"What Are You Reading?" Thursdays-One Foot, Two Feet

I've decided to start a new weekly meme, aren't you lucky?! On Thursdays, I'll be featuring a link-up called "What Are You Reading?" (Fun Blog Badge coming),  for you to share with others what you're reading to your kids, or even what you're reading yourself. The most important thing is that you're reading! Here's my post for this first week. Link-up and leave a comment at the bottom. Can't wait to see what you're reading!

This morning's read to Little Man

In my book: The power of reading.

If you can't tell, I'm in a video kind of mood today. Another brilliant segment from Sesame Street, but with a more serious message this time around.

Early Literacy Activity Cards-Resource

Image borrowed from kwachtman.wordpress.com

I came across a site called Family Literacy Expertise, they are a Canadian non-profit and have an immense resource of early literacy activity cards based on familiar children's books. If you are looking for a kids book with activities pre-pared with it, or have a kids book and are looking for activities to accompany it. This is a great site to check out.

Some of the books they have listed are:

A Big Fat Enormous Lie	My Family's Changing
A Child's Treasury of Nursery Rhymes	My Friends and Me
All Together Now	Nose to Toes
Alligator Baby	Number One, Tickle Your Tum
Amazing Grace	On Your Potty
Andrew's Loose Tooth	Pajama Time
Baby Faces	Peek a Who
Barnyard Dance	Peekaboo Baby
Big or Little	Red Ripe Strawberry, Little Mouse and the Big Hungry Bear
Can't You Sleep Little Bear	Shoes from Grandpa
Clap Your Hands	Sleepy Little Mouse
Finding Kate's Shoes	Stellaluna
Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed	Stop Picking On Me
Five Little Monkeys Sitting In a Tree	That's Good That's Bad
Five Little Monkeys With Nothing to Do	The Bear Went over the Mountain
From Head to Toe	The Grouchy Ladybug
Good Night Gorilla	The Itsy Bitsy Spider
Goodnight Moon	The Kissing Hand
Guess How Much I love You	The Mitten
Hands Are Not For Hitting	The Princess and the Potty
Hiding	The Very Busy Spider
I Can Blink	The Way I Feel
I Have to Go	Touch and Feel Animal Kisses
I Love You So Much	Touch and Feel Bedtime
I Miss You	Touch and Feel Mealtime
If You Give A Moose A Muffin	Touch and Feel Pets
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie	Two Eyes A Nose & A Mouth
If You Were My Bunny	Up to the Skies and Down Again
I'm A Little Teapot	Very Busy Spider
I'm As Quick As A Cricket	Very Hungry Caterpillar
Jessica's X-ray	Where the Wild Things Are
Lifetimes	Where's My Teddy
Little Mouse, Red Ripe Strawberry & The Big Hungry Bear
Makeup Mess

Don't Miss the National Book Awards!

Want to know who's the best of the best in literature for both youth and adults? Don't miss The National Book Awards LIVE via webcast!

Next Halloween, Don't let this be your kid.

READ TO YOUR KIDS!

Twilight's Edward (Robert Pattinson) has a secret...

he likes to read!

If you missed Robert Pattinson's interview with Oprah where they discuss their love for reading, check it out!

The Case For The Written Word: Why YOU should be reading

Watch This. No. Read It!

By Lauren Duzbow
O, The Oprah Magazine  |  From the June 2008 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

 

In our high-speed-connection world, why bother to read when you can get it all electronically? We make the case for not closing the book.

When you can see Atonement in two hours and 10 minutes (enacted by the very appealing James McAvoy, no less) or listen to it on audiotape, why bother working through the 371-page novel? For that matter, why trudge through the newspaper when you can turn on CNN? Why puzzle over a manual when you can YouTube the instructions? Everyone knows the book is always better than the movie, but is there any real advantage to getting your information by reading it?

Yes, according to neuroscience—your mind will most definitely thank you.


This article is part of Oprah.com's 2011 Feel Good Challenge. Join now—and move closer to the life you want!

Just like muscles, the brain benefits from a good workout. And reading is more neurobiologically demanding than processing images or speech. As you're absorbing, say, this article, "parts of the brain that have evolved for other functions—such as vision, language, and associative learning—connect in a specific neural circuit for reading, which is very challenging," says Ken Pugh, PhD, president and director of research of Haskins Laboratories, which is devoted to the science of language and affiliated with Yale. "A sentence is shorthand for a lot of information that must be inferred by the brain." In general, your intelligence is called to action, as is greater concentration. "We are forced to construct, to produce narrative, to imagine," says Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University and author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. "Typically, when you read, you have more time to think. Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight. By and large, with oral language—when you watch a film or listen to a tape—you don't press pause."

The benefits of all this mental activity include keeping your memory sharp, your learning capacity nimble, and your mind basically hardier as you age. No one's advising that you toss the DVD player—or books on tape, which, Pugh says, provide more work for your brain than seeing a movie—but print should take up part of your life too. A literate mind is a more complex one. "There's a richness that reading gives you," Wolf says, "an opportunity to probe more than any other medium I know of. Reading is about not being content with the surface." Even when it is superficial (what's a plane ride without a little celebrity gossip?), indulging in a tabloid beats watching TV—just processing the words boosts the brain. "If you had your druthers," Pugh says, "you'd rather be reading."

Keep Your Mind Sharp

• 4 ways to remember what you've learned
• This is your brain on happiness
• 11 empowering ways to strengthen your brain

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/health/How-Reading-Can-Improve-Your-Memory#ixzz1dosfhj3Q

Oprah's Reading Lists

Sorry I deserted you, my faithful readers, this past weekend. I ended up having some gallbladder issues that left me barely wanting to parent, let along blog. You can read more about it on my weight loss blog. So anyhoo...

Photo courtesy of Oprah.com



For those who are a fan of The O--Oprah, you know that she is a big proponent of reading. She created Oprah's book club to encourage us "old folks" to crack a book for pleasure. I suspect that she may continue her book club now that she's has her network OWN, however it does not appear that she has named a book since 2010. Click here for a complete listing of Oprah's book club picks, and if you're feeling crafty, you can even create a custom Oprah's book club bookmark here.

But what you might not know is that Oprah is also a proponent for getting young kids to read. And to help parents in choosing the best books for their children, she (with the help of Target and the American Library Association) has compiled book lists for kids broken down by age group. You can find those links here. 

But if your child is picky, and only wants to read books on a certain subject or within a certain category, O also has a list of books categorized by subject, and then further broken down into age groups.

I myself get a little uncomfortable "grading" books, I don't like kids to feel like they are bound by limits. I personally think that "grading" also take a little bit of the fun out of reading--it makes reading for pleasure much more like school. So if you do decide to use these lists, I strongly suggest using the age ranges as suggestions. If your child is reading above or below the books in "their range", allow them to delve outside of it. As long as they are reading, and it's fun for them, there's no reason to put constraints on the books they can read--pending age appropriateness, but I leave the judgement on what is age appropriate up to you.

But overall, what Oprah is doing is fabulous, both for the young reader, and their parent. I mean, who doesn't like having the guess work taken out? These lists will certainly assist you and your child in choosing their next book--who knows, you may find an old favorite, or discover a new one!

The Future of America?

Whether we like it or not, our children [if you don't have your own, someone else's children, which makes this thought that much scarier] are going to grow up and run our businesses and governments. And I hestitate to think what this will bring.

In a world where class sizes are getting larger, schools are closing, and libraries are closing, who is going to teach our kids the necessary skills to run these future businesses and governments successfully?

The answer.

Parents.

As parents, we owe it to our children to provide the tools they need to become successful adults. It is every parent's dream to provide thier child with the best of everything. And sadly, the best education is becoming less and less attainable as educational public services are cut.

These cuts are forcing parents to step up to the plate. Some parents are opting to home school thier children, having total control over the curriculum, but other parents just don't have the means or the time to do so. I, personally, fall into that second catagory.

Working out side of the home part-time and running a household, is a full-time job. But I refuse to let my child become "underprivledged", because of my financial in-ability to enroll him in daycare. "Lil Man" as I will affectionately refer to him, and I take time out each day, to learn new things and read together. It's created a lasting bond between him and I that I will cherish forever. However, working within a library setting, I have also gained a wealth of knowledge about early literacy and making reading fun. And I want to pass what I've learned onto you, my beloved reader. So saddle up parents, you're about to learn some stress-free ways to encourage a love of reading in your child, and the craziest part about it? You just might find you're having fun too.