A Magical Encounter With Reading!

I guess I’m old school. I love the smell of books and the sensation of holding one and not wanting to put it down. One of the things that make me happy is being able to carve time out of my busy schedule to immerse myself into the books of a family owned bookstore close to work. I’m always looking for pieces of world literature that not many people seem to care about anymore, but this time, I came across a book that called my attention. It is called “99 Ways to Get Kids to Love Reading” by Mary Leonhardt. It looked interesting to me as I never thought I’d come across a manual or a list of bullet points on what to do when helping kids to enjoy reading.  As strange as it sounds, to me, reading is a feeling, like the sensation when you eat the best food you’ve ever tried, and describing that sensation with accurate words becomes a challenge.  You can try, but there are things you just feel and taste, but cannot explain. Then, it occurred to me that reading is much like a recipe.  For reading to become that unexplainable sensation, a series of methodically and strategically designed and chosen steps and ingredients have to be followed  and used, so that reading can be seen as a wonderful, delicious, and magical thing.

When growing up I had the privilege to have a father who was, and still is, an avid reader and it was him who nurtured my love for reading. He never said anything to me about the importance of reading, I just saw how much fun he enjoyed reading and solving newspaper puzzles. That doesn’t mean that if your kids don’t see you reading, your children won’t be readers either, but if you want to change that pattern, there are many things you can try.

It’s obvious that in a book titled “99 Ways to Get Kids to Love Reading”, I was going to find 99 pieces of great advice. However, it will be too many items to list here, so I took the liberty to summarize or choose the best ones in my opinion.

- A love for reading is a love for learning so resolve that a love of reading will be your important educational goal, not life goal, for your children. Then, reading is one among all the activities your kids do, it can’t be the only one. Too much reading or no reading at all could be a problem.

- Don’t worry about making your children read only “good” books. Therefore, sit back and enjoy the ride as any reading counts.

- While movies can desensitize us to violence, books sensitize us, so don’t worry that books containing violence will produce violent kids. Sensitivity is one of the values that America has lost, but we can restore it in our children through reading.

- Take your children to bookstores and libraries as often as you can, and allow them to browse and buy their favorite books.

- Make read-aloud time fun for your child and eventually, have your child read out loud to you as this helps them use their creativity.

- If your children are watching lots of television and doing little reading, consider restricting television, or banning it altogether (They won’t miss out on anything anyway).

- If they request a book that you know it’s too difficult, buy it for them anyway. As long as they love the book, leave them alone. You’ll see they’ll read it no matter what.

- Be careful that you don’t schedule so many activities for your children that they have little time to read.

- It’s important that fathers spend time reading to boys, and helping them find books. Boys need to see that reading is a cool, masculine thing to do.

- Keep a supply of magazines, comics, and short books in the car. I do it myself and my child and I love it!

- Pay attention to your children’s developing reading taste and simply, supply the demand.

- Praise teachers and schools that are trying to run classrooms that nurture readers.

- Lastly, and given the world we live in, there’s nothing like the smell of a book or turning the pages of one, but if you think all your kids know is reading on ipads, tablets, or nooks, make sure they’re actually reading, not playing.

I hope this list is as helpful to you as it was for me. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or to ask for a list of books that the author or I recommend for your child’s taste and age and finally, a quote for you “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one” George R.R. Martin.

It's Beautiful to be Bilingual

I­­fdn a recent panel of experts at an Immersion school in LA, the topics of language immersion and language acquisition were the center of the discussion. The fact that language acquisition is not only important, but also necessary for our children could not be emphasized enough and if you know me, ( a huge advocate for languages), you will know I was “En mi salsa” (Idiom in Spanish that means I felt happy diving into a topic that not only interests me but I’m passionate about). So much so, I think I didn't even blink the entire time! I truly wanted to take everything in…and I did! It’s hard to summarize the wealth of information I received, but I’ll try to do my best here:

1.   Speaking another language is a very powerful thing and the best way to end class inequality (People want to turn a blind eye to this or think there’s no such a thing, but it does exist). The world is getting smaller day after day, and only those who are well equipped can help build strong bridges among cultures.

2.   Our infants are the citizens of not only this country but the world. They have an amazing, intact, and well-functioning brain that continuously adapts without any awareness. The older we get, the less flexible our brains get. The key years for language acquisition are from birth to 7 years old. During those years, kids separate out information (without getting confused!!) and their “affective filter” is low. The affective filter has to do with mistake awareness and embarrassment in front of peers. If this filter is low, language acquisition is very likely to take place.

3.  Immersion programs are often misunderstood. People tend to look only at school scores without realizing that the possibility of getting a good score in grades K-5^th is very slim, as kids are being taught in another language and tested in English. However, as time goes by, because the intensity of the foreign language goes down (not needed anymore so much) and because the skills in one language are easily transferable to the other, kids actually outscore the kids in monolingual programs. They end up having two huge linguistic skills rather than one, not to mention the other skills they get along the way (math, reading, and problem resolution to name a few).

4.     Last but not least…it's so beautiful to be bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural!

This information applies to any foreign language. As you know, LangoKids Irvine is an after-school immersion program. We offer Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese. You are taking a big step by deciding to bring your kids to us, however, if you know of a program that offers what we do for an entire day, that’s truly the best deal and the best thing you can do for your child! We guide you in that process too. Here is another scenario... English “is in the air”. If your child goes through an immersion program already, he’ll learn English (and how to read it and write it perfectly) no matter what! Then, why not coming to us for a third language? Kids can pick up five languages by the age of five if the right input and conditions are in place. Whatever situation you’re in, when it comes to your child’s language acquisition and learning, we are here to help!

www.langokidsirvine.com
714-864-4680

 
If you speak Spanish to your kids (or any other language for that matter) kudos to you! Here there's more info for you from a group of professional moms who happily see their kids grow bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural and would not change it for anything: www.spanglishbaby.com

Cristina G. Versteegh and the LangoKids Irvine Team