Calling All Parents of Reluctant Readers!

March is National Reading Month and as a parent of a reluctant reader I can speak to the importance of keeping reading alive in your house in anyway you can. Bonggamom is having a giveaway in honor of National Reading Month that is great for reluctant readers. Leapfrog has been an educational company I have turned to many times to help our kids along the way to reading. Leapfrog wants to inspire families to read together more. So for National Reading Month, they've launched the 1 Million Reading Hours Campaign. All you have to do is commit to an amount of time you'll read to your child a day. Simple.

For Bonggamom's giveaway, go back to her blog and leave a comment as to how many minutes you committed to read to your child. Once again, simple. And you could win a Leapfrog Tag! How great is that?

PBS KIDS Island

Covert learning, I find, is always more effective for my reluctant reader than the obvious, "let's sit down and read a book" kind of learning. The effectiveness grows if there is the possibility of winning something...even a virtual "something". PBS KIDS Island offers free reading games and activities for children ages 2-5 years but I have found my 8 year old reluctant reader actively using it along with my 3 year old. New features will soon be added, including a Word of the Day and games for older children (ages 6-8). Until then, my little man seems to be satisfied in "helping" his little sister win lots of tickets. PBS KIDS Island gives children the tools to create an online island carnival one ride at a time by playing reading games with PBS KIDS® characters. There are eight different literacy-building levels:

• phonological awareness,
  
• letter recognition,
  
• letter sequencing,
  
• phonemic awareness,
  
• word families,
  
• phonics-decoding,
  
• text comprehension
  
• vocabulary

It isn’t easy for anyone to make sense of all this new information, parents or kids. But reading doesn’t – and shouldn’t – have to be an frightening process that turns off all but the most gifted students. With PBS KIDS Island, children are introduced to new skills in a playful, silly way, allowing them to learn at their own pace and remain interested. Hey, uh, that's how I like to learn too! Everything from the alphabet to phonemes can be fun. Honest. The 32 games hit on these different skills, each an important piece to reading successfully. As your child plays the games she is learning these skills in order of literacy development. As her skills develop she is given the opportunity to build more rides on the Island while secretly (shhh, don't tell them they're learning) gaining the skills she needs to become a great reader.

The games are fun in-and-of themselves, but a ticket and prize reward system is included to encourage kids to achieve even more. Kids earn tickets by completing games (multiple tickets for the first completion and one for each completion of the same game thereafter) and can trade in their tickets for prizes like virtual toys and coloring pages you can print. The prizes live in each kid's customizable treehouse, another feature to help children feel like their PBS KIDS Island is theirs.

But the best part is that parents can be a part of the child’s learning process, since all child accounts are in the adult's account. The site requires an email account and multiple kids can play under one email address. As the account holder, I can track my kids progress and do reading activities with them related to what they are learning on the Island. Oh, and did I mention that it’s free? Yeah, now that's my kind of bargain. And I don't even have to leave my house to buy some expensive reading program to help my kids learn to read; just the click of the mouse and I get one more notch on my super mommy belt.

Now, I'd like to hear from you! How do you make reading fun for your kids? What online resources do you use, if any? If you’ve used PBS KIDS Island, what did you – and your kids – think? Happy Reading!

Do you Cadoo?

My little guy recently celebrated his eighth birthday. He received lots of wonderful presents but one we've been addicted to is a great family game, Cranium's Cadoo. We've discovered that game playing is a great way to get an eight year old reluctant reader reading! Cadoo encourages reading in a fun filled way. Using their deluxe decoder goggles players get to read hidden answers which only they can read. Thus our reluctant reader has to sound out words on his own and refuses help! Who knew it would be Hasbro that would get our son interested in reading! It was the best use of our money yet!

Not only is it helping his reading but this game actively uses both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This encourages kids of all ages (parents included) to develop not only analytical skills but creative skills as well, helping to create well rounded individuals. My son, the perfectionist, is usually not willing to try new things unless he can master it right away. However, with this game he was willing to take the chance in sculpting an object with clay just to win. So what we've discovered as parents is that Cranium games use competition in a positive way. My son's desire to win the game trumped his need to be perfect. This gave him the opportunity to try new things and discover hidden talents, all in a twenty minute game (and as parents we all know that's an ENORMOUS bonus!). Thanks Cranium!!

We'll definitely be investing in more Cranium games. The value it brings to our children is worth the cost plus we have a great time as a family. I'd love to hear what games you have found to be of value to your children. I'm always on the lookout for creative ways to encourage our children's abilities.