Hit The Books

Well, more and more students each day are heading back to school and that connotes that fall is here though officially it doesn't make its entrance till around September 21. This little figure under our weeping cherry tree has hit the bricks and has opened her book. What is the best thing to do to help your elementary student succeed in school?

Read to them every day. Read children's books to them. Read suitable grownup books to them. Read newspaper articles to them. Read magazines to them. Subscribe to Time magazine or Newsweek and read to them from it when they begin kindergarten. When they graduate from high school they will have stored a great history lesson of the last 13 years in the brain. If you have someone who loves sports and hates reading, subscribe to Sports Illustrated and read from it. I guarantee that this will over time turn them on to reading as they turn the pages of the magazine and look at the pictures of their favorite sport figures and try to figure out what is written under the photo. Look at the comics page in the newspaper with your preschool son or daughter. Pretty soon they will try to figure out for themselves what Denise the Menace is doing.
Read the church book and music book in church with your family. Read the church bulletin with your family. Read signs and advertisement billboards when driving down the road. Soon they will recognize certain signs. Our little Jack Aidan who just turned two this past July says "Woof, woof!" everytime his Mommy drives by PetSmart these days.

And go to the library. Don't blame the lack of books in your home to the economy. Go to the library and get a library card and get each child in your family a library card. It is so easy today to check out books from the library and then renew them right from your computer. And go to the book sale shelves at the library. You will find early Oprah books and David Baldacci mysteries as well as lots of very interesting history, travel and biography books. And at the price of just a dollar or two you can learn a lot either by reading every single word of one of these books or by skimming thru the books to get the gist of the story.

Tomorrow: the next most important thing to do each day with your child.