I would like to welcome Justin Dennis to Books R US. Justin is the author ofThrough the Portal. Part one of the Portal Thrilogy. Thanks for stopping by.
How to Get Kids to Read More:
I'm sure we would all like to know how to get children to read more. If you're a parent, you want your kid to grow up to be very well-educated and sophisticated. Maybe they'll develop a British accent and become a librarian, spending their nights reading Shakespeare and Mark Twain.
If only, right? Instead, when you ask them to read they will probably respond with: "Not right now! Killing zombies!" and confused, you will approach the Xbox only to see that they are indeed cornered by several grotesque zombies which they proceed to shoot repeatedly until they explode in a bloody mess. Not exactly the literary arts that you had envisioned your children partaking in.
I'm not saying killing zombies isn't fun, I'm merely saying that maybe reading is more beneficial towards one's education. And by maybe, I mean it is. But children plain don’t want to read. Why read when you can be completely entertained by Angry Birds or Halo or Call of Duty?
Well I'll let you in on a secret. Children love those games because of the technology. An Xbox is cool. A smartphone or tablet that can play Angry Birds is cool. Books are not cool. But what is cool? A Kindle, a Nook, an Android tablet, or an iPad. Those are high-tech, cool, and most importantly, shiny.
Shiny attracts children. Computer monitors are shiny. Book pages are not. Books are boring and old-fashioned while computers and phones are fancy and high-tech. So how do we get them to read? Put the books on one of these devices.
If you have a smartphone (This includes Windows phones, Android, Blackberry, and iPhones) then download the Kindle app (or Nook app if you're so inclined) and download some children's books for them. You can also do this with an iPad or any PC or Mac. If they're really young, there are children's books out there with fully, colorful pictures and such. If they're a little older, look for Teen books or Young Adult. These are generally entertaining, fun reads. The great thing about them is that while your child is happily enticed by the shiny technology and the captivating story, they are actually learning!
Crazy right? Ebooks are actually the future of children's literacy as I see it. Textbooks soon will be entirely on iPads or some form of tablet. They're already starting to implement this at some schools. Paper books will eventually disappear, if not just be condemned to a quite lonely corner of the galaxy. I'm sorry if you like them, but that is how technology evolution works. When something better comes along, the old disappears. Before books, people thought that writing stories down on paper would ruin them. The Iliad was once never written on paper. It was a spoken story. There were those who thought that written story would kill it. As you can see, we all still know the Iliad, but nobody (that I know of) can recite it from memory. The old form died out to be replaced by the new.
Ebooks, combined with compelling teen and young-adult fiction, will guide children towards highly improved literacy. A lot of people credit J.K. Rowling with improving children's literacy, and I would agree with them. She wrote a story that is fun, yet incredibly powerful and educational. Kids loved it, and they read all seven books. Have you read all seven books? That's a lot of reading! And for a second grader, that can greatly improved there reading skills.
My point is, ebooks and enticing children's literature are paving the way for kids to begin reading earlier and easier. Not to mention it's more affordable for parents. The newest Kindle is $80. Buy eight or ten books and you've offset the cost. Ebooks are much, much more inexpensive that paperback, and especially hardcover. There's no paper cost, no shipping cost, nothing. It saves trees too. It's a win-win for everybody!
So go buy an e-reader. If you don't want to, use your phone, tablet, or computer. If you're against using any of those... then I urge you to reconsider. It is more inexpensive after you begin to accumulate books, and your children will love to read off it. Imagine the interactive experience of a child poking the picture in it's Winnie the Pooh book and having Winnie laugh and talk back. The possibilities are endless, and the next generation is going to have much better access to all forms of literature. We are just paving the way.
About the Book:
What's the worst part of falling through a portal to another world and not being able to get back? When the first person you meet almost gets you killed by a ferocious, fire-breathing dragon. Luckily, Jem and Oliver, two boys who were about to start their first year in high school, are saved by Sierra, a farm girl who is itching to get out of her small town. Together, the three of them set off on a quest to defeat the evil Veroci Regime that is stealing all the magic from the world, but can they do it before the Dragon catches up with them?About the Author:
Anyway, I love soccer. Played it all my life--until now--because I need to pay for school, and soccer doesn't pay for school: working at Starbucks does. Oh, and writing for the Quaker Campus at my college. Google 'Justin Dennis Quaker Campus', you'll find some of my articles. Also, I love Harry Potter and His Dark Materials (the Golden Compass one, ring a bell?). Best books ever. That's about it for me. Well I wrote a book, Through the Portal, and I'm writing two more ('cause it's a trilogy!) I love to write, and I love this story. You just wait; when the trilogy is done it shall be epic.
So yeah, that's me. Justin Dennis. Dennis is my last name. Please don't tell me that it's a first name. Because it's my last name.
Please visit Justin on Facebook, Twitter and his blog where you can find some interesting and entertaining posts.
The book can be purchased through:
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