Reading Ages

I've just discovered a cool website on education, The Daily Riff, and I couldn't be more thrilled. I love the way it's organized into topics like, "People, Politics, & Business," "Global," "Learning, Innovation, & Tech," etc.

I've barely had a chance to explore it, but here's one article that caught my eye: Three Great Books to Read Aloud to Your Tweens & Teens (Yes, you heard right). The author tells us that she reads aloud for about fifteen minutes a day to her daughter (who presumably falls within the specified age range). It's one of her daughter's favorite activities.

This afternoon, while driving around town, when I saw a billboard admonishing parents to read aloud for fifteen minutes to their children (illustrated by a photo of a man reading to a cute little girl of about five or six), my reaction was to think to myself that fifteen minutes was way too short. (But, then, I'm a mom who started reading to her children before they could walk or talk. By the time my first son was a year old, I could read to him for an hour and he'd cry when I stopped.) Then I reflected that if the goal was to get parents who weren't already reading to their kids to start, it was better not to overwhelm them with a more extensive time span.

But, to get back to the article, and the idea of reading to tweens and teens, how many of you do, or did, this? How many of you had parents that did this? If so, did a specific time limit apply? Were you consistent, trying to read every night, or for a certain number of nights a week? Was this a one parent-one child phenomenon, or did the whole family participate? Do you think the way you were read to contributed to your current attitudes about books? Do you think the way you're reading to your child(ren) has contributed to their attitudes about books? Does reading books together help to form a bond between parents and their children?

( Here are my answers )

Reading Ages

Echoed manually, and on time, for once, from http://pdlloyd.livejournal.com/83328.html.

I've just discovered a cool website on education, The Daily Riff, and I couldn't be more thrilled. I love the way it's organized into topics like, "People, Politics, & Business," "Global," "Learning, Innovation, & Tech," etc.

I've barely had a chance to explore it, but here's one article that caught my eye: Three Great Books to Read Aloud to Your Tweens & Teens (Yes, you heard right). The author tells us that she reads aloud for about fifteen minutes a day to her daughter (who presumably falls within the specified age range). It's one of her daughter's favorite activities.

This afternoon, while driving around town, when I saw a billboard admonishing parents to read aloud for fifteen minutes to their children (illustrated by a photo of a man reading to a cute little girl of about five or six), my reaction was to think to myself that fifteen minutes was way too short. (But, then, I'm a mom who started reading to her children before they could walk or talk. By the time my first son was a year old, I could read to him for an hour and he'd cry when I stopped.) Then I reflected that if the goal was to get parents who weren't already reading to their kids to start, it was better not to overwhelm them with a more extensive time span.

But, to get back to the article, and the idea of reading to tweens and teens, how many of you do, or did, this? How many of you had parents that did this? If so, did a specific time limit apply? Were you consistent, trying to read every night, or for a certain number of nights a week? Was this a one parent-one child phenomenon, or did the whole family participate? Do you think the way you were read to contributed to your current attitudes about books? Do you think the way you're reading to your child(ren) has contributed to their attitudes about books? Does reading books together help to form a bond between parents and their children?

( Here are my answers )