As a mom and a teacher, reading aloud has brought closeness and joy within my family and classroom. However, in my work with family engagement, I came to realize that my popular read-alouds could actually detract from building caregiver literacy practices; the more important role was helping each family find and develop their own joyful book traditions.
I created videos that speak to families: introducing books , but not reading them. I explore different ways to interact with books, helping caregivers meet the needs of their own children and to use books in ways that are fun and educational.
Can a book about boats inspire a child to learn about poetry? In this video I make literacy connections that can help caregivers use this book in different ways to spark the interests of their child.
What do you do when you see a factual mistake in a book? I encourage families to extend their learning through imagination and a simple scientific experiment. Children can question texts (images are also “readable text”) and create new artwork to correct the problem.
Within a book about ducks and migration is a social story. By asking deeper emotional questions, caregivers are able to use this kind of reading to help their children navigate friendships and scary challenges.
Sometimes, especially for school, a child has to read an informational book that they aren’t really into. In this video I show some ways to find interesting parts of a book, and make a game out of finding information.
The reading level in this book is really too high for our target age, but the information is valuable. I show how to zero in on key pages, and then invent my own hands-on experiment to really get inside the material.
On the surface this is a very simple book, with only a few words. I explore different ways to “read” this book which lead to complex science topics as well as ideas for art-making, writing and hands-on experiments.
I developed this Book list primarily for ages PreK to 3rd grade.