As a Kindergarten and reading teacher, parents often ask what they can do at home to help their children become better readers and writers. My standard answer is that parents first need to help their children learn to love reading and writing. And developing that love can start at a very young age. In this series of posts, I’ll share some ways to help your little ones grow that love of literacy.

First off, in order for children to learn to love books, they need be surrounded by books! Beginning when Lil’ CB was about 20 months old, we began to make regular trips to the library. We usually go once every 2 weeks. Our library system loans its books out for 3-week cycles, but 2 weeks seemed to be just the right interval for us to make sure that we were enjoying the books we checked out while maintaining a regular library routine.

We keep a running list of the kinds of books Lil’ CB is interested in checking out from the library. We add to it throughout the 2 weeks and go over it together before our library day. I add simple pictures next to the words so he can help me “read” it as we’re looking for books.

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Lil’ CB is always thrilled to go to the library and excitedly runs inside making a beeline for the children’s section.

Once we are in the library, I give Lil’ CB free choice to pick whatever books he wants from the children’s section.

Sometimes, this happens:

But we try not to make a fuss and clean it up as best we can, putting some books on the handy dandy re-shelving carts that are all around the children’s section if the mess gets really big.

Lil’ CB picks and chooses and puts his selections into our library bag — a sturdy canvas bag that I used to use for school.

I also make some selections, choosing books about particular concepts we are working on; books by favorite authors (Mo Willems is our ABSOLUTE favorite); and helping Lil’ CB find books from his list.

A lot of times, this is what we look like:

Lil’ CB will choose a book and look through it right then and there and I’ll stay close by browsing the shelves around him.

The most important thing I have to remember is to truly give Lil’ CB free choice. This is sometimes hard (I’m talking to you, stupid Spongebob books!), but I always remember what my advisor/favorite professor in college said in our Teaching Reading class…paraphrased, the gist of it is this: We can’t be literary snobs. If comic books and Captain Underpants [or Spongebob books!] are what hook your students, give them comic books and Captain Underpants!  Then use those books as a starting point to introduce them to other texts and genres, helping them develop their taste as a reader.

So, keeping that in mind, I let Lil’ CB pick his books until our bag is full.

 

Even if some of the choices look like this…

And then we check out and head home to enjoy our new stash of library books!

During the two weeks, we read our library books over and over again. Some of the books (inevitably, the ones that I cringed about – heh heh) we read once and Lil’ CB declares (on his own — I promise!), “I no like this one.” So we use that to talk about why he didn’t like it and then brainstorm together about a kind of book he would like and add it to our list. Other books become immediate favorites and I jot down the titles to purchase for our home library.

Lil’ CB will be 3 in September and these library visits have been routine for us for a little over a year now. Before making it a regular routine, we would still visit the library (maybe once every month or so) and focus mostly on the board books. Once we began making regular trips, we practiced a lot of “library etiquette” — keeping our voices (relatively) quiet; book handling; staying in the children’s section, etc. Our initial visits were between 20-30 minutes and we left with 10-15 books. Now we typically check out between 20-30 books and stay for about an hour.

We love our library visits — it quickly became one of our favorite things to do together and we have found lots of new books and authors we love! Lil’ CB loves being read to and “reading” on his own and I truly believe the regular routine of visiting the library as well as sense of ownership he’s gained from choosing his own books from a very young age has grown his love of books and reading. And I hope that love will only grow as he grows!

Do you visit the library with your little one?