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Newsletters>
August Newsletter
August 13, 2007
Hi every-one,
It is “Summer time and the living is easy” so goes the song
and I hope you are having a lovely summer. You might be
doing lots of traveling or just enjoying our lovely city,
Toronto. There are lots of things to do especially at the
weekends. The kids must be enjoying it. Having said that
would you believe some have come to the Centre and declared
that they are bored and it is much more fun at school!!!
This long holiday can be hard on the parent(s) as it is not
possible to occupy every moment of your son or daughter’s
time. This is when they should be encouraged to amuse
themselves and I don’t mean sitting in front of the
computer or television all day. Dare I say the R word yet
again? Reading. What I have noticed over the course of the
holiday is that the kids are willing to read a book but
don’t know which one to pick. They have discovered that
some of the books that are recommended are either too hard
or of no interest to them. So, they don’t even want to
try. I cannot blame them. Nothing could be worse than
having to read a book that someone else says is “good.” I
would recommend that they go to the local library and ask
the librarian to recommend a book suitable for their age
group. It might be useful to read the first page to see how
it fits their style.
Some parents declare that they have so many books at home
they don’t need to look elsewhere! Sometimes this is not a
good thing because the child has already glanced over these
books and perhaps tried to read them when they were not
ready and now associate these books as being “too hard” or
“boring.”
The ideal situation is for the parent to have a book or
magazine to read too and so you and your child (ren) can
read at the same time….difficult I know.
Once a book has been established it is great to hear first
hand what it is all about. Take an interest in the books
your child is reading. It is an excellent exercise. It
gives them practice in explaining the sequence of events;
describing an incident in great detail; analyzing a
character, even drawing conclusions and deciding how they
would like their book to end.
Treat their reading as a fun exercise. They have so many
book reports and reviews to write at school that sometimes
the joy of a book is lost. Tell them about the books you
have read and enjoyed. This might encourage them to read
more. I don’t need to remind you of all the other benefits
reading provides.
If any of you have a book to recommend for a particular age
group, please send us an email and I will put a list
together to share with everyone. If all of you were able to
recommend one book we could put together quite a list!
Here at the Centre we are planning our Back to School focus
which begins next week (the week of August 20) and lasts
for two weeks. You can enroll your child to help him or her
to prepare for the new school year which begins the
following week! It doesn’t seem possible does it?
Have a wonderful end to the Summer!
Regards,
Christine
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