The book itself is the reward!! April 27, 2009

We recently attended a live theater performance of “Charolette’s Web”. And luckily, we were in the midst of reading the same book by E.B.White (see my earlier blog for a few notes on that). I knew that having read at least a part of the book would definitely help my daughter enjoy and comprehend the live theater performance better. But I was curious to see how she would react after the theater performance of Charolette’s Web – whether she would continue reading the book with as much interest as before now that she knew the story.
The night after the show, we were about to sit down to read and as though she had read my mind, she said – “Amma, now that we have seen the play, should we still read the book?”.
Ha!! Luckily I already had an answer prepared for her. I had identified a few incidents in the book that had failed to make it to the stage performance. These were incidents that we both had found really funny while reading the book. Without winking an eye, I reminded her of those incidents in the book. She was surprised at first that the theater performance had failed to incorporate them. She then started to remember more incidents in the book that failed to appear in the performance. After a while, I popped the question to her – “Do you still want to read the book?”. “Yes!!” was the resounding answer from her. We have continued to read the book with a lot of interest every night.

I would like to bring out two important points from this anecdote.
First, the joy and benefits of reading a book is so different from watching a theater performance or a movie. While I don’t mean to discount the merits of watching these performances on stage or on a movie screen, I want to specially emphasize the merits of reading a book here. This is because, performances – especially movies- engage any child instantaneously and there is no special effort that needs to be expended in order to motivate children to watch movies. But it is not the same for books. Getting children interested in reading books – especially the classics – takes a quite a bit of effort.
Most movies or stage performances based on popular books interpret the books in their own way and present it to the audience. This leaves little scope for the children to critically think about the stories presented to them on stage or in the movies. Whereas, a good book offers lots of opportunities for critical thinking. Moreover, by not having a live visual to comprehend what the book is talking about, the children have to entirely rely on the language in the book in order to understand the plot or characterizations. This automatically increases the language processing capabilities in children.

Second, I would also like to point out some interesting findings from research studies in the context of the anecdote that I described above. Research studies show that “getting children interested in reading is even more important to their eventual success as readers than in helping them with early reading skills”. And research studies have also shown that enticing a child to do something that you want using the promise of rewards will eventually lead to reduced interest for the activity in the child. So, for example, I could have offered her some sort of a extrinsic motivation or a reward for continuing to read the book after we attended the stage performance. I could have said – “Since I’m going to return the book back to the library soon and we don’t know when we can get it back, lets finish the book” or “How about we finish reading the book and you can have a treat then”. All this would have done was to transfer her focus from the book to either returning it to the library asap or dreaming of the treat that she could have after she finishes reading. Eventually, this would have reduced her interest in the book itself. Luckily I didn’t use either of these extrinsic motivators. Since I had an answer ready, I used it to tap her inner motivation to read the book and it worked like a charm!! This doesn’t mean to say that I can be such a “genius” every time I’m faced with such a situation. There have been many instances when I have regretted my responses to her negotiating questions. But I do believe in the importance of persevering and practicing this skill and I am only getting better at it.

Montessori education incorporates both these principles – following the child’s interests and not using extrinsic rewards . Dr. Montessori believed that a child’s personal interests could be connected to every part of the academic curriculum and, that the hands-on materials that she provided as a part of the curriculum could be designed in such a way that they evoked interest for them in a child. Dr. Montessori also strived very hard to design the curriculum and pedagogies in such a way that all extrinsic rewards like grades, toys etc were removed from the child’s environment. She found that when children engaged themselves in the Montessori classroom, they didn’t need to be offered these rewards in order to do the work. They engaged in their work naturally.

I’m sure my daughter’s Montessori school has played a big role in keeping many of her interests active – reading being one of them. But I also do believe that the parents at home shouldn’t heavily conflict with these philosophies, so that the child’s interests stay alive and active!!

Reading together only keeps getting better April 18, 2009

I’ve been reading books to my daughter ever since she was about four months old. She is now five and a half years old. I still remember those baby days and the way she used to stare at the bright colors in the books. She used look up at me and smile when I made a interesting animal sound while reading the book. At about seven months old when she was able to sit up straight, she used to spend quite sometime everyday, flipping the pages of the board books and feeling the texture of the art in them.
When she grew a little older, she used to bring to me each of her favorite books, one after another, so that I could read them to her. Her love for books only increased over the years and I feel that this was one of the main reasons she learned to read when she was only three years old. She probably felt that I didn’t read to her as much as she wanted me to and decided that it was time she took things under her control. I’ve never seen her as motivated to learn anything, as she was when she was learning to read. I can confidently say that it was mainly through her own initiative that she learned to read.
After she learned to read, our nightly bedtime routine changed slightly. Instead of me reading two books to her we started to read one book each to each other. During the afternoons, if we found ourselves at home, we would sit next to each other and read our own separate books to ourselves.
Recently, our reading routine has become more enjoyable than ever. She reads a lot on her own but bedtime has always been the time when we have connected with each other through books. Although I have always enjoyed reading with her immensely, I have to confess that until recently I was not in love with the books that we read to each other, as much as she was. But as her reading interests have matured, I’ve begun to enjoy the books that we read together, very much.
We have been reading E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web lately. Every night, she has been reading one chapter from this book to me. What a wonderful read this book is!! I would recommend it to any parent who wants to spend quality reading time with their child. I have never experienced animals come to life and talk to each other so naturally, as I have, in this book. And the conversations between these animals is hilarious. Here’s an example:
When the lamb tells Wilbur the young pig that pigs mean less than nothing to him, here’s what Wilbur replies:
“What do you mean, less than nothing? I don’t think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It’s the lowest you can go. It’s the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something – even though it’s just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is”
Wow! We both laughed so hard when we read this. We couldn’t stop laughing for a while!!
Nowadays, I feel that we enjoy reading each book that we read together, the same amount. What can be better than that!! The day when she doesn’t want us to read together anymore – I hope that day never comes.

The importance of researching books for your child February 5, 2009

“When Ramma Mabbit started teachin’
Runny how to eat,
He ficked his pood up with his ears
He wasn’t very neat…”
You may be wondering which language this book is written in. It’s an excerpt from Shel Silverstein’s Runny Babbit, I’ve found Silverstein’s books to be not only entertaining but also very educative for my daughter. Everyone knows how books open doors for children. But what I would like to remind you today is that choosing the right books at the appropriate time in their lives can make an even bigger difference.
Take this book Runny Babbit. I fell in love with it as soon as I picked it up from the shelves in my daughter’s school library. I got it home and read a few pages that night to my four and a half year old daughter. She immediately dived deep into the word play presented in this book. I read aloud each sentence to her the silly way and she started setting the sentence right. It took her a little while to find the correct form for the words in some of the sentences, but I could see that she was thoroughly enjoying the process. What could be better than a child enjoying and learning at the same time? I now often see her reading this book aloud on her own
But I wish every book that I bought or borrowed were as big a hit as Runny Babbit was. It has taken considerable effort on my part to research different authors and get the right books for her. Amazon.com and public libraries are often great resources for research. I also discuss books and authors with my friends who are moms. And sometimes, you just don’t know, you have to read the book to the children and find out whether they like it or not. I usually know that she isn’t so interested in it when I don’t see her reading it again or when she doesn’t want me to read that particular book to her. It’s like a trial and error and over a period of time, you find out their interests and what books would suit them. And as you know, their interests keep changing and hence you also have to keep up with it. In short, it takes effort but it is really worth it. I see many positive changes in my daughter because of this. Not so long ago, I remember, we were lazing around on a weekend not knowing what to do and my husband asked her whether she would like to go to a movie or to a bookstore and she immediately picked bookstore. So, that says something.

I’ve also found that the learning from books doesn’t need to be just academic. Take this book, Colors of Us by Karen Katz. I can’t begin to describe what a difference this book has made in her life. As an immigrant living in the US, I had always been worried about the many challenges of bringing up children in my non-native country. This book has helped her to become more comfortable with her surroundings. Before reading this book, I’m sure she had observed the color differences among people but hadn’t found a language to express her observations. And I didn’t know how to talk about this either. I still remember this one particular day, after we had read this book. She pulled out my hand, placed it next to hers and looked at it for sometime. She said, “Amma, your color is French toast. I think, I’m the color of cinnamon…” And she went on to describe the colors of all her friends in her class. I felt that just to be able to talk about these differences was huge!!!

In conclusion, I would like to again remind you what a difference it makes in a child’s life if an adult took the time to research and read the right books to them. And I can assure you that the process of choosing a book is fun. I always find that I become a child again when I enter a children’s library or a bookstore.

"The Colors of Us" October 26, 2007

Last month, I bought a book for my daughter “The Colors of Us”, written and illustrated by Karen Katz. Oh, what a beauty!! I have never bought any book that explains a concept so simply and so beautifully. For people reading this review, I’m going to keep the story and the theme in this book a suspense, so that you buy this book and enjoy it. But I’m going to narrate a few “after-effects” of reading this book.

My daughter comes up to me one day and asks me to spread out my palms. She keenly observes the front and back of my right palm and says, “Amma, your skin is the color of french toast”. She then holds out her palms and says “Mine and pappa’s skin are the color of cinnamon”. I say, “Wow, isn’t that wonderful”. Then she goes, “Amma, in my class, everyone’s skin is of different colors”. She goes on recollect the colors of each friend’s skin – the colors of butterscotch, cinnamon and chocolate cake. We sit and talk about the colors of everyone’s skin color in our extended family too. That day, I simply cannot hold my happiness within myself. I’ve always wanted my daughter to naturally imbibe the concept of diversity. For her to talk so naturally about the differences in skin colors meant two things to me – it not only meant that she didn’t judge other people by their color but ironically, it also meant that she didn’t feel that she was any different from the others.

Diversity is a hard concept to explain and practice. If you explicitly explain this concept to a child, it may backfire and prompt them to start observing the skin color differences between various people. “The Colors of Us” explains this concept in very a subtle fashion and yet makes the story enjoyable for the kids. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a pre-schooler!!