Seeing as it's January, I thought it's time to get back to basics and really focus in again on what the driving force behind Bring a Book to Life is all about. I've had many new subscribers to the website over the last couple of months and many of them may not know the catalyst for beginning my journey into encouraging reading for pleasure in children.
In short, my older children didn't enjoy reading. Not at all. I was a primary school teacher and just couldn't understand why they wouldn't want to and I also know how important it was to get them going. They had the tools - they had been taught to read, they just didn't want to! What to do? Well at this point we were still very much enjoying (she says!) books together at bedtime so I began finding bits and pieces that linked to the stories we were reading and I'd casually place them on the bed for them to fiddle with whilst we were reading a chapter. Something just seemed to click and the boys would pick them up and talk about their relevance. It would often lead into some sort of spin off of the book as they used their imaginations to transport themselves into the book also! Bingo! They were in and enjoying reading aka READING FOR PLEASURE!!!! I'd hit the jackpot!
It occurred to me that this idea may help other families where reading was becoming a chore so I founded Bring a Book to Life.
Book boxes that incorporate great books for a wide variety of reading ages and styles, author engagement in the form of signatures and letters and a range of fun items and activities that all link to each story.
So what's so important about reading anyway?
We hear it so often that reading is the key skill to develop in your child and perhaps drilling down into the research behind that is for another day. For now I'd like to share with you some of the facts that jump out at me looking at reading in children from a holistic point of view. If you're keen to hear these developed please check out my YouTube video:
Promotes better health and well being
Sparks imagination
Improves vocabulary
Promotes higher levels of self esteem
Improves sleep patterns
Reduces stress by 68%
Proven stronger feeling of relaxation than that gained from watching television or using gaming technology.
A phrase I'm using a lot when discussing Bring a Book to Life is 'Open Some Imaginary Doors', with that in mind, the children and I set out on a little adventure to find some doors to represent this. I h
ope you enjoy...
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