Reading Time

Well, this is my first post, I'm a little nervous! But since we are talking about books and reading I thought I would share as well!

I LOVE reading! I always have! I think it's because my MOM read to us for as long as I can remember. My mom home schooled all 6 of us kids. WOW! I have no idea how she did it! But we would start each day with a devotional. We would sing a hymn {maybe a future post on that}, read out of the scriptures and then my mom would read us a chapter out of a book. She read us children's books like ' Mrs. Piggle Wiggle', 'Stewart Little', older children's books like ' Chronicles of Narnia', Harry Potter, and then books like ' Lord of the Rings', the classic 'Robin Hood' and 'the Black Arrow', among many others.
So you see, at a young age we had been exposed to great literature, and now all of my siblings and I LOVE to read. I thank my mom for instilling that love in us!
Now that I have a young daughter, I have been reading to her from when she was a newborn. A newborn? Yes! You can never start reading to your children too early. As babies, they will just love to hear your voice, even if you are just reading your magazine articles out loud to them! When babies get older and you start reading picture books to them, let them turn pages. Even if they skip a few pages, just read whatever is on the page they skip to. At that age, they won't really notice what you are reading anyway.
As they get older, they can start to turn individual pages and recognizing the sequence of the story, so they will know if you've skipped a part or not!
Anyway, reading to babies and young children is sooo important! It helps with their language development, helps them to learn to focus and listen,is great bonding time, and provides wonderful 'quiet time'. Now-a-days children can get sooo over stimulated!
So read away to your children, young and older. They will grow and learn from it, it provides a great bond between the two of you, and they WILL remember the times when their mom read to them!