With children forced to sacrifice outdoor play and experiences because of continuing pandemic restrictions and lockdowns, it’s become important for parents to inculcate the reading habit in them. Reading broadens children’s worlds and fuels their imagination and natural curiosity. Educators strongly recommend that parents start early by introducing youngest children to the world of books. Here are three excellent online resources to develop children’s reading habit
READING ROCKETS
https://www.readingrockets.org/
This website is a treasure trove of resources for parents to draw and engage children in the world of books. It offers curated adventure reading packs featuring a selection of fiction and non-fiction books, and instructions for parents to conduct DIY activities to connect books with real-world experiences. Also on offer are theme-based reading adventure packs on animals, dinosaurs, robots, etc. The suggested books can be bought on Amazon while the activities are free to download.
In addition, the website provides several resources for parents including reading promotion strategies, lessons and activities for struggling, early and fluent readers.
START WITH A BOOK
It offers well-curated age-appropriate books selections focusing on themes such as planes, music, detectives, inventors and bugs that children love. Activities and strategies to improve children’s reading fluency and speed are also included. Some interesting themes are Bird Buddies and Space Rangers.
This website also offers structured reading programmes such as a five-day programme including reading list, activities in the real world, daily reading schedule, writing exercise and digital media resource recommendations. This programme is a good starting point for parents, teachers and librarians to devise structured reading plans for children.
READTOMEINTL.ORG
This excellent website highlights the power of reading out loud to youngest children. Reading aloud to children in the first three years of life has a profound impact on their brain development, as they are exposed to thousands of words, situations and ideas. Such reading activity also boosts language fluency, promotes parent-child bonding with children developing life-long positive attitudes towards books and strong vocabularies. The website also provides parents and teachers excellent guidelines on the right techniques to read aloud. Also recommended is listening to speeches delivered at the ReadToMeInternational Semi-Unconference 2021.
Also Read:
Pandemic and its effects
Top 10 Child YouTubers who are rocking the cyberspace
Add comment