Yay! It's Monday, or, as I like to call it, "Keep Reading Fun Day"! And today I'm so excited to talk about something that is super helpful for young readers... magazines!
And, of course, there are so many other wonderful kids magazines I look forward to subscribing to as my boys get older. (So looking forward to Cobblestone and Cricket and Highlights and Dig!)
Yes, kids magazines are awesome and they help keep reading fun in soooo many ways. Here are just a few of them:
1. It is so wonderful for a young reader to get their magazine in the mail each month. Getting mail is so exciting for kids, and getting a magazine in the mail makes reading even more exciting!
2. When a child starts getting a magazine regularly, s/he starts to anticipate the regular features. "Let's read about Bonnie and Chester!" my son tells me. And of course we must read about Ricky Raccoon and his Friends. (We're big fans of Ricky's amazing illustrator Christian Slade around here because he also illustrated my picture book, "Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night?" :o) ) These regular features definitely help make reading fun!
3. Magazines provide fun reading variety. With short stories and poems, articles and activities, they feel different than books. And different can be good. Variety can really help to spice things up for a young reader. Some days we read just a poem or an article or a favorite story. Other days we read the whole magazine cover to cover.
4. For a beginning reader or for a reluctant reader magazine articles and short stories can provide super-fun and super-interesting short reading material. In Highlights High Five "The Adventures of Spot" and other wonderful stories provide such a motivating story for beginning readers each month.
And when I worked with older students one-on-one, I also loved magazines. There was so much learning to be done about how to read from a single article. The kids I worked with enjoyed the interesting reading material we found in magazines and so did I.
So what do you think about magazines? Which ones do the kids in your life like to read? What other benefits can they have for young readers?
p.s. Make sure to stop back here tomorrow to hear more about children's magazines. I'm going to be interviewing three Highlights published authors for Good News Day Tuesday! So excited to share their good news!
Hi Brianna!
ReplyDeleteYAAAAY! I'm the first comment. I found your blog through the VerlaKay board in an attempt to expand my horizons and make more writer friends! Your blog design (as well as the content, of course!) is lovely. Check out my blog, too when you can ^_^
My daughter (6.5) currently subscribes to National Geographic Kids. She got a sample of Ranger Rick Jr. in the mail once and loved it, but I didn't subscribe since we're already inundated with animal mags! She used to subscribe to Highlights High Five but grew out of it. She used to really love the "That's Silly!" column. Now we're taking a break from the magazine subscriptions and reading them for free in the library :-)
Thanks so much for stopping by Maureen! So glad you like the blog design and content! (This is a new relatively new adventure for me so I'm especially glad to hear you think I'm on the right track! I look forward to checking out your blog soon!)
ReplyDeleteWe are big fans of animal magazines around here too! And my son also enjoys the "That's Silly!" picture. Hope you and your daughter keep enjoying magazines in the library!
I remember waiting for my kid-magazine when I was one, then gobbling it up. I saved those issues as if I had no greater treasures.
ReplyDeleteLove it Mirka! What a great memory! And so wonderful that it was such a treasure to you! (My mother-in-law saved my husband's old Cricket magazines. It was fascinating to me to see what Cricket looked like back then. :o) )
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