Part three of four of our reading aloud blog post series

Great books are essential if reading with your child is to be a joyful, replenishing experience, a highlight of the day.

When I first set out to find books for my two children, I quickly discovered that choosing outstanding children’s books is a challenging task. Our local library has an extensive picture book collection. I headed there, and asked a few of the librarians for advice. One handed me a somewhat helpful trifold booklet of 25 favorite books; another one suggested some well-known classics (The Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, The Big Red Barn.) It was a start, but few of the books really got me excited, and much of what was suggested just didn’t seem right for my vision of reading.

Over the past five years, as my children have grown older, I’ve discovered many good resources, approached Montessori-inspired friend and LePort teachers for ideas, and built a library for our family that we treasure, filled with picture books all of us love to re-read many times, along with an ever-growing list of books we put on hold and pick up at the library.

If you want some guidance on selecting books that are in line with your child’s Montessori education, books that you might enjoy reading as well, here are some principles to keep in mind on your library trips:

Find books that "are real or could be real" for your younger reader. To a toddler or young preschool child, the real world is full of mysteries. A three-year old is fascinated by how different animals live, how things work, what the world looks like, why people act the way they do. Because young children do not yet have a clear conception of the difference between reality and fantasy, they are best served by books that either are about real things (non-fiction books) or stories that could be real (events that could actually happen, even if they are fictional). So when you select books for children younger than 5 or 6 years old, make sure you pick a preponderance of books about the real world. If you choose to share some occasional fantastic stories (of which there are some great ones, e.g. of the type that includes talking, anthropomorphized animals), make sure you help your child to understand what is real, and what is just pretend. ("Do animals talk? No, they don’t: this book is a fantasy book.")
Read up to your child, not down. Toddlers and preschoolers are in what Montessori calls the sensitive period for language: like little sponges, they absorb effortlessly the language around them. Preschool children can readily learn big vocabulary words, when the words are introduced in an accessible way. By selecting books with appealing and appropriately complex language models, you greatly aid your child’s language acquisition. Many children’s books unfortunately use very short, choppy language, and are overly simplistic. My rule of thumb is to buy up, not down: I’ve always picked books that had bigger words, longer sentences, more elaborate constructions, than most people would think appropriate for a 2- or 4-year old. In most cases, my children were engaged—and I was surprised and delighted to hear them pick up and use the language of the books. ("East sky purples, sun is coming", my then 3-year-old daughter echoed after Bats on the Beach. "Mama, we don’t need to dreadthis knight: he’s extinct, like the dinosaurs", explained my 3-year-old son as we read Cowardly Clyde.)
Search for beauty and don’t settle for less. In Montessori, we surround our students with beauty, from the clean lines of our natural wood furniture, to the delicate porcelain bowls in the Practical Life area, to the art work hung at child’s height in class. Let the same sense of beauty be your guide as you choose books: look for illustrations that are realistic and detailed, not cartoonish and simplified. For a 2- or 3-year old, much of the learning from picture books comes from the pictures. Real art illustrations or beautiful photography will add to your enjoyment of the books you read, and, over time, will elevate your child’s taste, too. We’ve put together a collage of favorite picture book pages here, so you can get a feeling for how visually pleasing these carefully chosen books can be.
Broaden your horizon. While I select individual books based on their unique appeal, over the years I also strive to expose my children to the world via books. We read about different settings (cities, beaches, forests, mountains, space, the US, China, Japan…), times (pre-history, ancient times, the past century, today), different beings (animals, plants, human beings in different societies and of different ages), different types of stories (historical fiction, non-fiction, poetry). These virtual journeys around the world give us a lot to talk about—and, without an explicit effort on their part, provide children with a wonderful bounty of vocabulary and background knowledge they will draw on later in their lives.
Make sure you enjoy the books you buy. I saved the best for last: when you preview a book in the store, via Amazon or in the library, make sure it appeals to you! If you don’t enjoy it, you won’t like reading it over and over again. I’ve made the mistake to buy books I didn’t like (usually books that violated one of the first three points above!), and found myself reluctant to read them. And, yes, I’ve even hidden away some of these books, to avoid feeling reluctant when my children bring them to me to read!

Following these guidelines, I’ve put together two starter book lists, one for toddlers and younger preschoolers, and one for older preschoolers and younger elementary children. These books are personal favorites in our family, collected over time and based on recommendations of many knowledgeable teachers and parents: they are books we treasure and couldn’t imagine not having read to our children.

Enjoy!

Reading for Happiness

Part one of four of our reading aloud blog post series

Much has been said about the benefits of reading with your child. Reading together regularly helps your child develop basic literacy skills, such as the left-right progression of words and the connection of print to the spoken word; it enriches his vocabulary; it offers her the background knowledge essential to understanding written content, once the progress beyond decoding simple books. Perhaps most importantly, by reading with your child you model the practice of turning to books for information and entertainment, rather than defaulting to TV and video games. Children who acquire a habit of reading for fun consistently show higher academic achievement, both in school and in college.

All these are valid reasons for reading with a child. And they are certainly true: in our classrooms, we can readily tell which children have a strong literacy environment at home. They are the ones who listen attentively when we read aloud, the ones who ask the best questions, draw the most creative pictures, and can’t wait for both silent reading time and the opportunity to write their own stories.

As a parent, however, these concrete educational benefits are not why I read to my two children every day.

I read with my children because sharing great books brings joy to us. We devour books because reading is a personal value, because I love doing it, and because sharing this value with my children, and seeing the pleasure they derive, is a highlight of every day.

My children, in turn, can’t wait to cuddle up next to me with a good book. They are excited when we go on our bi-weekly library trips, which usually end with us sitting amidst a pile of book when we get home, forgetting all about making dinner or cleaning up the family room, losing ourselves in story after story. When I come home from work, they often greet me excitedly holding up an Amazon package that arrived in the mail, eager to open it and discover a new favorite book.

In Montessori, we distinguish between the direct and the indirect lessons a child learns from an activity. The direct lesson—tying laces, preparing and serving snack, creating art with the Metal Insets—is often what interests and motivates the child. The indirect lesson—finger dexterity, following multi-step processes, impulse control, pencil grip—are inherent in the design of the activity, and a key pedagogical reason for offering it to the child. Yet they usually hold no motivational value to the child.

A 4-year-old does not draw dozens of Metal Inset in order to improve his pencil grip, so that he’s ready for handwriting later on. No, he is drawn to the Metal Insets because of the pleasure of working with it, and the pride he takes in seeing the picture he has created. The power of a Montessori environment is that a child’s direct, inner motivation and joy is what fuels the motor driving his development forward.

Similarly, when we read with our sons and daughters, our direct motivation should not, and cannot, be the academic benefits that result, no matter how important and real they are. To the extent we view read aloud as a mere educational tool, a "should do" rather than a "want to", we’ll find it hard to fit it into our busy days, where another "to do" is the last thing we need. We’ll feel guilty if we don’t read, because we know its good for our children, but it just won’t happen as often as it "should". When we do squeeze reading in, we are tempted to make it a lesson. Our children will notice, balk at being made a means to an end (even if the end happens to be their own future), and resist engaging fully.

If, instead, we manage to make reading a want, something both we and our children crave, if favorite picture books become, as one dad reminisces, "evocative of some of life’s best things — wet hair, clean pajamas, the end of working days", then reading with our children will not be yet another imposition on our time, but instead a treasured moment we will protect jealously.

At LePort we believe that education and parenting is all aboutfacilitating a child’s quest for his personal happiness. For us, this means not just helping a child become a successful, fulfilled adult many years down the road, but just as importantly, making childhood and the process of learning a joyous experience. At the deepest level, we reject any dichotomy between these two profound needs.

If you find it challenging to fit reading into your daily routine, if you’d like to read more, but can’t seem to find the time, if reading seems like a "should do" rather than a "want to" at the end of a busy day, I’d encourage you to reframe your purpose: think less about how reading will help your child succeed in the future, and focus instead on how fun it will be to share a story with your child today in the here and now. Approach reading a book with the same attitude that you would approach going out for ice cream or throwing a football or playing a board game—not a necessary means to a future end, but a treasured and cherished end in itself.

Happy reading!