How To Find the Right Books for Your Kids

How To Find the Right Books for Your Kids

How To Find the Right Books for Your kids

How to find the right books for your kids can be challenging. Getting your child to read is important. Whether  they happen to already love reading or need a nudge in the right direction, a lot still hinges upon your ability to choose the right book for them to read. There are a few things that parents can consider when choosing an appropriate book for their child.

Why Are They Reading?

Is your child reading for fun? Are they looking to learn a new skill or about a new subject? Are they dealing with a difficult challenge right now? Do they have a book report due? These are all important things to consider when choosing an appropriate book. A fun fiction story can be great for bedtime or for a book report, but if your child is interested in a specific topic then finding a book on that subject, is a better choice.

Are They Interested?

Interest can be gauged by looking at their reason for reading, as well as a few other things. Finding a book on a relevant topic or in a genre of interest is a good place to start. You’ll also want to consider things like the cover design, the chapter titles, or any illustrations if present. If your child happens to be interested in a specific thing, like horses for example, you can find books on that topic. In addition to just nature books about horses, you can also consider fiction books that feature horses, farm related books, books about horse riding, and more.

Be creative and unique. Getting personalized children’s books can also help with their interests. In going with the example above, getting a personalized book about farm animals can truly spark their interest. A personalized book makes the child the main character, coupled with their interest in a specific topic, will make for a pleasurable reading experience.

Is It at Their Reading Level?

It’s also vital to make sure that the book you choose is in line with your child’s reading skills. Some kids’ books, especially in libraries, have a label that outlines what reading level or grade they are appropriate for. If that is not the case, your child can simply open up the book and glance at a few pages to get an idea of whether they are able to comprehend the book on their own.

One way to determine this is to use the “Five Finger Rule“, which is a basic outline of how many words a reader should be able to read (and can learn) on each page:
•    0-1 unknown words = book is too easy
•    2-3 unknown words = book is just right
•    4-5 unknown words = book is too difficult

How Coloring Can Help Your Child’s Development

Benefits of Coloring Books

Benefits of Coloring

There are many benefits of coloring that can help your child’s development in more ways than you can think. For many parents, a set of coloring books and crayons is a great go-to for any rainy day or time you want your kids to stay occupied. While coloring can be a good option for keeping kids quiet, they can be extremely advantageous for their overall mental and even physical development.

Handwriting and Hand-Eye Coordination

In order to improve handwriting, children need to build up certain strength and familiarity with holding objects like pens or pencils. A child’s first set of crayons is a great way to introduce them to writing utensils and their use. It can also help with the motor skills needed to execute good penmanship. As kids use crayons effectively to color within the lines, they are building up the dexterity needed to move a pen or pencil on paper.

Patience and Relaxation

For many kids, making it through a coloring page takes a great deal of patience. However, doing so can help them exercise this skill in other areas of their life, too. For many kids, and now adults, calmly coloring can prove to be an effective stress reliever and provides relaxation.

Focus

Linked closely with patience, coloring can help kids develop their ability to focus on a single task. The goal of finishing a picture provides them with the motivation to completely color the image. It has been proven that children who spend their time coloring have better concentration and focus skills.

Visual and Spatial Knowledge

Coloring a picture can help your children to recognize lines, perspective, color, hue, shape and form. Visually it helps them select colors for the image and begin to see the picture as a whole even before it is completely colored. Depending on the images they are coloring, kids can also become more familiar with and better able to recognize patterns.

Benefits of Personalized Coloring Books

Creativity and Imagination

Coloring sparks a child’s ability to make and create things. Coloring inside the lines and using the proper colors can demonstrate an understanding of the world around them. Even kids who use untraditional colors or go outside the lines are expressing themselves and unleashing their imagination in unique ways.

Color Recognition

Coloring is often a child’s first active experience with identifying and using color. It can help introduce them to different shades and hues, as well as other complexities of the color wheel. By deciding on what color to use next, kids are exercising their creative or critical thinking skills.

Language and Vocabulary Development

Whether your kids are actively coloring or just talking about it, coloring will give your kids an opportunity to learn new words and sentences. Using descriptive words to convey different styles of coloring sheets or variations of color, can help with language and vocabulary development.

Personalized Coloring Books

KD Novelties can take coloring a step further by providing personalized coloring and activity books. Starring the child’s name throughout these custom-made coloring books, can make coloring an even more immersive and interactive experience. Visually exciting, personalized activity books are full of funny characters, educational fun and has an emphasis on creativity. These amazingly awesome activity and coloring books are great for developing basic problem solving skills and entertaining children.

 

 

Make Book Reading a Sensory Experience

Book Reading a Sensory Experience

Ways to Make Book Reading a Sensory Experience

Making book reading a sensory experience can be fun when you involve the kids. We all use our senses to engage with and understand the world around us. The way that people interact with the world is different from person to person, and it can be especially particular for those on the spectrum. When it comes to special needs children, sometimes one or more senses are either over- or under-reactive to stimulation. Understanding how your child operates, what they respond to, and what they like can help make learning much more tangible for them. Reading a picture book aloud can be an active and engaging activity for children. It can be even more effective with the use of some simple strategies. Here are some ways how you can make reading a book aloud to your child more of a sensory experience.

Texture

Many children’s books might already have this ingredient, especially baby books. However,  for children on the spectrum, the addition of texture, fabrics, materials other than paper, and even props can help them engage with the story. If you have picture books, you can add your own textures with materials from any arts and craft stores such as felt, cotton balls, fur etc. where appropriate. You can customize books to be more interactive and encourage your child to interact with the book and the story even more.

Book Reading a Sensory Experience

Props and Visual Aids

Props and visual aids can be useful in many ways. It can help kids understand the story and recreate scenes and retell the story on their own. Thus, helping them retain information and develop a closer understanding of the story. Items like stuffed animals, toys resembling characters, felt board sets, sequencing cards, miniature objects and more can all be helpful and enriching.

Sounds

Adding sounds while reading can do a lot for kids, too.  You can ask your child to imitate farm animal sounds or any other actions that are included in the story like trains and cars. For kids who are minimally verbal or non-verbal, you can consider augmentative and alternative communication in place of sounds. This can include actions, miming, or pointing to certain things as they happen in the story.

Smell and Taste

Creating a more engaging atmosphere can be fun for reading, too. Adding candle scents or going outside to recreate the setting of the story can help your child  with their imagination. They can get a better grip on the characters are and what they are doing. If food or candy is mentioned, having some of the same on hand can be fun, and tasty, too.

Moving Around

This is a great way to not only add some exercise to your day but can make reading a far more active experience. You can get up and engage in the same activities as the characters in the story. You can also reenact entire scenes straight from the book. This encourages children to think about what the characters would do or what the story is about.  By approaching stories in different ways, you may find the one that reaches and affects your child the most.