Sing to Your Baby

A tweet from @abbylibrarian alerted me to this unspeakably adorable video of YA author John Green singing to his four-ish-month-old. (Though I must say, for a kid I'm convinced was born in January, that one certainly has plentiful hair.)



Besides being cute and hilarious, it brings up one of my favorite pre-literacy tips, and that's singing to your baby.

There are oodles of kiddie CDs, and they're marvelous. Ella Jenkins and Hap Palmer and my own personal childhood favorite, Raffi. It's all out there. But when you sing to, or with, your children, it's a million miles removed from simply popping in a CD. It's all the fun and benefit of music, plus opportunities to cuddle and be silly and get face time, and teach them by example that music is not only something you consume, it's something you produce and take joy in. Letting them make their own music later with rattles, drums, and, yes, singing, has a host of benefits, some of which are mentioned in this article: 5 Scientific Ways That Music Benefits Infants and Toddlers.

How does this all tie into literacy? Words are literacy. Letting children hear words, how they match up with other words, how a melody breaks them down into syllables, makes them familiar to a baby brain that will soon start assembling its own toolbox of speech.. From "Hush Little Baby" to "Hey Jude," songs also tend to use wider vocabulary than regular speech, exposing your baby to even more words.

Listen, you may not know all the lyrics, and you may not have a concert-ready voice. You may not even be karaoke-ready. But to your little one, you're Mommy or Daddy, and that's a bigger superstar than Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. You might even give Elmo a run for his money.

Life Lessons in Picture Books

Psychology Today recently published this article, The Value of a Picture Book, about life lessons kids get from picture books. Nothing new here for most of us, but I really liked that the article has a couple of different approaches to the life lessons and how picture books embody them. Some books recommended include the quality as a part of the story, and some books bring out that quality as part of the experience of reading.

It's Not Always Easy

Over at Booklights, Susan talks about some of the struggles involved in reading aloud to her son.

When he was younger, he wouldn't hold still for anything, let alone a book. He wiggled. He squirmed. He was totally uninterested. It was tough on a parent like me who had been waiting for years until she had kids of her own to read to. It was hard not to feel like I was doing something wrong.

All kids develop differently, even when it comes to reading aloud.

She goes on to give a few pointers and reassurances. Don't miss the comments, where some other parents share their own travails and advice.

Can vs. Should

Every so often, the kidlitosphere has a flurry of posts about reading to grade level (or above, or below) and the importance that grown-ups attach to it. Even though we've done it before, it's worth going through again as often as possible, which was why I was happy when Jen Robinson kicked this flurry off. She has a round-up of responsive posts and links at PBS's Booklights blog.

I was one of those kids who read above their grade level. Luckily, my parents never put any pressure on me. But I personally bought into the "gifted" label and pressured myself, reading Gone with the Wind in fourth grade and attempting Nicholas Nickleby in seventh, believing that because I could read these books, I should. I hated both and have never gone back to either, even though I love other Dickens novels.

My favorite scene in all of Dickens may be the lurid description of Miss Havisham's wedding cake. Reading it was the first chill-inducing, breath-stealing experience I ever had of the presence of literary genius. But I was seventeen.

That's my greatest objection to pushing kids to read farther and farther above their grade level. Not that kids will encounter sex and violence, but that they may be in the presence of genius that they're not ready for, and in missing it, dismiss it for the rest of their lives.

Of course Dickens, Austen, and Shakespeare are stone-cold geniuses. I'm the last person to deny that. But there's genius of a different kind in Eric Carle, in Frog and Toad, in Ramona Quimby--the kind of genius that's right for the age it's written for. This is not about skill level, but child development.

Sure, there are kids who are developmentally ready for Dickens at ten. Every kid is different, after all. But so many are pushed at it, forced to start and forced to finish by influences outside the simple question of, Does this book speak to me?

As many of you know, my favorite novel is Pride and Prejudice. I started it three different times (at fourteen, at sixteen, and at eighteen) before I finished it. If I'd been pushed through it at fourteen, spurred on by AR points or lexile levels or teachers or parents that said I should read this book, I might have missed and dismissed a novel that's formed a cornerstone of both my reading and my understanding of the world.

You want to talk about tragedy.

Warped Picture Books

So a few days ago, the child_lit email list was having a hoppin' debate about scary and warped picture books and using them with the tots. Warped in this case includes surprising and dark elements, like Kara LaReau's Ugly Fish, Sylviane Donnio's I'd Really Like to Eat a Child, or the monkeys who tease Mr. Crocodile.

All of the above are favorites of mine. I enjoy a good warped picture book, (hey, no comments from the peanut gallery) but I watch my audience. Above the age of four or so, they get into it. Below four or three, they're too sensitive still. And of course, individual results vary--you can have a pretty warped two-year-old who enjoys the crocodile snapping the monkeys down, and then a preschooler who bursts into tears when the old lady who swallowed a fly "dies, of course."

What do you guys think? Do your kids enjoy darkness or scares in their picture books, felt boards, or fingerplays? When did you introduce them?