!

Don’t tell your kid that reading is hard

Life imitates art – er, blog.

My last post* cautioned parents not to tell kids that reading is hard because, “kids don’t know something is difficult until you tell them it is.”

I was talking to Mary in the schoolyard today, and she told me a real-life story that illustrates that exact point.

Her daughter loved choir. She loved performing, loved the singing, loved learning new songs and even wrote notes on staff paper in her spare time, for fun.

And then an older choir member told her how hard choir is. She said the theory is so hard, the practices get really difficult—in fact, she’s quitting choir because it’s too hard.

So Mary’s daughter, having found out that choir is actually hard and not fun, insisted on quitting the choir. Boom. It’s the same girl, the same choir, the same amount of “work.” Except now she’s heard it’s hard—so it is.

Don’t tell your kids that reading’s hard. You know what’s hard? Not reading, that’s what’s hard.

Of course Mary, being the awesome mother that she is, got to the root of her daughter’s concerns and reminded her of how much fun choir is. So I guess it works both ways. Haaaaalellujah! (That was supposed to be singing. Like in a choir.)

*I had to remove the last post (June 10) because of some sort of weird spam problem. One particular website was linking it over and over again. Weird...

A brilliant TV series

Make your child brilliant.

One of the inspirations for this blog was a TVO series called Make your child brilliant, which I saw last year. It's airing again on TVO starting on Sunday, May 24, at 8 p.m.

It's a documentary featuring a woman in the UK, Bernadette Tynan, who selects "average" kids from a number of schools, and helps them develop their potential. Not just that, but she helps them achieve some really big things.

She studies the children to find out what their strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes are. She helps them value their own gifts. She works with the parents to help them foster the child's gifts, and she conducts simple brain-training exercises with the child.

It's these brain-training exercises that are so fascinating. They're so simple we can all do them at home. I encourage every parent to watch Make your child brilliant. At the very least it's an interesting documentary. At best, it could help you... well... make your child brilliant.

There's a companion book for the series, which I've just purchased. I'll be doing some posting based on my reading. Stay tuned.