The K5 - elementary education for parents

Or Wednesday?  Or Monday?  I was having dinner at my friends Emily and Dave’s apartment the other Tuesday, playing with their 4 year-old son, Asa,  and I learned something new. 

Emily took out a book and started reading to Asa.  He then looked at me and screamed, “That’s my new book!”  I asked him when he got it and he looked at me like I was slowly turning into a mushroom (maybe I was at that moment).  In disbelief, he looked at his mother and said, “He doesn’t know about Book Tuesday?”.  She shook her head back and forth.  He couldn’t believe it.  And then they explained.

 Every Tuesday, they buy Asa a new book.  They take a trip to the local bookstore, pick something up for him after work or order a book online.  Because books for four year-olds are pretty short (he wasn’t asking for the new Ian McEwan novel) it usually costs no more than five bucks.  Then he gets a new book every week.  

So why not do the same?  Maybe if your kid is older it’s every other week, or the first Monday of every month, but it creates a ritual around literacy, which will help keep a positive attitude towards reading and learning.  And treat them sometimes with a cool magazine about something non-academic or a book of photographs – maybe even a great atlas- but keep the tradition going.

Pop it in your calendar and start this week.  It’s the best custom I’ve heard of in a long time.  And it beats some of the bad habits I know you have!