Teach English in Laobagang Zhen - Nantong Shi

One thing I have taught my own children is to learn to read for one main purpose. In theory if you know how to read and if there is anything you don't know you can buy a book and learn about it. I have made it a point to show my children what I mean by this. From the very beginning of our time together I have read books to my kid in Kenya. I like to get in to character to spice up reading time. As they began to get older and were able to read along each child was given a part to play and to read aloud. This became a family tradition. Obviously as they got older the interest in playing parts played out quickly. So I began to pick books with adventures.  My children all have things they really love such as dogs or automobiles. I take what is a passion or hobby of theirs and buy fact books so the children can go and get information about the things they love. When my kids bring me interesting facts, I find that it's more of a bonus for me since my kids already have so many interests. I get to see my Children's excited faces when they learn something they think is really cool and they want to share. I am very big on giving high fives to my children and a round of applause from the family for the information they gathered.  My children's age range is between eight years old and seventeen so having older children helping the younger ones sounding out words is very effective. My younger boys want to be like the older boys, Encouragement for a good job from big brother also excites them to keep on reading. Our household is mixed with native English speakers and Swahili native tongue speakers, therefore we use pictures and the words around our house so that everyone can understand both languages. We have implemented ABC Mouse.com for early learning and phonics. For my children this is an excuse to play computer games for thirty minutes all the while they are learning to read. The local library was a Saturday outing with ice cream. When school ends there is a summer reading program at the library. My children especially love this program because they can earn free mini pizzas and enter reading competitions with their neighborhood friends. The library also offers an hour of free internet for the children to do reading games online. One of the other benefits to the local library is the ability to read a book and check out the movie adaptation. Television time is an earned commodity in our house with the exception of movies made from books after reading the book. Another type of book my children love to read is books that show them how to make things. So we began buying cook books from different countries. These cookbooks were a way to teach my children how to follow directions. But the reward was the finished product. My children are big Marvel and D.C. Comic fans so getting them to read comic books and google articles about an up and coming movie prompted more reading and we would use there research for game time. For instance,the person to come back with the lost information about a certain character would have a guaranteed movie night with mom at the theaters. In the mornings we usually have an extra fifteen to twenty minutes of free time before everyone needs to leave for school. During this time we play word games to earn prizes.  These games are a family favorite because I always have extra surprises for the children for their lunch boxes or for the walk to school. The games we do range from word checkers to our chess. The children are the chess pieces and they can only use words or sentences they remember from the story we read the night before. As each child shares their turn, the children are reminded of what came next or what was said prior. The competitive nature to win against the other team pushes them to be fully engaged during family reading time We do revision as part of our weekly schedule. During this time children are given different books to do oral reporting or to convince their siblings to read this book. The rule is you can't tell the story word for word but you can share a part of the book you enjoyed the most. Reading can be fun for all ages, especially when there are games to be played ...So, Let the games begin