R is for Reading

Welcome to my Blogging from A to Z April Challenge for 2019! The A to Z Challenge is a blogging event held each April. Bloggers create posts from A to Z beginning on April 1st and ending on April 30th. There is a post scheduled for each day of the month (except for Sundays) with each day corresponding to a sequential letter of the alphabet.

Today is the easiest post for me to write since it's the activity that comes most easily to our family. Today's letter is R and R is for Reading!

Reading with your toddler is an incredibly helpful activity. They learn to pay attention, to interpret context clues from pictures, and they build their vocabulary at a much quicker rate than simply having vocal instruction or learning from video screens.

Around here, we devour books (tee hee). I've always been a heavy reader and it is one of my favorite hobbies, so it was pretty easy for me to move into reading to my kids. I had part of a children's library already, since my mom passed the majority of the books I had as a kid over to me. I stocked it up further primarily with used books. I find most of my used books at library sales, thrift stores, and the online store ThriftBooks.

I started reading to the Boy before bedtime when he was very little. Though we read here and there from the time he was born, we made it a regular routine to read books before bed when he was about 3 months old. For the Baby, we already had our routine established, so he's been indoctrinated practically since birth.

My kids love books. The Baby doesn't always focus clear through a book, but the Boy has gotten to where his attention can typically be held to the end. He also enjoys reading on his own. I keep a small stack of board books on our living room coffee table. He picks them up randomly during the day and flips through at his leisure. Sometimes he will bring them to me or Daddy for a sit down reading, but a lot of times, he just likes to look at them on his own and tell us words out loud (in his own special toddler speak, of course).

I rotate the books every couple of weeks to keep him from getting bored. We've also found that, on the nights where he is terribly upset about going to bed, we can calm him by giving him a book or two in his bed (always board books...he can't be trusted otherwise). We let him read on his own until he goes to sleep and I shut his bedroom light off when I'm done reading at bedtime for myself. It's not ideal, but it's much better than having him scream bloody murder when he isn't ready to go to bed.

What about you and your family? How do books fit in with your routine? What are your favorite children's books?

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Not an A to Z Blogger, but love the idea? Go here to see what other fun you can find in the challenge.

Miss a prior 2016 A to Z post? Find your missing link down below...

   

    A is for ASL                                   B is for Bubbles                 C is for Counting
    D is for Dot                                   E is for Exercise                 F is for Fort
    G is for Go Fish                             H is for Helping                 I is for Indoor Car Wash
    J is for Jigsaw                                K is for Kinetic Sand          L is for Letters
    M is for Movies                              N is for Noodles                O is for Orbs

    P is for Peek-a-Boo                        Q is for Quack