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Brainsarefun Reading emphasizes reading aloud to your children for 15-30 minutes, five nights a week, until they are 16-18 years old or out of the house (whichever comes first). This is one of the greatest opportunities for family unity.
Parents do all the reading. Children do not read to parents at this time. The program also emphasizes exposing young people to books with positive messages of achievement and adventure.
Reading aloud achieves very specific goals and develops specific skills. It:
- brings parents and children together at the end of the day;
- it nurtures;
- exposes children to material too hard for them to read on their own;
- enriches vocabulary;
- refines listening skills;
- requires the use of the imagination to fill in pictures and images (not required by television);
- provides children with successful and enjoyable experiences;
- sends a message to the child, "If Mom and Dad thinks it's so important to read books every night, it really must be important;"
- broadens children's understanding of themselves and the world around them;
- allows Dads to become directly involved with their children's education;
- provides common experience for parents and children;
- provides memorable family experiences.
The following list includes favorites, as well as references for additional assistance. Two sources of help that shouldn't be overlooked are the children's section of your local bookstore and your local library. Both may provide excellent people who can held guide you to material other parents and children have enjoyed reading aloud. Don't forget your school librarian. He/she is a specialist in helping children find books of interest.
It is never too early to start to read to your children. Even though very young children may be too young to understand the content, they will enjoy the sounds of the words, your voice, and will be flooded with the richness of language.
Particularly from birth until 6 months, it doesn't much matter what you read. What's important is beginning to establish a habit that leads the child to associate listening to your voice at the end of the day with pleasure and relaxation. However, a word of warning, this is not a period in which your child is to read to you. This is a period for you to read to your child. The purpose is success, security and trust. Don't undermine the experience by setting the child up for failure with unfamiliar words or in front of other family members.
Many of these books are also available on audio tape. Your will find hundreds of books-on-tape at your library. Books-on-tape offer a wonderful alternative to television, but don't get the ones that are dramatized. Get those where someone is actually reading the text. Ask your librarian for recommendations.
Additionally, the Internet offers many reading lists. Log on to your favorite browser and type in "reading lists."
BIRTH TO THREE YEARS
1,2,3, Count With Me, Sian Tucker
Aesop's Fables
Arthur's New Puppy and Arthur Babysits, Marc Brown
Arthur's Adventures, Marc Brown
Best Loved Poems of the American People, edited by Hazel
Felleman
Dr. Seuss
Frog, Where are You? Mercer Mayer
Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown
I Love My Busy Book, Cyndy Szekeres
Mother Goose, edited by Watty Piper
My Very First Mother Goose, Opie and Wells
Shakespeare for Children
Songs of Innocence and Experience, William Blake
The Children's Bible
The Oxford Book of English Verse
The Runaway Bunny, Margaret Wise Brown
THREE TO SIX YEARS
Arthur's Adventures, Marc Brown
Berenstain Bears
Dr, Seuss
George's Marvelous Medicine, Roald Dahl
Little Critters, Mercer Mayer
Little House of the Prairie, Laura Engels Wilder
Make Way for Ducklings, Robert Mcloskey
Songs of Innocence and Experience, William Blake
Stuart Little, E.B. White
The Little Engine that Could, Watty Piper
The Tales of Uncle Rhemus, edited by Julius Lester
You and Me Little Bear, Martin Waddell
SEVEN TO NINE YEARS
Arthur's Adventures, Marc Brown
Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
Dr, Seuss
Five Little Peppers and How they Grew, Margaret Sidney
Indian in the Cupboard, Lynne Reid Banks
James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
Landmark Biographies on cultural heroes: Washington, Lincoln,
Ali, King...
Little House of the Prairie, Laura Engels Wilder
Pogo, Walt Kelly
Rascal and The Wolfling, Sterling North
Thank You, Jackie Robinson, Barbara Cohen
The Boxcar Children, Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Guard Dog, Dick King Smith
The Stray, Dick Smith
The Wright Brothers, Quentin Reynolds
Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein
TEN TO TWELVE YEARS
Call of the Wild, Jack London
Cheaper By The Dozen
Hatchet, Gary Paulson
Landmark Book biographies
Life With Father, C. Day
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein
Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway
Pogo, Walt Kelly
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
The Incredible Journey of Sir Ernest Shakelton
Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
TWELVE TO EIGHTEEN YEARS
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Black Like Me, J.H. Griffin
Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
King Arthur
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Our Town, Thorton Wilder
Pogo, Walt Kelly
Tales of the Arabian Knights
The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Chinaberry Catalog,with
suggested books for young readers
1,000
Good Books for Young Readers
The
Twaddle-Free Bookstore and Reading List
The largest collection of
book reviews anywhere
www.bookspot.com/readinglists/
www.rolandcollection.com/ (movies and videos)
www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/booklistsbook.htm
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
How to Read a Book, Van Doren and Adler
Books to Build On, a grade-by-grade resource guide for parents and teachers, Hirsch and Holdren
Hey! Listen to This, stories to read aloud, edited by Jim Trelease
The New Read-Aloud Handbook, a treasury of read-aloud books, Jim Trelease
The Lifetime Reading Plan, an introduction to 100 classics of Western literature, Clifton Fadiman
Classics to Read Aloud to Your Children, William F. Russell
Reading for the Love of It, a guide to 400 children's books, Michele Landsberg
The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children
ON AUDIO AND VIDEO from the Teaching CompanyPhilosophy and Religion in the West
Classics of American Literature
An Introduction to Astronomy
TIME LINES
The Wall Chart of World History, These oversized books unfold to display a history of the world from earliest times to the present. Whenever a child is studying a subject in school it is useful to show him or her what was occurring in other places at the same time.
THE CORE KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION
All information from the Core Knowledge Foundation, E.D. Hirsch.
Cultural Literacy, E.D.
Hirsch
The Schools We Need, E.D.
Hirsch
The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, What Every American Needs
to Know, Hirsch, Kett, Trefil
What Your Kindergartner Need to Know, E.D. Hirsch, editor
What Your First Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch, editor
What Your Second Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch, editor
What Your Third Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch, editor
What Your Fourth Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch, editor
What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch, editor
What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch, editor
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY ON iTUNES
Hundreds of free courses, free to download at http://itunes.berkeley.edu/
OF INTEREST TO SOME
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.
We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came
and the prophecy
didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves.
The roots
of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened,
we, at
least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there
was
another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling:
Aldous
Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among
the educated,
Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns
that we will
be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's
vision, no
Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity
and
history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression,
to adore
the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What
Huxley feared was
that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be
no one who
wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of
information.
Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be
reduced to
passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed
from
us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Orwell
feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would
become a
trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies,
the orgy
porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in
Brave New
World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are
ever on the
alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's
almost infinite
appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people
are controlled by
inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting
pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin
us. Huxley
feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Book to Read Aloud © 2001 by Rory Donaldson. All rights reserved. In order to help reverse the tide of academic failure and optimize success, individuals may copy brainsarefun solutions for non-commercial use at no charge. Contents may not be sold or repackaged in any manner without the written permission of Rory Donaldson. Since all material is copyrighted, please ensure that this entire copyright notice and contact information continues to be attached to each article you download. Mr. Donaldson appreciates the feedback. Additional solutions may be viewed and downloaded at no charge by logging on to brainsarefun.com. New titles are being released regularly.
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