Step Two: Make Reading a Habit.

Bedtime is perfect for story time. (Illustration by John Bianchi.)

Make daily bedtime stories and weekly visits to the library part of the family routine.

Kids will learn that reading is an important part of the household routine and they’ll look forward to to their regular stories.

And parents will find that a book is the perfect bait for getting kids into bed at night.

As my kids got older, the switch to novels made it even harder to skip story time because we all wanted to know what was going to happen next. And our library visits often because scavenger hunts as we tracked down books by our favourite authors and illustrators.

See all 10 kid-literacy steps on YouTube.

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While out in Victoria in 2010 to do a presentation for the local Children’s Literature Roundtable, one of the group’s executive introduced the audience to Lane Smith’s “It’s a Book,” recently released by Macmillan. Two characters, a tech-head donkey and book-loving gorilla, face off as to the merits of a book.

Visually it is a cute book, best read aloud. The audience loved it although there was some tut-tutting when the donkey is called a jackass. (Hey, it was Victoria.) It certainly captures the e-book vs. old-book debate with charm and humour.

Shortly after, I stumbled across the publisher’s one-minute video of the book on youtube and came to the conclusion that “It’s a Book” is even more effective as a video. In fact, it undermines Smith’s thesis Continue reading →

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Early Literacy Step #2

Step Two: Make Reading a Habit.

It’s a Book