For a wonderful, kid friendly, reading website check out Starfall.com. This website has it all, for kids who are getting ready to read, learning their letter sounds, up to kids who are already reading chapter books, and everything in between. It provides games, music and stories for kids to interact with.
If your early reader is ready to send a Be There Bedtime story to someone special, be sure to check out the selection in the category of Under Age 3. These are books your early reader may be able to read for someone else. You will find some wonderful ABC books, non-fiction and fiction selections. My daughters recently sent Color me Happy written by Sally Harris to their grandfather who was hospitalized this past week. Talk about good medicine!!!
Yes, this sounds great. I’ll take a look at it.
Meantime, I’m shocked and dismayed to see, in various reports around the media, that the US continues to fall in the world hierarchy of nations in the areas of math and reading competency. Literacy is more important than ever, and without a higher standing (at least rubbing elbows with Singapore, Taiwan and Finland…) the US will drop even farther down.
This, although the number and quality of options for making a lifetime reader of a child have only gone up, betherebedtimestories.com prominent among them!
I just spent an hour on Starfall.com with my Dad looking over my shoulder. He’s the guy who taught me how to read. I had a little deja vu moment when we came to the Phonetics portion. My Dad had a very unique way of sounding out each sound when he was teaching me to read. It’s all about clean, clear, emphasis of sound. I remember thinking my Dad knew everything. Wishing I had video of that.
What a great time we had tooling through the site. Their emphasis is on making learning fun and interactive. It’s really the same vibe I get with listening to my nieces read to me from a book on “Be There Bedtime Stories”. They don’t even realize that they are stretching their little brains. Reading out loud to someone with purpose can strip away the stigma of learning as chore and leave just pure fun and unrestrained expression of personality. Yep. I’m lovin’ children’s books again!