Just Keep Reading, Just Keep Reading
WHYYYYY isn't my kid paying attention to me reading this book?!
Hello friends! How is February treating y’all? Are you feeling the love this week in the form of 20+ personalized classmates’ valentines? So much love.
Hey, what if you have kids that don’t love to listen to you read? Great question! Just like Dory singing to Marlin, if you are feeling down about your kids being uninterested in reading books with you, “just keep reading, just keep reading.”
I know, I know, you are looking at me with the same exhausted exasperation, and maybe I deserve it just a little bit. Not only does it seem kinda pointless to be reading a children’s book out loud if no child is there to listen, but it isn’t much fun to keep on reading when they obviously are busy doing something else. But hear me out. You don’t have to read a whole stack of books while your child goes off into the other room to find the most dangerous thing they can climb on, and you don’t have to keep on reading every single time you start a book, but go ahead and give “reading-even-when-they-are-playing-adjacent-to-me” a try!
Just like learning to read, learning to listen and engage with a story requires lots of exposure and practice. Listening to books is the first and fundamental step to learning to read. So what if your child doesn’t show interest in books right away? That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth working toward. Just like anything else, being a good book reader/listener takes loads of practice. When your child first starts learning to use a fork, drink from a cup, color with crayons, or ride a bike, you don’t give up the first time they drop their fork from their high chair or eat the crayon. You keep letting them explore, watch you, try again, and figure it out.
This is a no-brainer, but can feel less obvious when your activity is book reading: your child doesn’t have to be sitting in your lap to hear you. All day long your child listens to you from all over the house & world. Your child can still hear the story from wherever they wander off to while you read. So when your kid wanders off, resist the urge to make them come back and sit with you. Don’t tell them you are going to quit reading if they aren’t going to listen anyway. Remember they can still listen and do lots of other things! (Cheers to my audiobook peeps out there, multitasking by listening to books while getting sh*t done). Are you ever surprised when your kid brings up a conversation you didn’t realize they were listening to? Or when they tell you the plot of some movie that was on in the background of them running around like a maniac? Kids are sponges, capable of absorbing all kinds of information from the world around them, both actively and passively.
Your busy kid may not see every detail of every picture, but you can make like a librarian at circle time and turn the book toward them, pointing at the colorful rocketship, the silly duck, the dancing bear, or the smiling grandma. Another potentially obvious tip; your child doesn’t have to be able to reach out and touch something in order to see it.
You could also try reading to your child at times when they are already contained (strapped into a high chair, splashing in the tub, waiting for your grocery delivery in their car seat). Serving a book as a delicious side dish can be an excellent way to keep your little one more focused on the story, and has the added bonus of helping them stay seated through a meal. Did you know they make waterproof books for babies? Perfect bathtime companions! I was happy to see this Gosie bath book as Gosie is one of my favorite baby book characters. Or any Indestructables book would be fun for any bath or meal time. Not going to lie, if I am ever stuck in the car going nowhere with the kiddos I generally take the time to stare out the window and listen to the radio while nobody can touch me. But, I have been known to read a book or two or five, or I will let my kids practice the art of listening by turning on an audiobook or story podcast. My kids are currently obsessed with this podcast and have listened to it for what feels like five hundred times too many.
In our household, we love to make storytime cozy! I love reading as part of the wind down after a big busy outing, during our afternoon reset, after waking up from a nap, or before bed. I’ll encourage my kids to meet me on the “cozy couch” and we snuggle up with a blanket and a book.
Kids are naturally curious — which is why they sometimes refuse to sit and look at the page. There is simply too much to see, touch, smell, knock down, climb up, throw and spill in the world!! So let them explore while you keep your focus on the story and carry on reading, even if it feels counterintuitive. A kid’s curiosity is bound to bring them back to see what has captured your attention, you are their favorite person after all. (Until they are teenagers when it is a rite of passage to despise everything your parents like). And, because the power of story is real, eventually the magic will capture your little one’s attention too.
Playing cards with my littlest this morning I was reminded that sometimes you play by the rules, and sometimes (oftentimes, nearly every time) you bend the rules to keep your child engaged and happy. You can bend book rules too. Skip to the most colorful pages. Only read the bold words. Talk about the pictures instead of reading the text. Make the book silly by adding voices or playing search-and-find games.
If you want your kid to eventually someday eat a vegetable, you’ve got to keep putting them on the plate. If you want them to be great sports players, you gotta get them on a team, watch some sports, get on your cleats and jersey, and play it with them too. If you want them to be readers, you gotta keep on reading!
FROM THE STAX
OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW by Kate Messner Illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal
When a child and their father go cross-country skiing, they discover the world above and below the snow at their feet. Learn about animals, their habitats, and the wintery world as you travel through the woods toward home. If you haven’t read any of the books in this series, grab any of them and you are sure to be delighted. This one is particularly topical if you happen to live in a place with snow (feeling a bit jealous about that today).
MARY ALICE OPERATOR NUMBER 9 by Jeffrey Allen Illustrated by James Marshall
Mary Alice is kinda the best at her job, NBD. But one day she gets a cold and has to go home sick. Boss Chicken says not to worry, they will find someone to take her place while she is away, and her job is easy anyway. Now Mary Alice feels even worse. But, as it turns out, Boss Chicken terribly underestimated just how good Mary Alice is at being Operator Number 9. We love James Marshall, of George and Martha fame and this book was immediately familiar and loved. The similarly off-the-wall plot is both ridiculously simple and simply ridiculous. I loved having to explain what an operator is, what an old telephone looked like, and how to tell the time. (Back in my day!!) I am bummed this one is not available on bookshop.org.
LMNO PEAS by Keith Baker
OK, if learning the alphabet is a struggle in your house, raise your hand (raised hand). Any sort of letter exposure feels like a win for my reluctant abecedarian - and this book is just adorable as all get out. Pun in the title? Big bold letters? Tiny little peas, with lots of different occupations? You had me at tiny little peas. Just look at how cute they are!! How could you not want to read this book?
I GOT A CHICKEN FOR MY BIRTHDAY by Laura Gehl Illustrated by Sarah Horne
What our adorable narrator wanted for her birthday was a trip to the amusement park, but her Abuela Lola got her a chicken instead. This unorthodox gift turns out to be unusual in more ways than one. This chicken is too busy to lay eggs, too busy to eat chicken food, too busy for much of anything. When the chicken starts recruiting other household pets for their plan, things get serious. Seriously silly. Quirky and cute, this absurd chicken may help your reader ask what potential perks could come from an unexpected gift. I wanted a chicken before I read this book because, let’s be honest, free eggs would be super great right now. Now I want a chicken even more! Though mine probably wouldn’t build me anything extravagant.
TERRIFIC! by Sophie Gilmore
A lively group of animal friends don’t know what to do with their day. Each animal suggests something they love — only to find that not every activity is tailored for every animal. When Snake has some less-than-enticing ideas, the friends have to find a way to work their way out of a somewhat scaly situation. The solution (albeit a somewhat macabre one) leads them to discover an activity they all enjoy doing together. Cheers! When my littlest gets the joke, she REALLY gets the joke. She loves to point out exactly what happened in this book and is maybe a bit too gleeful about it.
If your kids don’t feel like reading today, don’t give up! Just keep reading, just keep reading! Finish one book anyway and don’t make them stay. And then try again tomorrow, try again in another 15 minutes, try again next week, and the week after until they love it and come back for more! If you keep on trying, eventually they will be begging you to read just one (or ten) more books. That is the magical power of story.
Share the magic! Xoxo
See you next week and happy (or at least hopefully less frustrated) reading y’all!
> Remember they can still listen and do lots of other things! (Cheers to my audiobook peeps out there, multitasking by listening to books while getting sh*t done).
I was going to say exactly this. Nowadays even more adults don't "read while doing absolutely nothing else". They listen to audiobooks or podcasts while cooking, cleaning, exercising, commuting to work.
I'm willing to bet that adults who build LEGOs sometimes listen to audiobooks and podcasts while building.
Yes, I get that it is frustrating. I feel it too! But I've also been surprised a number of times when they drawing and I'm reading a book out loud that it doesn't seem they are paying attention to and they suddenly look up and ask "why was the horse laughing?" .... so they were actually paying attention.
I think part of it is that little kids don't know how to send subtle signals that they are actually paying attention. Adults do. Think of how we know that we're supposed to occasionally make eye contact, go "uh huh", or ask a question to signal that we are actually paying attention. That's a skill that needs to learnt just like everything else.
So so true. Sometimes my kids can not settle down to read and are running around like maniacs and I just start reading and it pulls them in to sit down and read. And sometimes they keeping running around like maniacs. But you won't know until you try.