Read 2 Succeed: Keep the reading spark alive this summer
As the school year winds down, one of the most enjoyable ways to keep the reading spark alive with your kids is through simple, fun read-alouds. You don't need a teaching degree to make story time special! Here are five easy ideas to try:
Before you even start reading the story, take a peek at the front and back covers, the colorful jacket, and even the spine. Ask your child, "What do you think this book will be about just by looking at the front and back?" or "Did you know we can sometimes find out about the author on one of these first pages?" It's like a little treasure hunt before the adventure begins!
As you read, encourage your child to make predictions of all kinds. What do they think will happen next? How do they think the character feels based on their facial expressions? Why will a character do what they think they will do? Even silly guesses are great! This helps their brains think about the story and use their imaginations.
The pictures in a story have so much more to say than the words sometimes. Pause during your read-alouds to explore illustrations. Are there little hidden clues as to what else is happening in the story? Can you tell how characters feel based on how they are drawn? Can you tell the time of day or setting of the story? Have fun looking at the drawings and then letting your child make their own!
Highlight vocabulary words as you read and stop to discuss their meaning and how the words are used in the story. Not sure what words to focus on? A good rule of thumb is to pull out words with multiple meanings, new or unfamiliar words, and words where your child's understanding of them can grow over time. For example, the word 'blue' can be a color as well as a feeling.
The well-known sequence of 'Who? What? When? Where? Why?' aptly fits the formula for comprehension questions to ask your child during read-alouds. Even if it feels too simple for you as an adult, a young reader's ability to identify characters, the sequence of events, settings, character motivations, and plot lend themselves to building a robust set of comprehension skills that will apply across different texts and future school grades.
Download a free printable Family Reading Guide from Read 2 Succeed with these pro tips and more here.Making read-alouds a regular part of your day doesn't have to be complicated. These little moments of sharing stories can build a strong foundation for reading and create wonderful memories together. Happy reading!
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This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: 5 ways to make story time special
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Topps Throwbacks: Unpacking 1990's Topps MLB Booster Packs
Collecting baseball cards often blurs the line between investment and obsession. Especially when you realize that the value of the standard baseball card is akin to the paper it's printed on. Unless your card is graded or some super rare insert with a piece of jersey in it, you are have an often pretty, sometimes drab and uninspired piece of visual photographic art of a sport you love. So it is as I find myself finally, after many years of deliberation, opening up a handful of sealed Topps MLB booster packs from the 1990s. A collector's journey Like many children of the 1990s my collecting impulses were influenced and financed by my father. While there is some regret in not leaving some Star Wars and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures in their blister packs, the baseball cards were opened without such regard. Because as we would learn later, the inherent value would continuously sink, especially as the market was flooded with new brands and fancy inserts. My father collected every Topps set from 1985 to 2004, stopping when he became frustrated with the deluge of new cards and brands. He bought the sets at the end of every year, for around $40, and packs throughout the year just for kicks. I only acquired the packs. That is, until he passed late last year, when I acquired his entire collection. Due to the lack of storage space in my collecting closet, I sold them all. There weren't any individual cards worth anything, unless I wanted to pay to have them graded, but the collector at the flea market was enthused by my father's organization (everything was in binders, in order). And while I did stop collecting baseball cards in the 90s (transitioning to Magic: The Gathering cards, Gundam models, LEGO sets, Funko Pops, and a slew of other random crap), I still hold that nostalgia, mostly because I still watch and love baseball (a game I also played until college). So when I found these unopened blister packs in a separate location when going through the rest of my father's belongings (including about 500 science fiction novels), I felt like that 13-year old kid again. And since they really aren't worth anything — an unopened pack of 1994 Topps MLB cards is going for between $2 and $9 on eBay — I've decided to open them for us all to enjoy. 1991 Topps According to the entire boxed set is worth about $10. I sold mine for $20. As for individual cards, there are a few error cards in the double digits, including a Nolan Ryan blank front error, and a Mark Whitten error card going for about $30 ungraded. While I did pull the non-error version of this card, in the few packs I opened that was the only moment of pause. There were no rookie cards (Chipper Jones would have been a rookie in this set) and nothing else of substance. But it did feel nice to thumb through these classic cards, all in perfect condition, and now headed into a card box to be shoved under the bed until my kids throw them out. 1992 Topps This was a very unremarkable year in baseball card collecting, as far as value. Nothing tops $2 as a single, ungraded card. There were a few rookies, but the only redeeming value of the 1992 set was collecting cards of your favorite players. For me, at that time, it was Mark Grace and pretty much any Atlanta Braves pitcher. Unfortunately I didn't pull any Jim Thome cards from any of these packs, any year. This was my all-time favorite player and up until last year (when our house flooded) I had a binder full of roughly 400 Jim Thome cards. But I did pull a checklist (honestly, one of the best non-player cards ever) and a reminder that Deion Sanders played baseball. 1993 Topps 1993 is when things started to change with the structure of baseball cards. Not in massive ways, but the cards got smoother, no longer the paper-feel cardboard of years past. Instead, these were glossy and stuck together. We started to find alternate versions of cards embossed with reflective gold, a precursor to the foil cards that would eventually make their way into packs. This is also the year that Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins entered the league, and there's an alternate set of cards with a little gold seal. Topps Gold suddenly became a thing, and a few of those cards are worth a few bucks. But the most notable thing about the 1993 set was The Captain himself, Derek Jeter. This set contained his 1992 Draft Pick card, with a resell value of anywhere from about $6 for the standard card, to upwards of $150 for the Marlins Inaugural version. I did not pull any of these cards. Instead I pulled draft pick cards for a selection of who-dat players, none of which made nearly a fraction of the impact on the game that Jeter did. 1994 Topps Aside from having to peel these cards apart from one another, and then making the Robin Ventura and Nolan Ryan cards fight, I didn't pull a Billy Wagner rookie card, which might have been worth about $30 at grade nine. Topps continued with the Topps Gold alternates in this set, which were a little easier to read than the year before. But other than that, a very uninspiring and drab set. Other than the gum. There was gum in these packs. It was inedible and grey, but the 16 year-old tried it anyway. It was spat out just as quickly. 31 year-old gum. Gross. Bonus: A single pack of 1988 Topps This one is just pure nostalgia. Dale Murphy, Kirby Puckett, Wade Boggs, Bobby Witt, totally kitsch bright yellow All-Star cards highlighted a great year in collecting baseball cards for a Gen-X kid. You'll find a lot of graded cards from the 1980s, because this is the generation that loves storing and displaying its core memories whenever possible. As for this single pack? Nothing of value, cardboard with pictures and a piece of gum that was as brittle as a sand dollar. There might be some discussion in the baseball card community as to whether these blister packs were worth more closed than open, but that just might be a dash of hopeful optimism. Baseball cards have always been worth more as a collectors item for baseball fans IMO. And I sure do miss paying less than $2 for a pack of cards. And while there are plenty of investments to be found in baseball card collecting, it's not in this particular selection of Topps MLB booster packs. But stay tuned because I just found an unopened retail box of 1991 Fleer baseball cards.
