Tag: reading

Read Across America Day: Tips for Reading with Kids

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

Happy Read Across America Day and Dr. Suess Day! Today marks what would have been Dr. Suess’ 112th birthday.

In honor of his birthday, many families, schools and libraries across the nation are celebrating by reading, and doing lots of it. In fact, in a few, I’m off to the kids’ school to read to the kids’ class.

There’s so many wonderful ways to engage with kids to help them develop a love for reading, books and literature. Here are just a few helpful tips that have help me and my guys along the way.

1. Let them see you read

Kids model behavior, whether it’s good or bad. If they see you reading, even if it’s a few minutes a day, this model behavior will undoubtedly provide a foundation for a love of reading. Because I have a print background, I still love magazines and newspapers. Admittedly, I don’t read the physical paper as much as I’d like, but I read the New York Times daily and various magazines. We’ve become a society that thrives on fragmented, viral news. Why not help the kids embrace a well-crafted story in kids’ magazine of their choice. J’s learning the basics of writing and we’re big on pointing out descriptive words in feature stories. Ranger Rick and Sports Illustrated for Kids are popular picks for my guys.

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2. Read together

I know a lot of families who love reading together. After a long day of school and work, it’s often the only way that some kids get to bond with parents on weekdays, before starting the cycle again. Our board books are tattered from all the love they’ve received, but man, are those always the best books! If your kids are older, pick a few chapter series that get them excited and take turns reading aloud every night. The Magic Tree House series is my older guy’s favorite series right now. Next up is the Harry Potter series!

 

3. Enjoy the Library

One of our absolute favorite weekly dates is our trip to the library. I feel as though we’re on a first name basis with librarians these days, not just because of our hyperlocal site, but also because the library is our happy place.

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With Little’s significant speech delay, he’s in therapy 5 days a week. He gets to play a lot at school, but there’s still so much structure in his rigorous special ed preschool schedule. Weekly story time at the library is a way for us to engage with other young readers. Our librarians are so enthusiastic and encourage imagination with their varied stories and fun crafts.

  

4. There’s an app for that!

If you know me, then you must know that I love technology and the way it helps make our lives as parents easier. While I will always choose a physical book or magazine first, apps for reading are an excellent way to encourage reading. With intuitive reading apps such as ABC Mouse, Speakaboos and MeeGenius, my preschooler is able to enjoy books at his pace, and in a fun kid-friendly format. For my 8 year old, we’ve been using the Kids’ Kindle Fire and enjoying books on the Amazon platform. With the Kindle Fire, it’s helpful when my son needs to look up words or wants to search for a new title. His classroom uses an app called Raz-Kids, which is an interesting app that tracks activity and encourages comprehension and reading aloud.

 

However you choose to read with your kids, make it fun!

Reading Rainbow on YouTube Kids

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

As we’re in the thick of fall festivities with friends, when the kids aren’t busy chasing each other around outside, we sometimes find them huddled in the corner on their iPads. For almost all of our younger kids, the first app or site they head to, without fail, is YouTube. Just like us, the kids are starting to say, “Guys, check out this video!”

And as the kids check out, I often nudge my friends and make sure they know all about the awesomeness that is YouTube Kids. For kids in that younger age bracket, you can’t go wrong with the content that’s curated and offered on YouTube Kids. Despite the ads, YTK is a no-brainer for us, especially when it comes to educational content.

Reading Rainbow on YouTube Kids

One of the channels I absolutely love seeing on YouTube Kids is Reading Rainbow. Yes, THAT Reading Rainbow, the educational delight of our youth. I can still remember watching it on that rolling tv on the media cart in our blackened classroom. As a book lover, LeVar Burton’s voice and enthusiasm of education and reading resonates so much joy, especially now as a parent.

I appreciate that my kids can check out Reading Rainbow on YTK at their leisure and learn all about STEM topics such as 3D printing, athletics and tech, and even how astronauts poop in space! It’s the classic books, though, that bring back the best memories, and ones that I’m thrilled to share with my kids via YouTube Kids.

Looking for a fun way to reinforce lessons at home or to bring a classic book to life? YouTube Kids is a great resource. The YouTube Kids App is free on iTunes and Google Play. As with any app or online content, make sure you know what your kid is watching!

Fun with Educational Insights: Crowded Waters and Hot Dots Tots

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

When it comes to fun new toys, we’re always game to check them out. Educational Insights sent us a few toys a few weeks ago and we’ve been having fun with them.

Hot Dots Tots

I was first introduced to Hot Dots Tots at Toy Fair a few years ago and I was immediately smitten. These interactive books come in a variety of themes and are ideal for early and beginner readers.

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We received the Animals version of Hot Dots Tots, which was suited my toddler perfectly. Elliott, The Musical Teaching Bear, makes these fun book engaging and fun to navigate. The reading tool, Elliott, is powered by 2 AAA batteries, which are inserted in the head and secured with a plate that is screwed in.

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I liked how the book asks questions and encourages problem-solving and reinforces healthy reading habits for young and eager readers.  My 3 year old loves reading conventional books, so was very intrigued when using Elliot with his Hot Dots Tots books. We can’t wait to get more books to build our library.

Crowded Waters

As Shark Week and Sharknado fanatics, we were thrilled to have a chance to play with Crowded Waters.

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This strategy game is ideal for older kids who are able to insert logic and strategy into gameplay. The board game has a board that mimics the sea with spaces to insert game pieces. Players get to choose their color and then go on to strategize their path to stay afloat in the game.

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Admittedly, this game was hard to understand at first, but once we re-read the instructions, we caught on. I like that this game makes kids think, but isn’t an intensive game where kids may lose interest. This is definitely a new mainstay for game night!

Full disclosure: I received the games to facilitate this review. As always, all opinions on NKT are mine.

 

 

Summer Reading Fun with PBS Kids

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

Like so many of you, our summer has been an endless list of outdoor fun. Between summer sports and fun at the lake, we’ve rarely had time to sit in and veg in front of the tv. Before we start our day, however, I tend to do some work and let Biggie enjoy some unstructured play and reading time. Before any screen time, he has to read or create something for at least 30 minutes. So far, we’ve read a Ronald Dahl book and worked on the latest Wimpy Kid book.

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Our friends at PBS Kids are always encouraging educational fun. In fact, for this summer’s reading initiative, they sent us a kit to have a little reading party with friends. Since we’re all about integrating reading in our day, we happily obliged, and had some friends over for a dessert reading party!

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In addition to our desserts, we all hung out and shared our love of books. The older kids had fun reading to the younger kids and the younger kids loved telling fun stories to the older kids. We chatted about what makes reading so fun, and also what kinds of books catch our eyes.

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In honor of the reading party, PBS Kids sent us fun goodies to share with our guests. We loved sharing bookmarks, reading charts, badges, booklets, and yes, even books! Harper Collins sent over a selection of I Can Read books, which were perfect for my soon-to-be 2nd grader and our young reading friends. I loved that so many favorite books were included, such as Fancy Nancy and Amelia Bedelia!

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Beyond the party, our friends have been loving keeping track of their reading time and sharing what books they’ve loved. We’re well on our way to finishing our new I Can Read favorites and reading aloud to little bro!

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A big thank you to PBS Kids for sending us supplies to host our Summer Reading Party. We loved sharing the reading fun with our friends! For more information about PBS Reading programs, be sure to check them out online.

 

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Full disclosure: As a PBS Kids VIP, I was sent supplies to host a summer reading party.  As always, all opinions on NKT are our own.

Parragon Books Makes Summer Reading Fun

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

It’s an exciting time in our house these days.  Not only are we having fun being outdoors all day, but we’re enjoying our downtime with reading.  My older son is reading fluently now, in time for First Grade in a few weeks.  He’s at that cool/funny phase where he’s spelling everything—his answers to questions, all the signs he reads and even the things he’s thinking about out loud.  It’s both hilarious and borderline a-n-n-o-y-i-n-g.

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Just in time for this special time of further cultivating my book lovers, we were asked to join a fun program with Parragon Books.  Parragon Books has a cool Book Buddies program where a select group of bloggers read and review their titles. 

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For June, we had a great time checking out Stickersaurus and Discovery Kids 1000 Strange but True Animal Facts.

Stickersaurus is a quirky novelty book that has hundreds of dinosaur stickers and pullout pages. With the stickers and word bubbles, it has a comic book feel.  I especially love the thick pages, which makes the application and re-application of stickers easy and fun.  Stickersaurus not only encourages imagination and creativity, but it reinforces story creation and story sequence.  It’s ideal for ages five and up.

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Discovery Kids 1000 Strange but True Animal Facts is perfect for curious animal lovers.  As a kid, I loved books with lists and fragmented thoughts, so books like these would keep me occupied for hours.  I love how the book is full of education and eye-catching lists. Most of the facts are weird facts that I never knew, but ones the big kid and I enjoyed poring over on a rainy day.

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We loved checking out these great books and can’t wait to read even more fun titles from Parragon!

Christmas books and instilling family traditions

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

Christmas brings with it a myriad of traditions and nostalgia.  Perhaps my favorite traditions are reading Christmas-themed stories with my brothers and fully divulging into the Christmas spirit through festive stories.

I’ve tried to instill this fabulous tradition with my boys by reading stories with them throughout the season.  I recently received two new books that are worthy of adding to our library and Christmas tradition. The Magic Christmas Key and My Snowman and Me, both from Pine Tree Publishing embody the beauty of the season and all that I hope to share with my kids.

 

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The Magic Christmas Key by Leeann Smith is about Andy’s adventures with a magic key, which his grandfather gave to him for safekeeping.  With this key, Andy learns about Christmas and Santa and the magic of believe firsthand.  In the story, the key finds its way into the wrong hands, but with his bravery and courage, Andy’s adventures lead him to the big guy in red himself.  

This is a beautiful and well-written book that keeps kids engaged in the Christmas spirit.  For younger kids, it’s a special book that can be read over a course of a few days. And for older kids and families, it’s well worth sitting and reading together.  The beautiful metal key that comes in the book set is a fun tactile extension of the book that kept my kids intrigued.  There’s so much beauty and mystery with a beautiful Christmas key, and one worth sharing.

 

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My Snowman and Me by Leeann Smith also comes in a fun gift set, complete with a stuffed and detachable snowman.  This story is an easy read, and totally appropriate for that first snowfall, or if you’re lucky, a white Christmas.  This is such a cute, fun read that teaches kids the magic of building a snowman, and that despite him going away because of warmer weather, the snowman will always be back when it snows.  The end of the book has a great way to engage kids even further and to capture memories for days to come.

Reading Enrichment with Play-Doh and Star Wars

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

With school back in session, I wanted to share one of the many activities that we’ve been doing to sharpen and enhance Biggie’s reading skills.


Because of his late September birthday, we redshirted our five year old and thus, I’ve been vigilant about bridging the transition to Kindergarten. I have much to say about redshirting and transitional kindergarten in general, but I’ll save that for another day. Today, it’s all about Play-Doh and Star Wars.

Reading enrichment comes in many forms, but for one rainy afternoon, we paired Play-Doh and Star Wars to engage in a hands-on reading activity that just happened to focus on Biggie’s favorite characters. I let J flip through one of his favorite books right now, which is a DK Readers Level One book called Who Saved the Galaxy? by Catherine Saunders. Since he’s not quite reading fluidly on his own, I love the fact that this book has characters he loves and can decipher words with graphic help. Not to mention, it’s a well known tactic that familiar characters engage beginning readers. In our case, my beginning reader is most interested in things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, space and Star Wars.


For this project, we used Play-Doh’s new Ultimate Rainbow Pack. The wide range of colors makes this activity fun since the novelty of new colors and variety keeps J interested in the task at hand. Once he picked his colors, he used various cutters to cut out letters for characters like Luke Skywalker.


We moved on to other characters and even picked colors that matched the characters color scheme; yellow and brown complemented C 3P0 quite perfectly!

To change it up, we decided to roll letters, which also works on those fine motor skills, and is important for proper writing utensil handling. By rolling the letters, I found that it was a great way to better understand letter formation since he had to manipulate pieces to form the letters.


Our most favorite part of this project was making a model of R2D2. This project was a fun way to work together to create something we both like! To work further on those fine motor skills, I let J cut out the tiny buttons that make up R2D2’s robotic exterior. I helped J to make the formation of R2D2 himself, but allowed him to make the final touches of all the pieces.


By pairing Play-Doh and Star Wars, not only were we able to keep occupied and have fun on a rainy afternoon, but we made Play-Doh educational by twisting it into a reading activity. Play-Doh isn’t the cleanest activity, so I’d suggest using Glad Press and Seal for easy clean up. To make Play-Doh an educational activity on our own, just grab your favorite book, pull words and play away. The more accessories, colors and words, the better!

I’m so sure teachers do activities like this in school, but for us at home, it’s a great way to sharpen reading skills and express creativity by bringing our favorite characters to life via Play-Doh and Vine!

Full disclosure:  we were provided with a sample of Play-Doh, but we used our own creativity for this fun project.  As always, all opinions are my own.

Happy 90 Years, Scholastic!

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

I can still remember those awesome days, sitting in a circle, indian-style at the library, listening to my grade school librarian read a silly story about Amelia Bedelia aloud during story time.  Or, how about those days when the latest Scholastic book club flyers went out?  I can still remember circling every awesome book on every page.  Or what about those awesome book fairs? Or how about collecting every single Babysitter’s Club book and re-reading them five times over.

These days, I practically squeal with excitement when we head to Soho, because that usually means a gratuitous trip to the Scholastic store—a trip that I wholeheartedly enjoy as a lifelong book lover grooming the next generation of book nerds. My boy embraces his Clifford classics.  And hello, a specific Pirate potty training book made life a little easier during these trying months.

Perhaps you have similar memories, or maybe more current ones of how Scholastic has impacted your life?

Today, Scholastic celebrates quite a monumental anniversary.  Ninety years ago, Robbie Robinson created the first issue of a magazine called The Western Pennsylvania Scholastic. Today, Scholastic is now the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books.

Based on the awesome microsite to celebrate this anniversary, Scholastic has had a fabulous 90 years thus far!

If you’re in the NYC area today, be on the lookout for the many ways Scholastic is celebrating their special day.  They’ll be in Times Square, Central Park, outside the American Museum of Natural History, at the Liberty/Ellis Island Ferry Terminal, and  outside Scholastic HQ at 557 Broadway and will even be ringing the closing NASDAQ bell.  A busy day celebrating in NYC will be capped off with the Empire State building glowing a bright red as a nod to Scholastic’s amazing 90 years.

To emphasize their impact on the importance in reading for kids of all ages, Scholastic also announced their latest global campaign, Read Every Day/ Lead a Better Life.  It’s so fitting, isn’t it?  Check it out and be sure to fill out the Reading Bill of Rights to take part.

Congrats, and here’s to 90 more years of awesomeness, Scholastic!

 

 

Read for the Record Today

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

Readers unite: today, parents, teachers and children are being encouraged to take part in Jumpstart’s Read for the Record, which is a nationwide campaign that aims to set a new world record for the largest shared reading experience on a single day.

This morning, The Today Show interviewed spokesperson, Amanda Peete, about her involvement with Read for the Record.  According to Jumpstart,  Read for the Record encourages record-breakers to spread the word that reading with a child before he or she enters kindergarten can improve his or her chances of graduating from high school by as much as 30%. Today, more than 2.5 million children are expected to take part by reading The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. In the process, Jumpstart and the Pearson Foundation aim to draw attention to the growing crisis for disadvantaged young children whose literacy experience is limited and to Jumpstart’s role in addressing this issue.

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2010 Best Books for Babies

by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

Beginning with Books, a literacy organization that promotes childhood reading, released their 2010 list of the Best Books for Babies.  The list includes a lineup of colorful and interactive books, some of which may even be in your own babies’ libraries.

According to experts, it’s never too early to start reading to babies.  In fact, regularly reading with babies and young kids encourages them to become enthusiastic lifelong readers, according to Beginning with Books.

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