Reading to Your Kids “Virtually”
Jun 2nd, 2008 by Kymberli Mulford
Kymberli Mulford is the proud mom of a grade-schooler and high-schooler in the Chicago suburbs, and the proud grandmother of her now-grown stepson’s four children. When she’s not shuttling her sons from one activity to another, she works in the world of educational technology – as a district administrator, a learning facilitator, a consultant, and as a blogger at Onionskin. For more of Kymberli’s “mom” posts click here!
I love reading.
Even more, I really love reading to my sons. Somehow, no matter how busy I was when they were too young to read on their own, I just couldn’t say no when they came around the corner with a picture book.
Lucky for me, they have both become great readers. But I still love reading to them, and I’m looking forward to having more time to do that this summer. I can’t wait to get out all of my favorites and go through them again.
Equally interesting to my budding readers, though, were the wonderful websites that provided this same service on the screen. Once Flash animation entered the world of children’s literature online, new voices emanated from the computer and patiently read to my boys (over and over if they wished), expanding their world of narrators to include male voices and dialects and accents that were much more interesting than mine.
Here are a few of my favorites, done with such quality and attention to detail that they are almost as good as sitting on a mother’s lap…
Another great website for pre-readers is Starfall. This can be used as soon as your little one is able to use the mouse on his or her own. There’s no reading required, and the “sparkles” show your child where to click next. Very entertaining, very cute — and a great way to sneak in some letter/sound teaching in a refreshingly fun way!
Photo Credit: Bedtime story by Vonus on Flickr
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Those sound like great sites. I’ll have to check them out. My son is always wanting to play with my computer so one where just basic mouse skills are needed sounds like a good place to start. He’s 3.5 and I’ve been thinking it’s time to teach him a bit about computers anyway. He always watches me working on it and I suppose it’s pretty fascinating to a 3 year old.
Michelle
Loved listening to Stellaluna on Storyline Online but was disappointed that Tumblebooks is a subscription site though I suppose you could sign up for the free 30-day trial. Another option for working moms, espcially those that travel, is using Skype. Last summer when I was on the road my six-year-old and I Skpe-read often. Though my web cam is not super high-quality, we still enjoyed sharing the stories and pictures.
Michelle - Hold on to your hat! He’ll be vying for your mouse soon enough, and then it will be hard to get your turn in!
Lee Ann - Thanks for giving me the opportunity to point out that Tumblebooks is free IF you go through a library site. The link I provided defaults to go through their main page, but if you go through your local library’s web site, you can probably find the link there for the full collection. If your library doesn’t subscribe, you can always go through a larger (metropolitan) library site. (Oh, and BTW, love the Skype-read idea! Great idea for traveling moms!)
Kymberli Mulfords last blog post..Diving In, Headfirst!