I truly believe literacy to be the single most important tool we can assist our children in developing.
I was invited to sit in on a conference call and learn about the Nemours Reading Brightstart program and was really impressed with their goals and overall mission.
My daughter, Haydan, is six-years-old and is not overly excited about reading. Both Justin and I were slow to pick up on reading and unfortunately, Haydan has sort of followed in the same path. I truly believe Haydan has it in her to greatly succeed in all areas, including literacy/reading, but she just isn’t overly interested in reading books. This could be due to my reading her How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? three million times throughout her toddlerhood. Who knows, my obsession with dinosaurs could have really hampered her eagerness to read.

Smash’s FAVORITE book!

NOT Haydan’s….
Regardless, the program that Nemours Reading Brightstart offers is greatly beneficial for a myriad of reasons:
– The site offers a Reading Screener to help identify your child’s reading readiness and offers age appropriate tools/books based off of the answers you provide.
– Reading Brighstart offers fun, age appropriate at home activities to do with your children. As we all know, turning something educational into something fun makes for a much happier child. Not to mention, they are likely to stick around a bit longer. We practiced with magnetic letters on the refrigerator and tried to think of funny words to put together as messages to Justin.
And then she got me, too. I assisted with ‘dinosaur’. She should really have that word down by now, though…
– The site also has a really neat feature and offers age appropriate books for you to choose from.
(However, I did not see my favorite book, Go the F**k to Sleep
) 😉
Look, no matter how you slice it– LITERACY IS IMPORTANT!!! I definitely wouldn’t be the amazingly sarcastic writer if I didn’t sit with my dad every night reading book after book. I wish programs like this were around when I was a kid. I read Golden Books and American Girl stories. They were great, but this program is definitely better suited at finding a child’s particular reading level and customizing a plan to help them better succeed. The site recommends its target range as children birth through age five. However, I think that the site is beyond helpful for children who are over the age of five. Hell, Haydan is nearly seven and I got some great ideas from the site.
Best of all, the site is FREE!!!
So, get over there and check it out!
If You Love Dinosaurs–GIVE ME A CLICK-A-SAURUS-REX!
This is great. Audrey at 19 months is a lover of reading already. Granted she makes up her own story, she loves books. I will have to check this out for her. Thanks for sharing
do it! there is a lot of useful info there. Games, ideas, etc. This would be wonderful for Audrey, especially considering her age. PERFECT time to get her started!
This is the perfect time of year to cozy up with a book and read. Looks like a fun book!
SO TRUE! We literally just had winter appear overnight here in San Diego. It was 90 degrees two days ago and now it’s like 60 (winter for San Diegans, lol). I love winter!!!!!
I will have to check out that site.. btw.. We have the ‘How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Dog?” book… and it is one of our favorites!!
hahaha! We have EVERY one of them….Haydan tries to put them in my room because she is SO sick of them. lol. I cannot get enough. Dinosaurs are the coolest…..EVER.