So, hello everyone and welcome.
We're.
So glad you could join us for our Every Family Count series today.
Our webinar title is Curiosity Over Clicks.
Rekindling a Love of Reading in a Digital Age.
We all know that in today's fast-paced digital world, children's attention is pulled in a thousand directions, and this happens before they even fully realize that it's happening.
As adults, we can see how the constant distraction affects focus and learning.
For many children, this is simply their everyday reality.
Tonight we're thrilled to have amazing guest facilitators here to explore how curiosity can be a powerful antidote to distraction, and a way to nurture a lifelong love of reading and learning.
We'll also explore why reading often fades as children get older, how digital distractions compete with books, and how curiosity fueled by small, engaging experiences can reignite a love of.
Reading.
We'll also look at the enlightened generation approach and how it connects learning curiosity and joy, whether you are an educator, family member.
This conversation is going to be packed with insightful and practical strategies to help children rediscover the magic of story wonder and curiosity, even in today's scrolling world.
So who are we?
I am Dr. Erin Bailey, the Vice President of Literacy Programs and Research at Reading is fundamental.
I'm a former educator and I am also joining as a parent, which is the central point of my identity.
So I have a lot to learn from this evening's webinar as well.
I'm very excited.
A little bit about.
Rif reading is Fundamental or RIF for short is the nation's largest children's literacy nonprofit.
And the oldest, our mission is to inspire joy of reading and ensure that every child has the opportunities and resources they need to become a lifelong reader and by extension learner.
So these webinars that we're going through, evening is part of our Every Family Counts webinar.
We also have an educator facing webinar and a book centric webinar if you are interested in joining those as well.
All are welcome.
So let me introduce our guest presenters this evening.
Susan Verde is.
New York Times bestselling children's book author and former elementary educator on top of writing.
She's also a teacher of yoga and mindfulness for children.
She's part of the founding enlightened Generation team and is their resident author.
She wrote the books for Enlightened Generation.
She contributes to it in many facets, including her give back program.
She believes in the power of wonder, curiosity and paying attention to the world in which we live as this is what makes us healthier, happier, and more connected people.
And then next we have Emma Walton Hamilton, who is a bestselling and award-winning author, editor, stage television and podcast writer and producer, performer and arts educator, together with her mother.
You may recognize Julie Andrews.
She has co-authored over 30 books for children and adults, nine of which have been New York Times bestsellers.
She's also a faculty member at.
Stony Brook University's MFA in creative Writing and literature program.
She teaches all forms of children's book writing to graduate and undergraduate students, as well as leads as their director of the annual children's literature conference.
Welcome, Susan and Emma.
I'm gonna turn the screen over to you now.
Thank you.
And
I will be moderating our discussion at the end.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
I'm just gonna share my screen.
There we go.
Can everybody see that?
I can see that.
Great.
All right.
It's a very much an honor to be here and I'm gonna let Susan start the conversation with our first slide.
I'm very happy to be here, especially with Emma, who I've known forever in a day.
And any chance we get to do something together that about reading and literacy, it's an amazing experience.
So let's get right to it.
Why is it so important to raise kids to creators?
There is.
Quantifiable evidence.
Obviously there's studies that show children who read well do better in enough subjects and in school and beyond school they're able to communicate better.
They have more confidence and better concentration skills, and they know how to solve problems and more likely to seek out and develop new ideas, which is really what we want for our children.
Right.
They are better at utilizing technology, which seems counterintuitive since we're trying to get off the technology.
But it's actually, so these are the equ defi things, but also, you know, it's important that kids become readers because.
They get to see themselves in different situations and different experiences, and that's really important to find people who validate how you're feeling or what you're experiencing.
So with all of these skills that they gain they're at an advantage.
They're more likely to get ahead in their career and earn a higher salary.
To get a promotion or a raise, and they're twice as likely to attend performing arts, visit museums, sporting, do volunteer work.
So they're really, it opens them up to this whole world of the arts and culture and gets them to experience things outside of themselves, which really lends itself to.
Understanding what kind of career they're interested in, and then being able to learn and exceed and excel in that career, which leads to the salary and the promotion.
And so it really has a lot of important outcomes to life success, but also.
Broadening your mind, wanting to absorb the art and the experiences around you.
So it, it keeps us from being so insular and kind of opens up the world.
Yeah, and I think, you know, critical thinking is a phrase we often hear bandied about in this realm.
But that's really what we're talking about here, is the ability to really use our critical thinking skills and that makes us a more well-rounded human being in the world.
Before we talk about strategies for getting and keeping kids reading, we thought we would just take a moment to talk about why reading how the value of reading versus the value or lack thereof of screen time.
And I wanna be very clear and say that when we talk about screen time.
We're not talking about reading eBooks or reading online, we're specifically talking about passive screen time.
So, you know, staring at screens, receiving, watching videos, receiving information from screens, doom scrolling, that kind of thing.
But the interesting data tells us that we actually use different parts of our brain when we read than when we look at screens and screens.
Typically trigger something called the orienting response in our brain, which is a very primal instinct to be on alert for sudden movements in our peripheral vision, in case it's a predator in the bushes, right?
This is the triggering the fight or flight mode essentially.
So what screens are doing are they're feeding that orienting response, and that's a very instinctive response, and it doesn't have very much to do with logic or reason.
Or reflective thought.
Whereas the parts of the brain that are central to reasoning are actually activated by reading printed words.
Reading printed words, which en engages our reasoning is all about decoding, right?
So we're looking at letters and we're looking at words, and we're making.
Letters and you know, strange shapes into letters and letters into words and words into sentences and sentences into meaning and context.
And all of this is engaging our reasoning ability.
Our ability to.
To make choices and to assess whether those choices are wise or not and how those choices connect to our value system.
So if we really think about it in those terms, in terms of like activating our central reasoning process versus our fight or flight mode, it becomes pretty apparent that our collective health as a society and our future.
And our planet's future really depends on us being readers and continuing to use that part of our brain.
So with that, and I'm pretty sure we're preaching to the converted here tonight.
So, we'll move from those statistics in facts into some strategies on how to get and keep kids reading.
And Susan, over to you for this next slide.
We've got five points.
That's always the tricky part.
I think that's the part that many parents and caregivers and even teachers have difficulty with is you know, getting kids reading and then fostering that love of reading.
I mean, teachers are, I. The pros, but even then with the world as it is today it's pretty challenging.
And I did just wanna reflect back about reading versus screen time and when you talked about the collective health and it's also, you know.
A big part of our collective, our mental health because you cannot function well if you're constantly in that orienting response in that fight or flight mode.
And so the fact that reading kind of shuts that off and gives your nervous system a break, a pause is really, has a strong effect on your own mental wellbeing.
So.
I just thought I'd throw that in there.
Good point.
All right.
Jumping into the first key.
So
start reading to kids as early and as often as possible.
I think I know when I was always a reader and my parents read to me a lot and they had my brother read to me and they had books all around the house and so I was very fortunate in that way.
And I know as a parent I wanted to have that same kind of.
Atmosphere and connection to reading for my own kids.
But there's always that piece of you, I think, as a parent that is like, am I doing this the right way?
Am I talking to myself?
Am I, is my kid gonna even care?
Like what?
Take all of that self-judgment away.
There's no wrong way.
Just start reading.
Read to your kids, read with your kids, and reading is.
Not just, you know, picking up and getting through an entire book reading is, I mean, when I'm aging myself.
But, you know, I used to sit at the breakfast table and read the back of the cereal box and that is reading.
We could, you know, I could read it with my parents, but that was reading.
So starting in utero, of course your kids can.
There are all kinds of studies about your kids being able to hear your voice and music and all of these things when they're still growing.
And so starting to read to them when they're in utero also helps you practice kind of feeling comfortable with that.
And then reading can be a fun thing to do when they first wake up.
Right?
And again it can be reading the cereal box or reading, directions on a recipe or whatever, engages them and makes them.
It.
It's almost like sneaking it in there during mealtime is a great way to get them engaged and while waiting for an appointment, so while traveling right.
I remember schlepping all kinds of books for my kids and then, I felt like though they just really, it really gave them something very physical and mental to do while we were traveling or waiting for appointments.
At nap time or bedtime, you can make it kind of a ritual, which is sort of setting that tone of comfort and connection.
S while in the bath.
I mean, they're really just endless pauses in your life or places where you can sneak in some reading.
Oh yeah.
And keep reading together after the kids have learned my kids.
S loved being read to.
And when I visit schools and I work with middle schoolers who are think they're way past picture books or even high schoolers, they love being read to.
They really do.
And people stop doing that.
They don't have that opportunity.
Even adults like.
Being read too.
So I
think that's so true.
I think so often parents think, oh, I'm not supposed to keep reading to them after they can, after they're learning to read for themselves because I, you know, I'm supposed to cultivate their own independent reading skills.
But it's actually so, so important to continue to preserve those connections between reading and joy reading and love reading and pleasure reading in together time.
Right.
I think that's just such an important piece.
Read.
Yeah.
Setting a good example.
So this is about us letting kids see see us reading it.
Just to go to back to another statistic, parents who regularly read for pleasure are actually.
Six times more likely to have kids who do the same.
So we really wanna let kids see us reading.
And it doesn't have to be novels, it can be newspapers, it can be magazines, it can be cereal boxes, it can be recipes.
You know, just let kids.
See the value of reading in our own lives and key books everywhere you can think of around the house.
It makes a visual statement in terms of the value or the importance that you place on books.
In my house, we have books in the bathroom, we have books in the kitchen.
We have books in the living room.
We have books in our bedrooms and we literally have books in every room in the house.
And so my kids have grown up, you know, completely surrounded by books wherever they are.
And they're never more than an arm's reach away from a good read.
Organizing books attractively and making them appealing to kids to wanna reach out to.
So, this can be, you know, the, you can, this can be very personal, this can be very organic and specific to you.
My daughter loves to organize her books by color.
She's 22 now and she still organizes her books by color and she's got this beautiful rainbow bookshelf and it really is, it's just so aesthetically pleasing that I actually ended up.
Organizing my bookshelves in the same way because I thought it was so soothing and so beautiful to look at.
But also, you know, i'm sure we have some teachers and librarians with us this evening.
You know, the way in which books are sometimes arranged to face out instead of just the spines so that we can see, you know, the cover.
You can see behind Aaron how some of the books that are facing out popped and, you know, makes for an interesting and attractive visual statement.
Taking care of books and valuing them, you know, really.
Making sure that we protect them.
We don't, they don't get torn or too beaten up or, I mean, it's okay when your kids are really small to let them chew on the corners or, you know, handle the books in whatever way they, as.
It's better to be handling them than not at all.
But we also wanna preserve, you know, books.
Because they are cherished.
And so, to the extent that we can continue to protect them and take care of them and teach kids to do the same, it shows that they have value.
And then we can also advocate for literacy activities at schools.
You know, be on parents' committees that organize book fairs or volunteer for the book fairs and.
Advocate for author visits.
This is such an important piece, you know, for kids to see people who write books and illustrate books to come into their classrooms and talk to them about the process of writing and to read with them and to show them how books are made.
This, it's just such a valuable thing.
And these days with budget cuts and post COVID and all of that, not every school is.
Really advocating or doing much in the way of author visits anymore.
And I think it sometimes really is incumbent upon parents to fight the good fight and advocate for that in schools.
Back to you, Susan.
we've sort of been talking about that this whole time.
How things can be aesthetically pleasing, how they can reading can be connected to all the.
Fun things you're doing in your life when you're on your way to doing, going to a birthday party or going some, you know, books in the car, reading, reading during joyful things, making that connection.
Teachers may teach kids how to read, right, but parents can teach child to love reading, just that they have more opportunity.
To connect books to joyful experiences, right?
So you're looking for ways to kind of subliminally reinforce the connection between reading and pleasure, which again comes back to the sort of modeling that you show about how reading makes you feel joyful.
And.
That, you know, the kids attuned to that snuggle together.
So reading is associated with that together time, which is really nice and really important.
Visit libraries and bookstores together, which also is super fun.
And giving books is gifts that's showing them.
That you think books are important enough that, that they should be shared, that somebody else should have that joy as reading.
And then choosing books.
This is a big one for me also, choosing books connected to a passion.
I think sometimes as kids gets, get older, they they lose the ability in certain circumstances, maybe in classrooms or.
Wherever they may be to choose their books to sort of decide that they're passionate about something and then find a book about it because they have a book that they, you know, have to read for homework or something else that gets in the way.
But really making sure that you take that time to ch to let them choose books and have some autonomy, but connected to something that they're interested in.
Connect books to support activities, right?
So anything that your kid may be doing or something you went and saw.
There's always a book about that thing, which is so fantastic about books.
I mean, there are books for everything.
And so, connecting that thing to a book, you can find a story about whatever it is.
You went to a. Well you went to a movie, there's usually a book before that, but you know, you went and saw a baseball game or you went for a walk in the woods.
There are books about those things and those feelings that you get participating in or watching those things, and it's a really wonderful way to continue and the activity and the joy and bring it into a book experience.
I like to think of this one as like using stealth mode to to reinforce the connection between reading and pleasure.
And conversely, we wanna avoid withholding books for any reason, right?
Because just as.
As we wanna reinforce the connection between reading and joy, we don't wanna say, you know, if you do that, you can't stay up and read before bedtime tonight, or something like that, because then you're reinforcing the connection between books and punishment, right?
So the whole idea is to ask, always be asking, is this something that is gonna underscore the relationship between books and Joy For, for my child or for my students, or whomever it may be.
Connecting reading to life skills.
So again, this is demonstrating, setting an example, demonstrating how important reading is in adulthood and in terms of coping and functioning in the world.
Things like reading recipes out loud while you cook together, or reading instructions together when you're building equipment or when you're assembling a game or a toy.
Reading shopping lists or package ingredients together.
Offering books as problem solvers.
We call this bibliotherapy, right?
If they need to find a way to solve a problem, there's gotta be a book about that we can turn to for the solution.
Promoting journaling and scrapbooking.
So, this can be, you know, during a family trip or a vacation, but it actually can be sort of any time at all.
It just, you know, showing again how reading and writing are ways to document and ways to capture memories and maybe creating a year end family newsletter together.
Taking children with us when we vote.
I did, I started doing this when my kids were really small.
You know, they could barely see over the voting table, but it was just such an important thing to demonstrate how being able to read, you know, a ballot is such an important life skill.
So, making sure that kids see how important reading is when it comes to just the daily functioning elements of life.
And over to you, Susan, for our last point.
Oh, well, number five.
So connect reading to curiosity and wonder, right?
Like that's how we learn, we extend what we're reading, we extend our activities we become curious about the world or about anything thing.
That's why we were talking about sort of reading things, help, letting a child choose something they're passionate about to read about.
And that.
That asking, that wondering, that curiosity really leads to a desire for more learning, for not more books, more learning, finding out what your passion is, right?
Finding out what you don't like, finding out what you do like.
So you can do this in a multitude of ways, but you can pair reading with discovery activities.
So if you're.
Reading something about the natural wonders in the world, right?
You have a book and you also have, a real life experience or you see photographs or things like that.
So you're connecting the reading with discovering you can explore other cultures through reading.
It really opens you up to the world and to the idea that there's so much out there for you to explore and learn about and get to know.
So we've been very fortunate to connect with reading as fundamental.
Enlightened Generation is a brand that I have been a part of since its inception and I've written these books, but really this is a way to connect reading to Joy, connect reading to curiosity, and sort of reinforce the learning experience that you've had in a kind of.
Stealth and wonderful way.
So Enlightened Generation is a new clothing brand for kids.
But it's really clothing with a purpose.
So we have six collections of clothing and each collection is a world wonder or a, an amazing animal or.
Learning about language, right.
Things like that.
And so we have a beautiful book that's written about that particular wonder and topic, and it's filled with facts, but it's also filled with questions to inspire curiosity and activities to kind of continue the learning and activate the book and the reading.
And then the clothes.
Are all a reflection of whatever you learned about in that book.
So if you were reading about the Moai of Rappa Newi or Easter Island as some people know it then you have this amazing t-shirt that has.
Rapanui I mean, moi statues on it.
And so you kind of, if someone comes up to you and says, what is that?
What are you wearing?
It activates your brain to remember some of the things you've learned while reading.
Right?
And so it's a way of reinforcing in a sort of cool, fun design way.
And also this whole experience gives you a chance to.
Learn something together.
So as a family, you read, you unbox, you talk, you ask each other questions.
There are some questions in the backs of all of these books that kids can ask their grownup.
So you're really getting the full experience of connecting, reading to joy, curiosity doing things together, right?
Having that moment together, activating that part of your brain, giving your.
Nervous system arrest and also feeling connected not only to the person who you are reading with and experiencing this with, but also to what's out there in the world.
And that's really key to.
Reading, literacy connection, all of those things.
And I'm just gonna say one really wonderful thing about this whole brand is that each collection is connected to.
An a nonprofit organization that is doing their part in that community, in that culture in that area of learning to reinforce literacy, to help with kids and education, to help our environment to do all kinds of wonderful things.
So every time you.
Buy one of these beautiful pieces of clothing and this book and have this experience.
You're giving back to one of these places that's helping everybody grow and keep the culture alive and and helping each other.
So you're making a big difference.
And one of our partners is of course, riff reading is fundamental.
So, they are also.
A big part of one of our collections on language and communication.
Alright, so I'm gonna stop sharing now.
So that we can chat amongst ourselves and our, and with our attendees.
Thank you both so much.
Emma and Susan, that was wonderful and also tangible, like as I was following along as a parent, there was nothing in your presentation that felt.
Outside of something that I could do and adopt into my everyday practices.
So I really appreciate how accessible you made everything for the families that are joining us.
And you might have seen that I was giggling a little bit and I shared in the chat about reading in the bath.
It's not something we do often, but actually last night my daughter asked.
Will you?
We got a magazine with stories in it, in the mail, and she said, will you read it to me?
In the bath.
So there we were last night reading the Prince and the Popper in the bath.
And because she has great negotiation skills, that meant that she had more than her typical two books before, before bed because the bath book didn't count.
Yeah, excellent.
I love that.
And you know, I remember my kids had you know, spec books that were specifically made for the bath books that were made of plastic.
Mm-hmm.
Whatever they were, you know, that were waterproof and you could read in the bath.
But also we, you know, I so many hours sitting by the bath.
Reading to both my kids while they were in the bath.
Such a lovely thing to do, you know?
And you can get one of those lovely little trays that goes across the bath with a stand to lean the book up against mm-hmm.
A whole sensory experience.
You know, what a great, yeah.
Connect reading with pleasure.
I went to visit my daughter at college a couple of weeks ago and she's in Providence and I had a. A book with me, but we found this really cool independent bookstore and we went there together and she got a book and I got another book.
And then we kind of put them aside and then when we were getting into bed, getting ready to sleep, she pulled out her book and I pulled out my book.
We didn't say anything to each other, we just were, and I just, that feeling of looking over and seeing her reading and I'm reading and it was just such a nice.
Experience, you know, I'm like, wow, she's reading.
This is great.
It worked.
You know.
Yes.
And I appreciate the way you connected it to the greater world too.
That reading isn't just important for our individual sense of self and sense of joy, but it actually contributes to our ecosystem.
I thought that was great and I will probably use that in the future too.
We do have some questions here.
So in general, what role does curiosity play in a child's reading development?
You know.
We hear so much about the specific skills that children need and the chronology of them.
So just wondering where does curiosity fit into that reading development?
And then are there actions, educators and families can take to spark this curiosity for children?
I mean, I'll just say that, you know, curiosity, is it is, it plays a key role in, in reading development and all those steps and things you need to learn.
It's not, it takes away the idea that this is just memorization and something, you know, rote and that you have to, it's something you have to do.
It gives you a chance to wonder why and where it came from, and it just makes it more you feel more connected to the process of reading when.
You're curious.
Yeah, and I think that, you know, going back to this notion of connecting reading to books, to passions, you know, connecting books to cur curiosity is key as well in terms of if a child asks a question like, you know, what, where does, how do bees make honey?
Or, you know, what, whatever the curious question might be, you know?
To try to say, well, I wonder if we can find a book about that.
You know, let's see if we can find a book about that and do it, and really learn something about that.
So easy, right.
In this day and age to just say, I don't know, let's Google it.
Right.
But there are some absolutely gorgeous books out there.
You know, I'm just thinking about bees and honey.
I mean, there are some beautiful picture books that are, you know.
Deep dives into the life cycle of a bee and how bees pollinate and how their importance in our ecosystem.
And I'm thinking about, there's even one book about the bees who live in, at the top of Notre Dame.
You know, like you can, one little question can lead you down a road through books that, that lead to other questions and other curiosities in a way that I think just Googling the answer, you know, doesn't necessarily always do.
And then it gives you know, it gives a child.
Permission to ask questions, to be curious.
Right, because, and if you don't know the answer, that's even better because then it's something you can learn together.
You can, yeah.
And so they learn to say, I'm not sure, let's do this.
Let's go get a book.
And it becomes an experience that they then remember and they have that sort of confidence to ask questions.
And also.
Understand that finding out the answer can actually be a really joyful experience versus just typing it in and Right.
Getting something.
I love that.
Using books to ask questions and then further questions really.
I remember once I, I taught preschool, so three and 4-year-old students and a little girl asked me do whales have ears?
And to your point, Susan, about, you might not know the answer.
I actually had no clue.
I knew nothing about the anatomy of whales, but I was able to find a book about whales and we read the book as a class together, and that inspired so many.
More questions.
We were able to actually do a full unit on ocean animals and whales as a result of that.
So you can really follow those paths of curiosity in different directions.
That's
a great
example.
do they have ears?
They do.
They have exceptional hearing.
They have basically hidden ear, not ears that we would think of, but they have hidden ears underneath their skin.
Yeah.
So you can't see them.
That was, that's the challenging part.
So my next question for y'all is why do more traditional models of reading discourage independent reading?
We know we see less independent reading as children get older.
What?
Why is that?
I think that so often, reading.
You know, we touched on this earlier in terms of when kids start to read independently, we back off as parents from reading with them or from continuing to connect reading with pleasure because we think we're doing the right thing by, you know, empowering our kids to read independently.
But sometimes it's challenging to learn how to read.
You know, it takes time and not every kid, it doesn't necessarily come easy to every kid and.
If it's associated with homework or you know, some obligatory lesson or chore, then all of a sudden it becomes, you know, something you have to do rather than something you're choosing to do.
And that whole kind of connecting, reading with pleasure things suddenly isn't, is destabilized a little bit.
It's also, you know, the type of books sometimes that.
In curricula, you know, kids have to read for.
I remember when my son was in seventh grade the school that Susan and I, our kids went to the same school.
And there was a very specific curriculum that tracked through the evolution of the planet, basically.
And history, cultural history.
And by the time we got to seventh grade it was, there was, it was Greeks and Romans and there was a lot of war.
And the book that was assigned to my son's class was a book called My Brother Sam is Dead.
Oh God.
And it's a famous book.
It's a classic, you know, middle grade novel, but it's set in wartime.
It's very sad.
And my son's name is Sam.
Mm-hmm.
And he, at the time, he was a new brother.
He had a little, my, my daughter had just been born and it really was like a gut punch for him having to read this book.
And I remember his his teacher.
Said to the class, you know, okay, everybody, what did you think of the book this week?
Who has feedback?
Is there anything you can share about what we're reading?
And he s he said to his credit, he said I thought it was beautifully bound and you know, nicely printed and illustrated.
But ever the diplomat, my son, he said, but but I have to say, I had, I found it really hard to read, and it's.
The, these books that we've been reading recently in class are kind of turning me off reading altogether 'cause they're all so sad.
And his teacher, thank goodness heard it and.
Caught it in the moment and said, okay, your next read Sam, is a free read.
You get to pick the book for the next read.
And that was just such a precious moment, right?
And of course then it was, then the pressure was on, okay, what book is it gonna be that re captivates his interest in reading?
And so he said to him, you know, what do you wanna, what kind of book do you wanna read, Sam?
And he said.
Something realistic, something funny, and about animals.
So then it would be, you know, the onus was on us to find something that fit that bill and captivated his imagination.
We, I took him to the library.
We went to the to our local library and to the library, and we were like, okay, Sam needs a book that is realistic, funny, and about animals.
And she gave him Gerald Durrell, my family, and other animals.
And that did the trick.
He loved it.
He laughed out loud and he was right back into to loving reading again.
So, I mean,
thank goodness she heard him and also, yes, advocate for himself because I think one of my kids who has dyslexia had a lot of difficulty reading.
And in 11th grade, he was given.
The classics that are not written the way kids speak and communicate, and it was very hard for him and it just really turned him off from reading altogether.
He's just now beginning to see that there are things that he can choose and read for joy, but it
definitely.
It's tough and you know, I think sometimes, like there are different ways to read, right?
We, it's not just look, holding a book in your hands and looking at words on the page.
I remember when my son was a certain age my son had strabismus, which is a lazy eye.
And what it meant was that his eyes didn't team.
He eventually had a surgery and now they do team.
But for most of his childhood, he was always looking through either one eye or the other and not both at the same time, which was extremely fatiguing for his brain.
And reading was really challenging.
And I remember after we discovered this, I remember the school psychologist saying to us, he's more of an auditory learner than a visual learner.
So give him audio books because that's gonna be a great way for him to engage with reading.
And it really helped.
You know, he would listen to the book at the same time as looking at the book, but mostly absorbing it through the narration that he was hearing.
And that's reading, right?
That's no less reading than actually scanning the page with your eyes.
Read comic books.
That's reading too.
You know, it, it, as long as you're reading with joy, something that speaks to you, that sparks a passion and in a way that feels comfortable and, you know, speaks to you.
It's reading and it's gonna have all the benefits and all the positive effects.
Of course we have to, you know, we kids have to go to school and sometimes they have to read boring stuff and they do have to learn how to read and to decode, and they have to learn fluency and all of the, you know, those reading terms.
But I think it's really important to balance that with the joy, you know, to keep the joy of reading alive through.
Giving them opportunities to find stories in ways that speak to them.
Right.
For every book they have to read, give them a, let them choose a book that they want to read.
Yes.
Perfect
Topic, novels, whatever it is.
Love that.
Audio books.
Yeah.
It's a balance.
And if I can just pull on a thread of something you said, Emma.
There's not, there's more than one way to read a book.
And so you have designed a book, a series of books.
Susan, you're the author and Emma you're the editor.
So I wanna ask you, I've looked at the books.
I have my own answer that I could give for this, but how were you able to write a book that is.
Captivating curio and inspiring curiosity for ages three through 12.
Because I'm sure many parents when they hear that are thinking, there's no way my 3-year-old, my 9-year-old, and my 12-year-old can read the same book.
I, you know, it was it's a very good question.
And we thought long and hard about that because, you know, we were deciding for enlightened generation whether to make these books one for each.
Grade level or growth period, or period of development or just one that could be for everyone.
And how would we do that?
And I, so we, obviously, we chose the one, but the way that these books are written are, they're, they give you a lot of opportunity as the adult to share.
What connects and then leave out what doesn't.
And then the books you can kind of revisit and grow with these books.
They're meant to keep, they're meant to go back to learn more about.
And things are written in sort of chunks, you know, in the way that, that kids really take information these days.
So very.
Very short and beautiful chunks that are supported by photographs that are, you know, pictures.
So there are a lot of ways you can engage all the different ages, and this is again, a place where the grownup needs to know that there's no wrong or right way, like you know your kid better than anyone else.
So if you're sitting down with this book and you get through.
Two pages, three facts, whatever it is, that's still something you can skip right to the curiosity pages or right to the you.
You can.
You, there are no hard and fast rules.
You can kind of pick what works or, you know, go as far as your child can go in that moment.
And then you have all this stuff to come back to.
So I think don't try to overload them with everything.
Go with their reactions, responses, questions, and then, you know, someone who's 10 or whatever, if they can.
Read independently.
You still are sharing that time together and maybe they'll read something to you.
You read something to them.
So there are many ways you can keep them engaged.
Regardless of the age.
There's also the use of questions, which I really I really resonated with throughout the book and our, I remember there was a moment when our the Enlightened Generation's founder, Robin's daughter, who is herself a parent of small children came up with the idea to include a page.
In the middle of the book that says, wait, don't stop, you know, let's, what questions do you have right now?
About where?
About what we've just talked about and are you curious about this or are you curious about that?
Or maybe you wondering this?
Well, read on to find out the answers.
And it keeps, I think it keeps the readers, the kids of all ages kind of engaged in real time because you're.
Stimulating their curiosity and inviting them to think about their questions as you continue reading.
And the photographs in these books are really very beautiful and very evocative.
And I think so much the beauty of these books is that the child, no matter how young they are, can piece together.
Enough of the story from a combination of hearing the information but also absorbing these gl glorious visuals, which, you know, so really there's opportunities for older kids to get deeper into the weeds with some of the facts and the information, but younger kids to engage with the artwork and the illustrations and the photographs and kids of all ages.
Curiosity is to be sparked by the questions that the book asks from one section to the next.
Yeah.
I mean, and that's one of the other sort of wonderful pieces is that yes, it's a book that gives you information and tells you things that are facts about whatever it is that you're looking at, but it also.
Tells you what we don't know yet, and that everyone and says,
maybe one day you'll be the person who finds out the answer.
Right?
That out, right?
So it's like not everybody has the answer to everything.
There are even these mysteries or these things or these wonders that have been studied by scientists and this, that and the other.
There are still unknowns and there's still opportunity for you to be the one to figure it out.
So it's really sort of, there are many parts of it that are very inviting, you know, that sort of break that fourth wall or whatever you might say, you know, that kind of talk directly to you and let you know that this could be your experience too, or this could be your discovery too.
if there was one takeaway you would like for our listeners to have.
For me it would be preserve the connection between reading and pleasure.
You know, just continually ask, is this gonna reinforce the connection between reading and pleasure?
Every, every activity, every opportunity to read just keep looking for ways to underscore the joy in reading.
And I would say, well, the same, but also, don't stress about it, how you're reading or how long your child is sitting still or what the rules are supposed to, what it's supposed to look like.
Right.
We know that reading can look different and we talked about that.
It can and so if you can let go of those sort of restraints and judgements and whatever, you can make the experience.
Joyful for both of you.
And that is, is a really important connection.
Thank you Emma and Susan.
It was so wonderful to have you and we will be in touch and thank you everyone for joining us.
Thank you so much for having us.
It was a pleasure to be here.
Thank you all.