Kids Blog

FREE Play! (Good for the Brain, Good for Your Wallet!)

Toys with lights and sounds can draw your little one’s attention quickly, but if you want the most bang for your buck, you need a toy promotes open-ended play (play that allows your child to make the rules). The best toys for those are found around your home and they are free of cost! 

Why is Phonics Important? Simple Ways to Boost Phonics in Young Readers

I don’t remember the minutiae of learning to read, but the word phonics instantly transports me back to my first grade classroom in the early eighties and many mornings working in those red phonics workbooks.

Let's Eat (and Read) Around the World for Thanksgiving!

Armies may run on their stomachs, but so do kids getting ready to read! Connecting literacy and language with food is a tried and true way to make kids happy while teaching them valuable literacy lessons.

Rhyme Time! Best Books for Rhyming

The ability to identify and produce rhyming words is an important foundational reading skill. Rhyming can also be silly and fun! Parents and caregivers can help children develop this skill by reading high-quality rhyming picture books to children, starting at birth. Many picture books feature rhyming as part of the text, but I would like to share with you some of my favorites that I have enjoyed reading to my own children and to my library storytime friends.

Cloudy With a Chance of Vocabulary!

Vocabulary is literally the name of the game when it comes to boosting children’s language and literacy development! The more words children know, the more they will learn about the world, which in turn will help with later reading comprehension. 

Fluency Matters! What is reading fluency & how can my kid get it?

What is “fluency” when referring to a child reading? If you’ve ever asked a child to read to you and the child. Reads. The. Words. One. At. A. Time. In. A. Monotone. Voice. And then couldn’t tell you what they just read, you know what reading fluency isn’t. Fluency is reading with accuracy, rate, comprehension, and prosody, which is a fancy word for expression.

What Happened on October 20…in 2016, 2011, 1971, or 1921? Find Out!

A lot has happened over the past 100 years to say the least.

Reading Picture Books Without Reading the Text (Yes, You Can Do That!)

Growing up in a bilingual household was fun and sometimes a little confusing. My friends' parents read them books, but my mom took a different approach. While she would read me the story, she wasn't precisely reading all the text, just the pictures. 

How To Read... "Roar: A Book of Animal Sounds"

Let’s face it, reading to a toddler is hard. We want them to sit still and listen, and they want to throw the book in the air and run around in circles screaming. Because littles have short attention spans and limited vocabulary, following a story with only their eyes and ears is really hard. Two and three-year-olds need to be physically involved with their whole bodies.

Bubble Bubble: Songs for Bath Time!

In my house, bath time equals Storytime! Having your little one soaking in their bubbles is an opportunity for a captive audience. As we’ve learned in Storytimes, the five ways to Build A Reader are to talk, sing, read, write and play- all things you can do while scrubbing away the day! My favorite bath activity is singing, because it’s impossible to be unhappy while singing the word bubbles.