I am no bookstore owner, but when it comes to our home library, I sure love my kids to pick out good books. Well, since we only have good books, I like them to pick out books – of any kind. The problem with traditional bookshelves + kids is that the books are all crammed together, the kids can never put them back on their own, and they don’t even really know what is on the shelf, nor are they curious – especially pre-readers (both of my kids are pre-readers right now).
So when I was looking around for ideas for my kids’ room, I saw these shelves (and a lot more just like them) on Pinterest. And then, I put up a few myself:
The new reading area in the kids’ room (please excuse the pink walls – we’re working on a paint color… any suggestions?)
The books are layered 3-5 books deep in spaces, and I fully intend to rotate them every few weeks, just to make sure some new books are out on top.
“The power of face-out works even at the lowest levels of literacy. When researchers observed a kindergarten classroom library for one week, 90 percent of the books that children chose had been shelved with the covers facing out.” (here)
I had read about this a loong time ago and had every intention of making some face-out book displays for the kid’s books, but I never got around to it. I got these shelves at IKEA for about $15 each. More expensive than rain gutter, but it was the easiest solution for me, since I am the main handy-man around here (handy-woman? eh, whatever). Three screws and it was in. I am going to go back and use some wall anchors because I couldn’t find the studs (my husband is out of town – which might have had something to do with that problem. Ha ha)
Before I even had the books up on the shelves, both Little and Baby were devouring book after book (Little is 4, and Baby is 2, so they don’t actually read them – but they can tell the story pretty well from the picture, which is great in terms of literary development).
These books will make it easier for us to pick the books we want to read for bedtime, as well. Which means faster bedtime routine (which I love – not that I don’t cherish bedtime, I really do – I just don’t like how long it takes to get to each step. I prefer to spend my time actually reading to the kids rather than hunting down books).
We keep a “book basket” in the living room, and I want to make a book sling for the family room downstairs so any book will have a home in any room in our house, and so books will be found in every room. The more places we can find to put books, the more our children will read – I’m sure of it!
How do you market reading to your children?
