Reading is one of the most valuable gifts we can give our children. As a father, I am working hard to foster a love of reading and I want to share 3 reasons that dads should read to their kids along with some of our current reads that we are enjoying.
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by BabbleBoxx.com on behalf of Candlewick Press
Fostering a Love of Reading
Story time with my children is special. I value the one on one time and I see how much my kids also enjoy our story time. As a parent, I know the importance of reading to my children and the quality time we are spending together is building memories they will forever cherish. I feel that as fathers we need to foster a love of reading and lead by example.
When my children see me take an active role in reading and an active role in what they are interested in, we become closer, and we learn together. Not only are we building our relationship and a love of reading but we are spending time away from screens and together. I truly love when they take the excited initiative to read to me and when they feel so relaxed in the story, they fall asleep in my arms.
3 Reasons Dads Should Read to Their Kids
Reading to your children is something that all dads should be doing. Do a search on any scholarly source and you will get hundreds of science based research hits that talk about the benefits of reading to your children. I could rewrite all that data or I can share the 3 reasons dads should read to their kids from my own personal experience.
Reason 1: Quality Time
Time is a commodity. In this day and age where screens are the standard and schedules are always booked, quality time can become very limited. Something as simple as just grabbing a seek and find book, like Where’s Waldo, or snuggling up on the couch for a quick story, can be the quality time that your kids need and so do you.
Reason 2: Household De-Stressor
I find that when I make the time to spend with my children and a book, our whole household is less on edge. We become more playful and our own conversations are overall more positive. I yell less, my wife yells less and our kids are not feeling as anxious as when we have missed storytime. They feel safe, they feel empowered, they behave better and WE are all less stressed. Parenting when you’re stressed is no easy task. Alongside reading, another effective way to de-stress is through talk therapy. Click here for more information on how therapy can help you reduce stress.
Reason 3: More Focus on School
In times that we are not reading as consistently at home, we see our children’s papers come home with lower marks. When we are reading more, our kids are more involved in school, they do better on their spelling tests and work harder on sounding out words and those papers come home with better marks.
Books We’re Currently Enjoying
We were recently sent a few books from Candlewick Press that I have been reading with our kids. They came in various reading levels and genres and have really been enjoyable. Over the past 2 weeks we have been adding these to our regular reading rotation and want to share the synopsis and our review of each below.
Malamander
A fantasy book that follows two characters, Violet Parma and Herbert Lemon on an adventure to find Violet’s parents. However, finding them takes a few twists and turns and includes the town legend, part-fish, part-human monster, Malamander. It is part of a trilogy, and we are almost done with this book, as we have been reading 1 chapter a night.
Our kids are enjoying Malamander. I was a bit worried it would be too scary, but it is more quirky than anything and the kids and I have laughed through a few parts and enjoyed a bit of the suspense as Violet searches for her parents. Learn more about the book here.
Just Because
If there was ever a book to describe our daughter, Just Because would be it. A book written from the perspective of a parent and child’s bedtime delaying tactics and those always thought provoking “why” questions, has captured our bedtime routine. When the father invents very clever answers to his daughter’s evening questions and never resorts to the typical response of “just because”, the results are pure magic!
We have read this book nearly every single night and sometimes after school. Our daughter loves this book and I am pretty sure is working on her own “why” questions to see what I can come up with. So far I have just resorted to some seriously terrible “dad jokes” but the stories the father in this story comes up with are fantastic and full of imagination.
Where’s Waldo Double Trouble At the Museum
I grew up enjoying Where’s Waldo so of course when this arrived I was pretty excited to sit down with the kids and start searching for that famous guy in new lands. This new book, is a twist on the classic Waldo books because the reader compares two scenes that are side by side to find the differences and Waldo too!
Of course we are enjoying this book. We only do 1 to 2 pages a night and we’ve been playing games to see who can find the most differences, who can find Waldo first and even who can find the differences the fastest upside-down! With over 500 differences to identify, we have plenty to seek and a lot of new games to come up with as we go.
