Born Reading by Jason Boog (Touchstone, September 2014) is the best go-to book for figuring out how to teach your child to love reading. I’ve read books before about encouraging your child’s literacy, and they have been great. But what Born Reading does is address the issue for the now generation: the generation of ipads and mobile phones. How does a parent encourage literacy when the number one method we have of getting through our days includes technology?
So many people that homeschool or otherwise keep their children close try to limit technology for their younger children. “Not until they are 8,” I’ve heard as a guideline. Computers and tablets, then, are just a no-no for them. Learning and reading should first and foremost be a hard copy only activity.
This philosophy has never worked for me. I read books on my tablet. I keep my phone numbers and addresses on my phone. I frequently check email on my tablet when we are out and about or take pictures of my children. I have found balance, truly, and I understand that reading physical books are an important part of development and learning to read in general. I cannot cut out the technology all around us. My son needs to read his text book on his device or listen to his music assignment the same way, because that is how I work. I am not going to print out every single page when we are going to read it once, and I own it digitally!
So that is why I love Born Reading. Jason knows how it is. (I hope he does not mind if I call him by his first name. I just feel I got to know him with his stories of reading to his daughter!) He addresses concerns about technology, shares ways that technology can help little ones learn, and of course provides a guidebook for parents in finding quality books to read with children.
Jason calls his philosophy for parent-child reading time his “guidebook for Born Readers.” I love his ideas in this for guiding discussion with a little one. These are essentially my foundation already for my own picture book reading (and my for-sale picture book lessons). Nevertheless, even for a compulsive reader like myself who already embraces early literacy time, Jason’s ideas for building on it are still valuable. In fact, I look forward to a reread already!
Bonus: Gift Born Reading to first-time moms! They will love it!
Note: I received a digital copy of this book for review consideration.