From the moment you get pregnant, you’re inundated with literature telling you to read to your child. It’s pretty hard to not see articles touting the lifelong benefits of reading and the importance of reading to your child early.
But let’s face it…reading to a young child can be stressful.
Young children do not like to sit still for hours and hours, or for minutes and minutes, for that matter. It doesn’t matter if you are telling them a hilarious story about what happens if you give a pig a pancake, some children do not want to sit still for it. I have heard about children who, from infancy, cuddle up on their parents lap and desire nothing else in life other than to sit there and be read to. I’ve sat and listened to soft-spoken moms tell me how they spend hours just reading, reading, reading to their kids. And I am thrilled for those parents, I truly am.
But let me just be clear about this…none of the Venning Children exhibited anything remotely close to that kind of behavior. My early parenthood visions of what reading to my kids looked like soon gave way to the reality that reading more often entails me loudly reading words over a moving passel of arms and legs on the living room floor.
Now, I’m not advocating total chaos while you read. I mean, kids need to learn proper behavior and jumping on the living room couch is not acceptable movement during reading time (uh, or anytime for that matter). But simple movements, such as rolling on the floor or building with blocks can actually enhance your child’s learning.
I remember my breaking point. I had a newborn and was a probably a little post-partum, but I remember sobbing and sobbing one day after attempting to read to 2-year-old Kevin because he would “NEVER learn to read and would NEVER enjoy sitting and reading and what kind of mother was I that couldn’t read to her child?” (Okay, from the sound of that, I was probably a LOT post-partum!) Anyway, for a while, I think I even gave up reading to him altogether.
My enjoyment in reading to my young kids greatly increased once I learned that it’s okay for kids to be moving while you read to them. In fact, it’s good for them. Now, if I were my friend Analiisa (one of the smartest people I have ever personally known) I’d be able to insert a paragraph here about the connection between young children’s brains, motor skills and learning styles. I absolutely love listening to her teach me this kind of info, but I do her injustice when I try to retell it and it comes out something as simple as this “kids moving = good learning.” So I apologize, my dummy brain just gives you the bottom line.
And the bottom line is that kids need to move in order to learn, and some more than others. To require them to sit still during reading time actually works backward for them: they’re using their brain’s energy to concentrate on sitting still, instead of concentrating on learning the rhythm and rhyme of the words. Let these wiggle worms play quietly on the floor and you’ll notice their love for reading time increase.
Now, in our home, the rule is that they can choose what they want to play with while I read, but it cannot be a noise maker and they cannot be a noise maker. Other than that, they can wiggle, roll, lay, bounce or build. And now, eight years later, do you know what Kevin often does (yes, the Kevin I had a breakdown)? His favorite thing now is to cuddle up on my lap and read along with me! Where was this child six years ago? Trapped inside a little body that needed to wiggle while I read.
-posted by Donna Venning, a stay-at-home mom who, after fifteen minutes of reading to her older kids, will make them get up and “shake the wiggles out” before going back to read for another fifteen minutes. She can even be caught wiggling with them more often than not.
Special thanks to Studio 3 Music for allowing us to share this great post from the Studio 3 Music Blog. Studio 3 Music in Seattle, Washington, the world’s largest Kindermusik program.