We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
March is National Reading Month, so now is a great time to get more involved in your children’s reading and foster their interest in books. Reading has always been one of my favorite past times, as a kid and I can remember getting excited every time I got a new book in the Nancy Drew series. Even now, I prefer reading over watching TV any day of the week.
I have tried to instill the love for reading with each of my children by taking frequent trips to the library and finding books that would pique their interest. It was a piece of cake with my oldest, he reads like crazy! His love for reading meant I often made more than one trip to the library in a week. He would always come out with a stack of books.
With my youngest it was a different story, he would read when it was required for an assignment, but he never really got into it, that was until he found Harry Potter! His teenage brother encouraged him to read the Harry Potter series. His brother said he would re-read all the books too and once they both finished a book they would watch the corresponding movie. (We have a rule in our house, if you want to watch a movie based on a book you have to read the book first). It didn’t take long for my youngest to fall in love with reading and all the great characters he found in the books. He finished all the Harry Potter books in a month and a half. Now he reads non-stop, we will often find him with his nose in a book during free time, on car trips or before bed. I love it!
I’m a firm believer that kids can learn to love to read once the find a book they love. There’s a book out there for everyone!
I knew with his new found love for reading the Kindle e-reader would be perfect for him. With the Kindle e-reader he is able to take it anywhere and he can load as many books on it as he wants. There are many features I love on the Kindle including the fact that it can hold its charge for about 3 weeks.
The Kindle e-reader ($79) is the perfect gift for kids starting to read chapter books, it is designed to make great books as accessible and engaging as possible, with zero distractions. One of the main reason that I love this device, is because it is made primarily just for reading. We don’t allow devices with access to the internet in our children’s rooms, so this device is perfect for our family. Plus, he loves the fact that he doesn’t have to carry around a heavy book all the time. I can keep the Kindle in my purse or he can store it in his backpack.
With Kindle, your children can:
- Increase the font size for easier reading.
- Look up definitions as they read. To find the definition of a word they simply hold their finger over a word they don’t know the meaning of and the definition will pop up. My son has used this on several occasions. It’s such a great tool!
- Use features like Vocabulary Builder – which stores words that kids look up and allows them to quiz themselves with flash cards – or Word Wise, which provides short and simple definitions above difficult words as they’re reading along.
- Read thousands of books for FREE, including classics like Treasure Island and eBooks from their local library. We love our local library system for borrowing eBooks, if you aren’t currently using your library for eBooks I encourage you to check it out.
- They can easily take their books with them without loading up a heavy backpack. This will help to increase the amount of books they read. When one book is finished, they can start the next one right away!
Kindle FreeTime
Kindle FreeTime lets you create personalized profiles for each of your kids. It gives them access to titles from your collection of books. Kids are rewarded with achievement badges when they reach their goals. A progress report keeps parents updated on total time spent reading, number of words looked up, badges earned, and books read.
Amazon FreeTime Unlimited
Amazon FreeTime Unlimited is another great resource that encourages kids to read. Amazon FreeTime is an all in one subscription starting at $2.99 per month ,it offers unlimited access to hundreds of hand-picked chapter books and early readers, all curated for age-appropriateness, so parents don’t have to spend time and money guessing what their kids will enjoy. Kindle FreeTime Unlimited even includes my sons favorite books…The Harry Potter series.
Kindle Unlimited
I also encourage you to check out Kindle Unlimited
which allows access to over 700,000 books for both adults and kids. You will pay a monthly fee of $9.99 to gain access to the Kindle Unlimited books (you can cancel at anytime.) You can read books on any device that is linked to your account. I was able to read books on my device and my son read was able to read books on his Kindle at the same time. In fact, he made it through all 9 books in the Diary of a 6th Grade Ninja series.
How do you instill a love for reading in your children?
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own. #KindleforKids #CleverGirls
Leave a Reply