Every parent wants the best start for their children in this life – whether it’s in what we’re able to give them that we didn’t have, or even the type of education they receive. This is also true for the start we give them when it comes to reading.

Studies have proven that children who learn to read at an earlier age have an easier time in school, and are twice as likely to complete levels of higher education than those who struggle to learn at a later age. Here are some of the best things you can do to help your child become an early reader – giving them a head start on school and in life:


Start Young

There’s no age that is too young to start trying to raise an early reader. As soon as your child arrives you can start introducing them to reading both by reading to them, as well as through the use of brightly colored flash cards which have the letters of the alphabet on them.

It’s even been proven that using one of the many popular phonics learning programs available to teach (verbally) phonics to your infant can help them to better recognize letters and words later on.

Read to Them

Although you’ve probably heard it a thousand times, it’s important that you understand what an impact reading to your child will have on them becoming an early reader. A child who is read to at least once a day is twice as likely to become an early reader than those who are read to less frequently.

It’s also a good idea to teach your child how to follow along with the words by placing your finger under each word as you read it. However, when doing this, it’s important that you take the time to sound out each word as you read; otherwise your child may learn to read by memorization only.

Be Consistent

Another important thing to remember if you want to raise an early reader is to be consistent. Reading to your child once in a while, or sounding out words on an infrequent basis won’t give them the foundation they need to become early readers. You absolutely must maintain a consistent reading schedule with your children if you want them to learn young.

Make It Fun

Above all else, if you want to raise an early reader – make sure your child has fun. A child who is forced to read, or forced to read things they don’t find interesting will rebel against the learning process.

Choose books that are interesting to your child, and even let him or her be a part of the choosing process. Make the reading process fun by showing them how much you enjoy it, and remember not to be too demanding that they learn.

Overall, raising an early reader isn’t nearly as difficult as many people would have you to believe. Keep in mind the fact that reading is supposed to be an enjoyable process, and make it a special time between you and your child and you’ll find that raising your child to be an early reader is easier than you ever thought possible!

I’ve talked here at The Bookworm Broadcast about how much I love the book, “Sideways Stories from Wayside School” and how excited I was (cautiously) that it was made into a television cartoon. There definitely was potential there, with all the goofy stories! As a bookworm, though, I have to admit it did make me nervous. As a perfect example of the way I feel about this, my town library once had a sign up that said, “Never judge a book by its movie”. I shared with you that I was pretty pleased with this book-into-TV transition. And I’m hopeful that at least some kids will be intrigued enough with the show to want to read the books! I can hope, right? Hey – I’ve always been that way – if I really, really like a movie/show, I want to read the book!

The basic story of this book is that The Wayside School was accidentally built 30 stories tall, with one classroom per floor, instead of one story tall, with 30 classrooms. The builder’s felt really bad about it and apologized a whole lot! On each floor of the building, in each classroom, is another crazy class – with another wacky tale to tell.

The main character, Todd, goes to school on the 30th floor and at recess time, he has to hurry as fast as he can to get down to the bottom floor, so that he can get one of the cherished playground balls from the janitor. It is first-come-first-serve and it’s hard to make it down all thirty floors quickly!

Todd’s teacher, Mrs. Jewl, not only allows the students to sleep – she encourages it! And when he tries to hand in his homework, he winds up in trouble – he gets detention or has to ride the kindergarten bus home!

The wackiness just goes on and on! So, while I definitely wondered if Wayside – The Cartoon could possibly measure up to the book, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised! They’ve added some things and taken some things out and it is, for sure, a different experience than the book. It is tons of fun, though! And the cool thing is that it is great fun for the whole family to watch! It is one of those cartoons that everyone in your family, no matter their age, will enjoy!

Wayside School: Season One definitely gets this bookworm’s seal of approval!

And just to appeal to my book-lovin’ heart, they actually included a copy of Sideways Stories from Wayside School with the DVD! Now, how cool is that?

Image via Wikipedia My sixth grader came home today with an interesting, and very tricky, sentence exercise that she had worked on in class. And now she is doing another one to try and ‘trick’ her teacher – as her teacher was not at all tricked by the one she did in class. I’m totally not making sense, am I?

Let me explain it. The kids had to write one main idea sentence and then write three supporting detail sentences. Once they had that done, they show someone their detail sentences and the person tries to figure out their main sentence.

My daughter’s teacher figured out hers in just one second! She wants to stump her teacher, though. Here are the ones she wrote in class:

Supporting Detail Sentences

I used to have a white cat.

I once had a box turtle.

I’ve had many birds.

Main Idea Sentence

I’ve had many pets in my life.

We are sitting here wracking our brains trying to think of one that will stump her, but, it is hard! I did come up with one way to stump her that did not impress Sam. If you were to express an opinion in the main idea, and the supporting sentences only contained the facts! I think it’s brilliant! I’m not sure, though, if that means they really are supporting sentences! This is what I came up with:

Supporting Detail Sentences

My mom has seventeen angel figurines.

My dad has a ton of knives.

My brother has lots of Pokemon cards.

Main Idea Sentence

I really don’t like the stuff my family collects.

Wait a minute! Stop the presses! She just threw a whole new monkey wrench into this darn thing! You actually show the person all four sentences! That’s crazy! I thought you just show them your supporting sentences and they have to come up with your main sentence! This is even harder than I thought! And no wonder she didn’t like my idea!

Ok, now I’m really scratching my head! You guys gotta help us out! Let’s all put our heads together and think! Think! Think! Think!

This is one time I’m not gonna yell at you to Go Read A Book – because, I want you thinking!!

Anyone? Anyone?

I found the most perfect end table EVER this morning online! I want one so badly, that it’s just killing me! And the whole thing is my friend, Julie’s, fault! Gosh! She is apparently nesting in honor of our friend, Eve, who’s due to give birth quite soon, because, she is cleaning out her whole entire house! (I sure hope she’s coming to Alabama next!)

Julie is going from room to room in her house, cleaning, organizing, and getting rid of stuff! She even had some child laborers helping her! Crazy, isn’t it? They don’t seem to upset by it, though – they rather look like they’re having fun, I’d say! Well, aside from all the sneezing, that is! I’m getting off the subject, though, aren’t I?

She is rearranging her house in this process and she will be left with this one empty spot next to her dining table that she would like to make into a comfortable reading corner. There’s nothing I like more than comfortable reading corners! I’ve dreamed of one for a long, long time. I almost had one in one of the houses we lived in – and it was going to be in my master bedroom! That was going to be so cool! We never got around to the remodel, though, before we moved out of that house. So Julie posted some pictures of the area she has to work with and asked for advice on what to put there. Upon reading her post, I went looking online for this certain kind of chair that my brother used to have that I thought would be perfect for her spot! I did find the chair ….only trouble is, I also found the most adorable table!! And if I know Julie, she was drooling when she saw it, too! Here, let me just show you….
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I can’t believe it is already time to send my little monsters sweethearts off to school again! Summertime goes so fast nowadays. And really, that’s true – because, they barely get more than two months, the poor little buggers! It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I was posting that they were going back to school last year! Crazy how time flies, isn’t it?

Our schools around here started on the 7th, so the kids have had six days of school so far. Back home, though, they don’t even start until August 25th! And I think some of my friends up north say they start even later than that. They stay in school for some of June and we are usually out by then.

My daughter is in sixth grade and the ‘top of the school’! That is such a fun year! And it is also the year that the kids start switching classes to get ready for high school. So she has six or seven different teachers. She really likes all of her teachers so far, but, she absolutely loves her homeroom teacher! I do, too – she is the reading teacher – so you know I like her! She is really nice, though – it’s not just that she’s the reading teacher – she is very spunky!
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Are you guys ready for the second half of the story? Gather your kids around and let’s hear what happened when George woke up the next morning…

You know the George Washington coloring page that I told you about yesterday? Well, I colored one myself – and I had fun doing it! Coloring is good for the soul, I tell you! I think it turned out pretty nicely, too:

I colored it and then I cut out around the edges and put it on some pretty blue paper! I’m thinking of adding an American flag and a cherry tree to it, too! I’ll let you know if I do. If you and your kids want to color it and send it to me, via email, I’d be happy to showcase your picture here on the blog!

It’s finally time for Bookworm Storytime again! This time it’s a little different than we’re used to, because, I’m trying out my new webcam, and I’m also only reading half the story. It’s a longer story than the others I’ve read, so you will have to tune in tomorrow for the second half of the story.

The story I’m reading is ‘George Washington and the Cherry Tree’ and it comes from a book called, “Best Loved Children’s Stories”. I couldn’t find it on Amazon, so I can’t share the link with you this time. I’ve been talking about history around here lately, because, of some great movies that I’ve been watching. And one of the cool things I talked about recently was a secret basement and tunnel under George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon. So I thought a story about George Washington would be fun to read.

I found a pretty nice coloring page for you, also – and it comes right from the official White House website! Here you go: George Washington 1789-1797

Here’s a snapshot of it. You can click the picture to go to the White House site and print it out, also.

National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets is a wonderful movie! I just knew I was going to love it, as I really, really loved the first one! And the best part of these movies, just like the Indiana Jones shows, is that they make history fun! I mean – really fun! It’s so funny to me that as an adult, I just completely love history! I had such a hard time with it in school. When I was in my early twenties, though, I took a couple history courses at the local community college and just loved it!

And the thing about it is that, while much of the information/story line/history in National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets is either changed around, or just plain made up, to fit the movie better, it does serve to get us thinking. And it sends us to go digging deeper, to find out what actually did happen, and to learn more.

There were two things in the movie that keenly interested me and sent me digging. The first one was the Resolute desks. Is the story of the desks true? Do they really even exist? Are there really two of them? Yes, the Resolute desk is in the Oval Office, and it is quite beautiful and has quite a history. It does not, however, have a twin. It is said that the Queen did have a small writing table made for herself from the HMS Resolute, though. And the HMS Resolute was a British ship that had been abandoned, stuck in ice, and then was returned to the Queen by an American whaler a couple years later.

The other thing that I found so interesting in the movie that I had to looking for more answers about it – was the part about the secret basement and underground tunnels at Mount Vernon. I’ve always loved stuff like this. Trust me, you don’t want to be in an old house with my brother, Mic, and I, because, we WILL be doing some snooping! We went to a bed and breakfast for our other brother’s wedding and did some serious ‘old house investigating’ and found some pretty cool features! When I went looking to verify if the basement even existed, I learned that it did, and that it had never been open to the public. Get this, though – some of the staffers at Mount Vernon, upon seeing the National Treasure movie – decided that they had to open it up for tours. And you know what happened? The amount of visitors went up 300% that first weekend! Wow! It was first opened in January on a trial basis, but, was so popular, that it has been extended! I learned a lot about Mount Vernon last year from my son, who went on a trip to Washington, DC with his class. We talked about Mount Vernon a lot – he really enjoyed his visit there. I can’t believe, though, that he missed the secret basement – by only months! What a major bummer!

So I guess you can tell that I thoroughly enjoyed the movie! Now I just want to watch the first one again! I can’t tonight, because, we have our sons’ Spring Band Concert. Maybe I can watch it Friday night.

That was the name of the field trip my fifth grade daughter went on last Friday. They went to the local YMCA campgrounds out in the woods and learned all kinds of wonderful things about Mother Earth. Now that’s a field trip that our friend, Hippie Spelunker would love! Oh! That’s me! That’s right – silly me!

Seriously, though – the treehugger in me LOVES this field trip! I only wish they had let parents go! At any rate, I got a great rundown from Sammie and her friend when they got home from school! They had so much fun! The two of them yammered on and on to me for at least half an hour, interrupting each other right and left. Her girlfriend had come home with her on the bus and was spending the night with us, and all throughout the evening, little tidbits of ‘field trip stories’ would come up. There was one particular story that had the girls laughing and hollering at each other in the kitchen – it was so funny! Apparently, they went on a ‘hike’ – and I say ‘hike’, because, the girls say it was just basically climbing up this one little hill and they called it a ‘hike’! They thought that was hysterical! They also were quite amused at some of the silliness of the kids climbing up the hill with great difficulty, as though it were some huge mountain! And they said that people were running into each other, falling into each other, and teachers hollering for the kids not to hold onto each other and pull everybody down at once! It would have made a great home movie, I’m sure!

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My kids finally finished watching all of the 8gabillion DVD’s that came in the set, The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Volume Three – The Years of Change! Well, ok, there are only ten DVD’s, but, there are so many hours involved in this program! It’s really incredible – it’s got the original TV shows/movies, documentaries interspersed throughout, and an historical lecture, entitled ‘New Gods for Gold’. It really is an amazing amount of information and a great way to present it to kids – definitely a lot more fun than sitting through a history class!

When I went to ask my thirteen-year old son his opinions of the DVD’s, his answer really surprised me!
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