Encouraging Reading and How to Read Chapter Books with Preschoolers

My daughter has always loved books and reading. I think that the fact that we have read a lot, her whole life, made her see books and reading as important, and we still read together a lot, though she can read a lot of things by herself now, too.

I really liked this post — and book recommendations — from Mama Smiles that suggests putting books out in the open and displaying them nicely to encourage kids to read. We bought a bookshelf for a weird empty space in our living room that is full of books for her, and I sometimes also do book baskets with themed books to get her interested in a particular subject.

We were reading chapter books together long before she could read them herself, so I love these ideas and tips for reading chapter books with preschoolers from Growing Book by Book. Jodie notes that getting kids hooked on chapter books early can encourage a love of reading that will last, and that there are some books that are better than others for kids that age, not just because of subject matter.

Do you read or have you read chapter books with young kids in the past? I’d love to hear some of your favorites.

[Photo via Growing Book ny Book.]

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You can also see some of our other articles on reading activities and ideas here.

125 more activities to get your child to read.

I don’t know why Pinterest just suddenly decided I needed to see all the content about task cards and task boxes for kids, but these ideas are great for the classroom to keep in centers or have on hand for early finishers. You can also use them at home as quiet bags or boxes for kids to use when younger siblings might be sleeping, or in the car for a non-screen activity.

Let’s take a look at some fine motor skill task cards and how you can use them to teach kids skills while they play.

Pre-K Pages has a nice set of playdough task cards you can use in boxes or bags with a little tray (or they can just work on the table if they are sitting at a table). Working with clay or play dough is a great fine motor skill exercise, or you can add these to your playdough center if you have one to give them a little bit of direction while they work.

Teaching Mama has a bunch of great ideas for fine motor task boxes, from practicing working a glue bottle to threading beads, using clothespins or scissors, dropping water, finger painting and more. There’s a free printable that shows all the task options she talks through in the post if you want to make your own little boxes, or just keep these ideas on hand when you’re ready to add some fine motor fun to your days.

One of the ideas she mentions in that post is working with a hole punch, and Early Learning Ideas has a whole bunch (the urge to write “hole bunch” is strong) of ideas for printables that help kids practice hole punching, whether it’s a strip with circles on it for them to punch or pictures that include circles for punching, these ideas make it a little more fun to practice this important skill.

My Happy Place Teaching has a whole post about using fine motor task boxes in kindergarten, and her paid resource includes more than 100 task ideas with printables. But if you don’t need 100 boxes you can still get some good ideas from this post about different tasks to include and why and when you can use them. She also mentions using them in the morning while you’re busy with kids coming in at different times, which is a great idea.

Have you read?

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