Reading with your grandchildren ...do you value it?

I read to my granddaughter as I did to my own children. My mother never read to me though.

I have always read for pleasure as well as for work, but my husband does not and never has done. He has a successful career as have many other non-reading men of my acquaintance.

Personally I don't think reading to your children will guarantee their success in later life. As with the factors contributing to heart attacks or dementia, there are probably many ingredients which need to be combined in the right way.

My mother read to us and I could read before I went to school. I used to love curling up on the sofa with my sisters and brother, listening to my mum reading the Magic Faraway Tree (I can see my copy of it from where I'm sitting).

I read to all my children and encouraged reading for the sheer pleasure of it. The house is full of books and we all swap favourite books regularly.

I love reading to my grandchildren - I always seem to end up reading 'just three more stories, nana' when I put my little grandsons to bed. One of them now sits on the end of his bed with an open book facing away from him, showing the pages to me and his brother, whilst he tells the (made up) story to us.

Can't wait to share all the books my tiny grandaughters already have waiting, including Little Miss Twins!

Luckily my grandchildren come from families who love to read. My son and his wife have been reading to my oldest GD since she was tiny, I read to her when I'm staying with them. Both sets of grandparents have given the children books - I have a lot left over from my own children and I'm gradually passing them on. The little one is only 7 months old but already enjoys looking at the pictures etc. I can't imagine a home without books and I love it that my son and wife feel the same way.

My grandaughter (aged six) said unprompted today; "“My brain travels down into my tummy for a while and it leaves a big space inside my head for the story".
Moment of grandmaternal pride - sorry!

I read to my sons at bedtime even after they were both fluent readers. I remember reading all of The Wind in the Willows - my own old copy - and they enjoyed hearing me read from the Puffin Book of Children's Verse. They also liked Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. I think verse is fun because the rhyme and rhythm are infectious - and excellent mnemonic devices.
I've read to all my GC - the eldest lived close to me so I read to her often. I don't see the others so frequently but have provided plenty of books which they have loved. I still read to the two youngest when I see them. All the GC have their own book cases as I had when I was young. Now GD, aged 9, and a voracious reader, is agitating for a Kindle - not sure that's such a good idea. 10th birthday coming up though - maybe mum and dad will cave in.

GD aged 9 has just phoned to tell me she has her own blog about books. No problem with being a keen reader there then!

mamie so lovely!

The 3 GC who are old enough (4th only 4 weeks!) love books, stories, rhymes and poems! We were only playing the gingerbread man this afternoon! Both DH & I involved in English /reading education and personally read loads! DDs also read as does one SiL but other struggles with reading and writing but is so proud when he does read to his DDs. He has to practise first.

I agree with the statement re reading for pleasure for school children. I have taught kids who learned to decode the text and learned the strategy for answering comprehension exercises but who, as they got older stopped progressing because they saw reading only as a skill and not as a step to other wonderful things! A bit like some kids who can chant times tales but don't know how to apply them to practical situations!

tables not tales!

I read a lot, DH never reads. My son reads, daughter doesn't although she does read to my 6 year old grandaughter . I've always enjoyed reading to my children when they were younger and now to my grandchildren. Even the 6 month old gets excited when I show her a book

Mamie that's lovely!

Some years ago I went to a meeting where an advisor from Harringey told us about an experiment carried out within the borough to try to improve the reading results within the schools. This experiment involved asking the parents or responsible adult to listen to the child read every day - they were asked to sit with the child so both of them could see the text and allow the child to read. Some of the mothers were non - English speakers - however the interesting result was that the children from these homes showed just as much improvement in their reading ability as those from English speaking homes. The conclusion was that children thrived and improved when they felt that a close relative was interested in their reading.
Why this approach was not continued is surpring but then the instigation of the National Curriculum and especially it's literacy hour has a lot to answer for in my opinion - I get so mad when I see all these new ideas coming from people like Michael Gove and they are all things which were more or less banned at one time in schools- I spent so long teaching phonics to the children and pretending I was not doing it as we had been forbidden to do so by the Head, BUT I could not see how a child could start to decode a new word when it had no tools to do so. Another thing derided for so long was formal language work whoch was absolutely loved by the children who would always ask to do ' just another page please'. Also I NEVER gave up on correcting spellings right from the word go - although with the young children I only did it on words I thought they should be able to spell.

bez I have always taught phonics too along with all the other things that help a child to read. You would think politicians invented fonix the way they go on about them!

I help in our local School one afternoon a week.
They are 4-5 yr.olds.
They have done very well since they began last year.
I listen to their reading,and only help when they get stuck. The letter "U" is a big prob for them. As in pUt or bUt. Letter "A" is another tricky one at times. Is it as in cAll or as pAl. I love helping ,and have been there for about five years now.
If any one has time on their hands, this is a good way to spend it. It does require Police clearance!

Oh I adore reading to and with my grandchildren. Apparently I "do the voices" better than anyone else!

My 6 year old GD is an avid reader and is already tackling Roald Dahl (Twits, BFG etc.) The little ones love books which I think is so important.

My Dad could get lost in a book and I am much the same. It was always Dad who read to me and in turn I always read to and encouraged my sons to read. As far as I know they still do.

Now I'm reading to my grandaughter, her favourites at the moment are the Alfie books by Shirley Hughes which belonged to my sons. I also collect Shirley Hughes books because I love her illustrations and like myself she is Wirral born. Another current favourite is The Three Grumpies by Tamra Wright. Most of the books are carboot and charity shop finds.

I too am a Shirley Hughes fan - still have my Alfie and Annie Rose story book I used to read to the children at school plus a couple of single story ones. The illustrations are just beautiful.

Oh yes, Shirley Hughes books are so enjoyable. I have begun to take my 4 year old granddaughter to the local library and she loves choosing her books (she is allowed 18, but I haven't told her that - we keep it down to 10!). The library has a lovely section for children, with little stools and cushions, everything bright and welcoming and at child-height, don't my knees know it! My daughter read from an early age, but son was very slow and struggled, so I continued to read aloud to him for most of his junior years. We got through the Narnia books which inspired him to try "The Hobbit" for himself at the age of 11, and he was soon hooked on the Lord of the Rings, a love which lasts to this day. As soon as he was inspired, he had no problem reading and understanding, so it was worth sticking with it. I also used to run a reading group for little children at the library when my own children were little, and still meet the "children" now, they refer to me as the book lady!

I don't remember my parents ever reading to me.DH and I both read a lot. We read with both of ours when they were little. It was part of the bedtime routine (read other times too). They are still both keen readers.

DGS has lots of books and has been a member of the library for about a year (He's just 3) he loves to go and choose his books, it's sometimes a struggle to get him to leave. he loves to sit next to you and 'read'

I too have been a volunteer at local school, listening to readers, have done it for a few years. Iv'e worked with yr 1,2, and 3 at different times.

Reading is a great foundation, even with Google, they need to be able to read

I don't ever remember seeing my parents reading a book and they certainly never read to me but I read all the time and did to my own children I used to go into class and read with them when they were small , they are also avid book/kindle readers and both my daughters and I have read to the grandchildren.. I often read with the youngest one who is 7 still, and hopefully in the next couple of years my first great grand will benefit from my reading to them... that makes me feel old..

I think it is important to listen to your child read even when they are teenagers from time to time- just a paragraph or so of whatever they happen to be reading at the time as they do come across new words still and sometimes find they do not know the meaning or pronunciation - and you also get a fair idea of whether or not they are comprehending what they are reading. I also encouraged mine to come to me or their father if they came across a new word they failed to understand or did not know how to pronounce. Dictionary usage is also very important and may be knowledge of using a thesaurus.

My parents never read to us but I learnt to read really easily and loved to read. We have read to all our children as part of the bedtime wind down but also at other times too. Four of ours read (2 teach English) but the youngest was diagnosed as dyslexic so has a problem! Had she not been I am sure she would have got over the problems she was having and enjoyed reading. The label gave her a bit of a mental block.

Our two eldest grandchildren love books and the 5 year old is making really good progress at school. Our younger granddaughter, aged 13 months, is read to by her father at bedtime but I can't persuade him to read her picture books rather than fairy tales, consequently (I think) she becomes bored. I keep producing our old Shirley Hughes books in the hope he takes the hint but he never does.

When I was little, during the war, the local air raid siren had a practice on Saturday afternoons. I know my dad read to me at other times, but I most associate those afternoons with Beatrix Potter. It was so comforting when that horrid wailing started, to know I was safe with dad, and having familiar stories read to me.

Our children's Ladybird books are having a second life and are just as much loved by the grandchildren as they were by their parents, and we love reading them again. Some of them (eg "The Princess & the Pea") seem really dated now, but it doesn't seem to matter. Topsy and Tim go down well too.

I gave all our Ladybirds to a friend who was a childminder. She sold them on eBay! Along with the train set and cot/child's bed.

Ladybird books were printed near here so a favourite topic for our children was to do 'Ladybird Books' for a project, go for a visit and get loads of free stuff! In fact, the railway station used to proclaim itself 'The Home of Ladybird Books' with a big ladybird on the sign! My friend did a lots of the illustrations for the later ones.