Families that read together have fun together! And November is a great month to make a point to read, write and learn together, because it's National Family Literacy Month. The National Center for Families Learning originally worked with Congress in 1994 to designate the month, and since then they have worked to make it "an opportunity...to emphasize the important role that families play in the education of their children."
With your BiblioTech Public Library card, you have so many opportunities to celebrate literacy as a family. Need to register for BiblioTech? No problem. Just fill out this form and you'll be able to access all our resources in minutes. We also have a form you can fill out to renew your card or reset your password.
Here are ten inspirational ideas to help your family celebrate literacy:
- Get cozy on the couch and check out a read-a-long book from Hoopla. These hybrid book/movies have amazing voiceovers and highlight the words as they go along.
- This is a great choice if you have kids who are just learning to read. We highly recommend all of these, but Thanksgiving Is...might be the most relevant at the moment.
- Check out a kid's comic and start reading it together. Reading doesn't just mean books! Comics offer amazing art, even for older readers, and give each family member the chance to read a different character.
- We have amazing comics on both Hoopla and BiblioBoard. If you have a fan of Frozen this might be a great place to start!
- Have older readers? Studies still show that reading outloud can be very beneficial. It's also fun to have book-time before bedtime. Start a series that you can read together over several months (or years).
- Consider the Harry Potter or Artemis Fowl series -- you could watch the movies after you finish the books, too.
- Speaking of movies, one of our newest resources is Kanopy, a movie platform that has some great options for family literacy month.
- Watch the movie version of classic kid's books like The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, or Too Many Tamales. You can also use Kanopy to start learning a new language as a family!
- Interested in digital literacy? How about using family time to learn to code together?
- With Treehouse, you can do just that! There is an entire digital literacy library.
- Want to use a new device? Check out a Playway Launch pad device from any of our branches. These children's tablets feature reading and games and come in different subject areas for different levels of reading.
- You can also check out a Kindle Fire tablet, which allows you to read any book in our digital collection. Stop by or call one of our library branches today to find out more.
- Going on a road trip as a family anytime soon? Consider downloading an audiobook from cloudLibrary. You can download it to your phone and listen in your car all the way to your destination.
- We have thousands of audiobooks for all ages. The Princess and the Warrior might be a good pick to celebrate Native American Heritage Month.
- How about flipping through a magazine together? You can do this with our Flipster resource, where we feature several kid's magazines.
- You can borrow National Geographic Kids, Sports Illustrated Kids or Cricket.
- Have young kids? BiblioTech has partnered with Pre-K 4 SA to provide digital storybooks. Click and register to access this collection.
We hope you have fun celebrating National Family Literacy Month! Let us know which resources you use on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
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