Published December 22, 2011 | 
Amazon is trying to corner the market for books, ebooks, digital download books and much more. I have a KINDLE and I do love it. Granted, there is nothing like taking a paperback book when going to the beach and reading your favorite stories or even on a picnic or day at the park. A book doesn’t require batteries, or recharging but a KINDLE or any other reading device is capable of holding hundreds of books so you only have to carry one little device a little larger than a regular paperback but usually a lot thinner. And on a long trip I will be bringing my KINDLE. While perusing the FREE ebook selections on the Kindle store I noticed that they now provide children’s books. I mean the illustrated kind that my 6 year old grand-daughter can read to herself or me. Most are small chapter books but those are nice as well when we want to read a story together. She is currently in the 1st grade and should be reading 5 little books a week. We didn’t want to get out of the habit during her Christmas break but we no longer have any children’s books on our bookshelves. The regular Kindle has only gray-scaled pictures but they are crisp and clear. The KINDLE FIRE should have all the ebooks with colored illustrations. I will be checking once a month or so for any new books they have added to the FREE listing as well as buying some of her favorites as well.
Our local library is getting on the digital book bandwagon as well. They now offer over 4000 books in one or more digital formats. All you need with them is an online library account and a computer or reading device. Most of the ebooks and audiobooks offered can be downloaded onto your computer, i-touch, i-pad or KINDLE device for the lending period specified. Of course, if you want the KINDLE version you will need an Amazon account and they have the books on their servers and download directly to whichever device you specify. Once, your lending time is up the books are deactivated and no longer readable. Of course, I don’t know about those books that you can burn onto a CD. I haven’t tried that yet as I haven’t had the time to listen to any books on CDs in a while. We tried 4 ebooks from our local library that they listed as “Guaranteed” to be available. The process was really quite painless. I didn’t read the descriptions very well and ended up getting some Graphic Novels instead of the actual story I was expecting but my youngest daughter really likes Graphic Novels and she enjoyed them. The graphics were excellent even in gray-scale. Now there is not a lot of contemporary authors available on our library site and what there is has a long waiting list for all the newer books that have been added. But hey! It’s FREE. Contact your local library and see what they have available for your area.
Another source of FREE ebooks that has changed it the Gutenberg Project. They now offering audio books and Kindle versions of their copy-write free books. Yes, you can still download the text and html version of all the books they offer onto your computer. But the Kindle versions are specifically formatted for the Kindle device to make for easier reading. They also now have Android, iOS and other portable device versions of a lot of their more popular eBooks. The website offers a Mobile Version for those searching the site on their phones.
Published June 22, 2011 | Summertime is a great time for parents and kids to keep up their reading skills. Without the pressures of school kids should continue to read books, magazines, newspapers and even ebook versions of all of these. I keep several websites bookmarked for my children and grandchildren that have age-appropriate lists of books to read such as Scholastic.com – http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=608. Their website has a pdf version of the lists by age group for your children to read this summer. You can open up the documents and print them out to take them to your local library. The library is a great place to take the kids several times during the summer. Most all public libraries have some kind of programs available during the summer and the librarians will be happy to help your and your kids (Grandkids) to find the books on your lists.
There are lots of programs out there that even offer prizes for summer reading. One such program I found on a search on Amazon called Journey Forth’s Summer Reading “Read in the Deep End” program on the BJU Press website: Click here for more details and you might win a Amazon Kindle Ebook reading device. They have age-appropriate reading lists, reading logs to print out and accepts several forms such as print books, electronic books etc and you have until August 31st to turn in your completed logs for each of your children!
Barnes and Noble also has a Summer Reading Challenge for you and your kids (Grandkids) with a Reading Journal to download and print out. You just have to read through the rules, read the books, complete the journal entries and turn them into your local Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/summerreading/index.asp Give a try and see how you do!
Don’t forget your local library and your local school systems has information about summer reading programs on their websites. Most kids are given a summer reading list by the end of school as well as a couple of pages of reading logs or journals to fill out. Please remember that your child needs to see you reading as well as encouraging them to read. And reading to them during the day or at bedtime shows them that reading is important to you and is a great time for bonding. If you cannot afford to buy books for your kids the library is always a great resource for books. Perhaps at the end of summer you can reward your child or grandchild with a brand new or used book that they can keep from your local bookstore.
Published April 10, 2011 | Have You Read A Good Magazine Lately? You know you pick up magazines and browse through them when you are in a long check-out line at the store. And you pick up a magazine at the doctor’s office waiting for your turn to be seen. Our parents used to put magazines on tables in the “formal living room” and many people still do. I am no exception. I have to have something to read when I am waiting on my car to be serviced, when seeing any doctor and when I have to stand around in line at any kind of store. I have even given magazine subscriptions to my loved ones who have a special interest such as Cooking with Paula Deen or Sports Illustrated for my kids who loved sports. I know whenever I find a Reader’s Digest lying around I have to pick it up and at least read the “Humor in Uniform” and “Laughter is the Best Medicine” sections.
Now-a-days we are getting our magazine fix electronically. The I-Pad, I-Pods, Kindles, Nooks and more are offering monthly electronic versions of our favorite magazines on our electronic reading devices. Is this a good thing? Yes and no. Yes, it is better to have electronic versions of magazines because it is the “GREEN THING” to do. And it is convenient to have all of your magazines stored on your little reading device. The really neat thing is they haven’t figured out how to put those perfume smells on electronic versions yet. I have allergies to strong perfumes and when picking up a women’s magazine I have to be leary of those samples they put in the middle of them. The “No” part of the answer comes in with not being able to cut our coupons, cut the pictures and articles or donate our used magazines to nursing homes, hospitals and homeless shelters as a way to recycle. I always recycle my magazines after I read them. The problem comes when I don’t have time to read them and they pile up. But that is another story.
Remember in order to encourage our kids to be readers they have to see us reading and we have to give them gifts centered around reading. You may not want to pay for an electronic reading device for your kids yet but an age-appropriate magazine subscription may be a good way to get them in the habit of reading. And you can save them for their school projects. My children and grandchildren are forever having to cut out pictures in magazines for some project or another. So spend the $10 or $20 a year for a magazine subscription before they go the way of the cassette tapes and become extinct!
Published May 1, 2010 | It is no secret that I love to read. As a matter of fact my favorite form of relaxation is reading a good mystery. And I admit that I will read a trashy romance novel on occasion as well. While looking for material for my next article I came across a couple of websites that had quotes about reading. Some of my favorites are from http://www.richmond.k12.va.us/readamillion/readingquotes.htm Here are a couple of examples:
“Beware of the man of one book.” Thomas Aquinas
“Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful
and entertaining authors.” Joseph Addison
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” Joseph Addison
“Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.” Mortimer J. Adler
“A library is a hospital for the mind.” Anonymous
“If you can read this, thank a teacher.” Anonymous Teacher
“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?” Henry Ward Beecher
“Books are not men and yet they stay alive.” Stephen Vincent Benet
Here are a few more from the Reading Rockets website: http://www.readingrockets.org/books/fun/quotable
“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.” Jorge Luis Borges
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” Frederick Douglass
“The things I want to know are in books. My best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I [haven't] read.” Abraham Lincoln
“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” Emilie Buchwald
Now what are your favorite quotes about reading?
Published April 8, 2010 | One of my favorite magazines to read is the Readers Digest. I love to read on the jokes and humorous stories at the bottom of the pages first and then Laughter is the Best Medicine and Humor in Uniform stuff next. Finally, I will read the articles. Whenever I am in a waiting room that is the first magazine I look for. It has always been a great resource of information and humor. I can read it in a few minutes or take my time and read the whole thing. I haven’t had a subscription to the magazine in a long while as it was costing too much but now they have an online version that is just about as much fun to read at: http://www.rd.com/. I know that all magazines depend on advertising and paid subscriptions to stay alive and I wish them well in that pursuit. So if you can afford the price of a subscription please get one.
The Readers Digest magazine will keep over time better than just about any other magazine you can get. I have kept all of the ones that I have collected over the years and enjoy re-reading them whenever I run out of books to read. They are compact enough to put in your purse or maybe in your back pocket (if your pockets are big enough). The company also still pays for stories contributed by everyday people as well. I have never done this but if you have and were paid we would like to hear from you about your experience. Encouraging people is write is always good thing and even young people can get their start by writing for the magazine you can go here: http://www.rd.com/submitJokePage.do
Published February 18, 2010 | Hey Gang, I couldn’t wait to post this one. One of my daughter’s teachers sent this video from Ocoee Middle School in Ocoee, Florida. Great video and fun too. Check it out on you-tube at:
Ocoee, Florida is a little town just west of Orlando, Florida which use to be nothing but orange groves and farmers. It is still a kind of small town but the Middle School has created a really first rate project. Congratulations Ocoee Middle School and keep up the good work!.
After seeing this video I have hope that there are children out there who want to read and whatever we can do as parents, relatives or friends of kids to encourage our children to read is worth trying. Once a child or adult, for that matter, learns to read it opens up all kinds of possibilities for that person to pursue knowledge in its many forms.
Published February 8, 2010 | There are lots of resources out there on how to teach your children about reading and writing. We like to blog about them when we come across them. Today we found the website called ABCTeach.com This is a very nice little website with lots of reading and writing worksheets. This website offers a limited amount of worksheets for FREE as the bulk of them are offered to members only at about $40 a year for a single user access. The worksheets that are available without a membership are very nice and they have some Math worksheets as well. Like most of the websites for teaching kids how to read and youngster how to write it is mostly centered around young children. They have some for high school students but not very many in the FREE area. Printing out these worksheets at home helps to save the planet and you can print them on the back of papers you already have around the house. Recycling is a great thing and having these resources available online can only improve our efforts to save the planet. Actually this website has some Green worksheets as well.
Published December 9, 2009 | We have added some new links under ‘Resources to Reader” that might be of interest to our subscribers. Most are for helping your kids to read and to learn to enjoy it. The other two are for aspiring writers. We have going into the Blog and Website creation business to help new writers advertise their products, talk to their fans and the build a email mailing list. Check them out.
The other part of this post is a book review of one of my favorite authors, J.D. Robb a.k.a. Nora Roberts. The new book is “Kindred in Death”. Our heroine, Lt. Eve Dallas is called on her day off to a fellow police officer’s home to investigate the death of his daughter. As the story unfolds we find that this is just the beginning and the killer has a list and he is working his way down it. On top of this Eve must participate another WEDDING! Oh, my she really doesn’t want to do that.
The story is, of course, great. I have always enjoyed J.D. Robb’s books and this one is no exception. My mom enjoyed it as well. The book has good pacing and some great plot twists and suspense. Each of the books and can alone but the whole series is like getting caught up on your family. This book brings some old friends back as well. Enjoy this and the other books written by this author. But I must warn you once you start to read Nora Robert’s books you will not stop!
Published October 15, 2009 | I found some more websites that has cute helpers for your little readers to try for FREE. That’s right a reading helper for you and your little ones to go to.
The Lil-fingers website features online books and applications to review words and letters. It also has some free coloring pages, games to play and stories to read. It is called http://www.lil-fingers.com/index.html Check out their site. There are not too many advertisements that get in the way of clicking in the right areas. Which is important because I have found that most sites that offer things for free has too many advertisers and they are right in the middle of what you are really trying to access.
To encourage the “poet” in your little ones try out this Rhyming site at:
Seventy-One Other Take Home Rhymes They have a listing by the first line in the nursery rhyme and you click on it and it opens up an Acrobat Reader file with the rest of the poem.
PBS Kids is also a great FREE Resource for online learning. They have books that are read aloud, music videos, activities and games online to play and printable pages to print out and color. There is even a “Tips for Parents or CareGivers” section. This is a fun website that you and your children can enjoy.
Published July 15, 2009 | It seems that I have been a little lax in posting to this blog. So, I will be making several posts today but dating them one for each month. Hopefully, each post will be worth reading.
Now, I have been reading to my grand-daughter since she could sit on my lap and pay attention. Before that I would sing to her or tell her stories. I did the same thing with each of my children as well. That is how it starts. Singing to babies and telling little ones stories begins the process of teaching them how to read. Reading to them on a regular basis is the next step. Granted with most little ones you will have to read the same story over-and-over again until they get fascinated by something else. It doesn’t matter only that you read to them every day. Children like routine and they learn better if you try to make a routine of it. Don’t forget to make it fun as well! They should see you reading other things as well. We read books, newspapers and magazines. When we are not working, cleaning, car-pooling and have a variety of all the other things that we have to do in our busy lives we relax by reading.
I was cruising the web for some FREE resources for new parents and grand-parents to use to help get their little ones interested in reading and found some great resources. One of them is the Reading Rockets. There are free guides to download and print out. They have tip-sheets, program guides to PBS shows, and much more. Give them a try and see if their information will help you.
For older children between 4 and 7 you can use the services that are offered for FREE at the www.Starfall.com website. There are interactive programs about letters, numbers, words and more. These are offered for FREE. They do have a store attached to the website with some low-cost materials but just the volume of free stuff is great so give them a try.
Cheers
jolenemacinjax
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