Nurturing a Love for Reading
I’ve always read to Jude. Even when he was two years old and couldn’t sit still for more than 10 seconds. I would speed through the shortest books I could find because it is important to me that my kids enjoy reading.
When I was little reading was something you did before bed so now every time I try to read a book I fall asleep. The book can be edge-of-your-seat exciting and I will still fall asleep. This is why it takes me months to read a book. I often have to re-read entire pages because I don’t remember what I just read. Anyway… I want my boys to have an appreciation for reading that is more than just a tool to help them fall asleep at night. So we frequent the library and read books throughout the day.
Jude is in Kindergarten and is in the beginning stages of reading. Since the beginning of the school year I have been completely astounded at how quickly he’s taken to reading. He recognizes sight words, sounds out longer words and remember spelling rules. Because he is so keen on learning to read I tried to offer as many reading opportunities as possible. I just recently downloaded a new app on my phone called Tic Tac Bananas which helps kids put together letter sounds to create words.
The games has two modes of play single player practice and 2 player tic tac toe. At first I thought some of the words would be too difficult for a kindergartener but with the assistance of the illustrations Jude caught on rather quickly. The game challenges players to use their problem solving skills to determine which prefix will create the correct word to match the illustration.
Jude and I played the 2 player version several times and he won every time, and sometimes I didn’t even let him win.
Tic-Tac Bananas: Using letter patterns, decoding skills, and word recognition, players merge with the original Tic-Tac-Toe enjoyment. For ages 4-8.
We will continue to read books everyday but I like that we can incorporate fun games that cultivate his love of reading and keep him learning.
I received the featured app free of charge. The opinions expressed in this post are my own and not influenced by the company.
