When you’re grocery shopping with kids, it can sometimes be tough to keep them under control. Instead of just distracting them, you can keep them occupied by making them part of the shopping process.

Kids can have a short attention span and grocery trips aren’t exactly their idea of fun. Catherine McCord at the Food Network Blog suggests getting them involved in the shopping to keep them entertained. You can ask them what they want before the trip and add it to your list. When you get to the store make it their goal to find those things as you move through the store. Or even have them find a portion of the list on their own if they’re old enough. The store is even a great place to start teaching kids about money. Lastly, have your kids read item packaging as you shop. It helps them get better reading and will probably increase their vocabulary. Check out the link below for more ideas. What kind of tips do you have for handling kids in the store?

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It is a known fact that reading to children at an early age and encouraging them to be book lovers adds to the child’s literacy development. Children begin learning long before their formal education starts. Early reading helps develop a child’s memory, vocabulary, concentration, imagination and life skills. Of all the many books you could be offering your children Dr. Seuss books have the magical blend of education and entertainment. Kids love Dr. Seuss books and parents know that the books are benefiting their children in many ways.

Who is Dr. Seuss?

Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904-1991) was an illustrator and a writer who published 60 children’s books. His career took off when he was asked to write a children’s primer using 220 of the most basic vocabulary words. This resulted in the masterpiece – The Cat in the Hat. His books have bright simple illustrations, lovable crazy characters and rhyming text. With the rhyming text kids can easily remember the plot and the new words they are learning along the way. The storylines involve fantastical creatures with many home-truths and good old-fashioned clean fun. Some of his most loved titles are The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears a Who!, The Lorax, and Green Eggs and Ham. 16 Seuss books are on the Publishers Weekly’s list of the “100 Top Selling Hardcover Children’s Books of All Time.” Most parents grew up reading Dr. Seuss books and want their children to do the same.

What Benefits are there to Reading Dr. Seuss Books?

Dr. Seuss’ unique entertaining writing style and appealing illustrations capture the hearts of kids worldwide. Not only are they funny and clever but they also use the core vocabulary words that children need to learn. Kids that read or are reading Dr. Seuss books at an early age have a better chance of developing a love of books and a solid literary foundation.

Where to get hold of Endless Dr. Seuss Books?

The best way to make sure that your child has a constant stream of Dr. Seuss books coming into the house is to let them join the Dr. Seuss Book Club. There are so many titles available and not all of them can be found in the library or in book stores. This is even truer for those living in remote areas. The Dr. Seuss Book Club has regular special offers and sells a range of extras like activity books, Cat in the Hat wall calendars and games. The Dr. Seuss Book Club was originally established to help parents build a home library of entertaining, affordable and educational books. By joining the Dr. Seuss Book Club you can make sure your kids will read relevant books. Reading Dr. Seuss books together will become a cherished family activity and one kids will remember forever.

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-When he is finished, I will ask him to tell me about the story (what happened, who were the characters…).
-I also make sure to read a bible story to him every night.  Hearing me read aloud is also important.You can find the this printable chart here. 

PRINT OUT THE READING CHART HERE 

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The key to learning and memory in early life is a lengthy nap, say scientists.

Trials with 216 babies up to 12 months old indicated they were unable to remember new tasks if they did not have a lengthy sleep soon afterwards.

The University of Sheffield team suggested the best time to learn may be just before sleep and emphasised the importance of reading at bedtime.

Experts said sleep may be much more important in early years than at other ages.

People spend more of their time asleep as babies than at any other point in their lives.

Yet the researchers, in Sheffield and Ruhr University Bochum, in Germany, say “strikingly little is known” about the role of sleep in the first year of life.

Learn, sleep, repeat

They taught six- to 12-month-olds three new tasks involving playing with hand puppets.

Half the babies slept within four hours of learning, while the rest either had no sleep or napped for fewer than 30 minutes.

The next day, the babies were encouraged to repeat what they had been taught.

The results, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed “sleeping like a baby” was vital for learning.

On average one-and-a-half tasks could be repeated after having a substantial nap.

Yet zero tasks could be repeated if there was little sleep time.

Dr Jane Herbert, from the department of psychology at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC News website: “Those who sleep after learning learn well, those not sleeping don’t learn at all.”

She said it had been assumed that “wide-awake was best” for learning, but instead it “may be the events just before sleep that are most important”.

And that the findings showed “just how valuable” reading books with children before sleep could be.

Dr Herbert added: “Parents get loads of advice, some saying fixed sleep, some flexible, these findings suggest some flexibility would be useful, but they don’t say what parents should do.”

Sweet dreams

A study last year uncovered the mechanisms of memory in sleep. It showed how new connections between brain cells formed during sleep.

Prof Derk-Jan Dijk, a sleep scientists at the University of Surrey, said: “It may be that sleep is much more important at some ages than others, but that remains to be firmly established.”

He said babies “should definitely get enough sleep” to encourage learning, but concentrating learning just before bedtime may not be best.

“What the data show is sleeping after training is positive, it does not show that being sleepy during training is positive.”

There is also growing interest in sleep and memory at the other end of life.

The two go hand in hand in your twilight years, particularly with underlying neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia.

It is hoped that boosting sleep would “slow the rot” of memory function.

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MIDDLEBORO — Tivy the cocker spaniel is a good listener: he doesn’t judge, butt in with corrections or make funny faces when you run off course. Tivy cannot possibly promise to sit still, and whether or not he enjoys a good story, we’ll never know. But Tivy listens.

Five-year-old Middleboro resident Lotti Drummond found a captive audience in Tivy and retired children’s librarian Marilyn Thayer, Tivy’s mom, Monday afternoon at the Middleboro Public Library, part of the Reading with Miss Marilyn’s Spaniels program. The three found a quiet corner and got comfortable, and as Lotti bumbled through a few tales from the “Frog and Toad” series, Tivy sat comfortably, nosing around the book and its reader, occasionally lobbying for attention. Oblivious to the misadventures of Frog and Toad, and really not all that interested in the visiting newspaper reporter/photographer, Tivy sat tight and proved an exemplary lapdog.

As is the case wherever therapy dogs are doing their thing, the basic idea is to lighten the mood in a potentially stressful situation. For some young readers the payoff is simply adding a bit of fun to learning to read and practicing reading skills, while for others the dog provides a calming, non-judgmental audience which alleviates some of the pressure and anxiety that comes with reading aloud for a much bigger audience in the classroom.

“It can work in a number of ways,” says Thayer, who goes by Miss Marilyn at the library. “I’ve had kids that are frightened of dogs come in, and at first, Tivy stays away and we let them have their space, but very often by the end of the session they’re petting Tivy and playing with Tivy. So in that case, it’s helping them get over their fear… and maybe it’s helping them with their reading, or getting them interested in reading.”

It’s really just a way to add a little fun to reading, which is a chore for some kids. And all agree, Reading with Miss Marilyn’s Spaniels easily accomplishes that baseline goal. Any lasting, more dramatic results are all bonus.

Lotti is in her second session with the program and is reading way above the kindergarten level — she breezed through “Frog and Toad” and boasted of having completed “Green Eggs and Ham” in a previous session — and while Thayer won’t take any credit for Lotti’s proficiency, Franzi Drummond, Lotti’s mom, says the program is leaving an impression.

“It’s very beneficial,” Franzi said. “She enjoys reading in general, but having the treat of reading to Tivy is making her look forward to reading and making her practice. It takes a lot of the pressure off… no teachers, no other students listening… and it’s just fun for her. It’s a great program.”

Tivy is a 12-year-old spaniel with an admirable show-dog resume. Included on that resume are “Certified Family Therapy Dog” and proud papa, as Tivy shares his listening duties with housemates Brazen, Tivy’s son, and Violet, a granddaughter. The dogs are well known to library patrons, and like all dogs, are motivated and influenced by treats.

At the conclusion of Monday’s session, Tivy was rewarded with double treats, as Lotti was waiting with one and her younger brother, three-year-old Chris, made good with another.

Reading with Miss Marilyn’s Spaniels is one of many cool kids’ programs available at your local library. The program is offered Monday afternoons, with 20-minute sessions available from 4 – 6:30 p.m. The current session runs through Feb. 23. Call the library 508-947-2470 to reserve a spot. As with nearly all programs at the library, Reading with Miss Marilyn’s Spaniels is offered free of charge.

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Just a year ago, most parents chose independently which ebooks their children read. Now those decisions are split nearly evenly between parents and kids, according to a new report published today by PlayCollective and Digital Book World.

The expanded roles children are now playing as consumers of digital content present publishers with new challenges and opportunities.

While more children are now primary owners of e-reading devices, a circumstance that PlayCollective finds drives e-reading itself, ebooks must now compete for kids’ attention with a battery of other media on those very same devices.

And around age eleven, reading begins losing ground to other activities like games and apps.

Opinion is split as to how publishers should respond, but what’s seems clear is that the goal will increasingly move toward attracting children first and their parents second.

Much more, including graphs from the complete report.

To get all the ebook and digital publishing news you need every day in your inbox at 8:00 AM, sign up for the DBW Daily today!

Macmillan Enters a Changing Subscription Ebook Market (DBW)
Adding 1,000 back-list titles each to Oyster and Scribd, Macmillan wades into a subscription landscape that’s evolved dramatically over the past eight months. Scribd now claims it’s the third biggest revenue source for some publishers, even though Oyster’s catalog now boasts twice as many titles.

Why Subscription Ebooks Are Gaining Steam (Wired)
One observer wagers the main reason publishers are steadily–and even reluctantly–doing more business with ebook subscription services is the industry-wide thirst for reader data.
Related: New Routes to Reader Data

Penguin Publishing Group Reshuffles Upper Ranks (Pub Lunch)
Madeline McIntosh, president of the freshly established Penguin Publishing Group, institutes major changes in the division, merging the Dutton and Putnam imprints, accompanied by a number of top-level appointments.

What Trade Publishers Can Learn from the STM Market (DBW)
Science, technology and medicine (STM) publishers may not publish the most glamorous titles in the book business, but major players in the sector have different ways of operating than their trade counterparts, which occasionally seeds more collaboration. Here’s one industry insider’s take.

Remarkably, Little to Remark on Ebook Best-Seller List (DBW)
We’ve seen few long, multi-week runs at No. 1 ever since mega-hits like Divergent or The Fault in Our Stars swept the rankings in the middle of last year. Since then, average prices have skittered up and down, and this week’s uptick is no exception to that variability. Somewhat remarkably, though, few titles moved very far out of the positions they occupied last week.

How Will Reader Data Impact Readers? (NYRB)
Publishers may welcome the expanding opportunities to gather insights about ebook readers, but one observer points out more readers may begin to turn away from publishers and retailers that scrutinize and parse their every move.

Doubling Down on Original Content, Amazon Signs Woody Allen (NYT)
Fresh off its landmark Golden Globe win for “Transparent,” Amazon announces it’s secured Woody Allen to write and direct an original series for Prime Instant Video.

UK Publishers Collaborate on New Digital Imprint (Teleread)
Two former Quercus executives partner with the digital head of Profile Books to launch Canelo, a UK-based digital publisher focusing on ebooks, apps and web-based fiction and nonfiction.

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BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – Two members of The Buffalo Sabres took to he downtown Central Library to help encourage kids to read.

They’re helping to promote the public library system’s fourth winter reading challenge called “Do Re Me Read.”

Readers can pick out a book and read it up until March 20, then qualify for prizes by leaving a short book review on the library system’s website here. 

The public library system Director Mary Jean Jakubowski said the more books a person reads, and the more reviews they write, the higher their chances are of getting a prize. The grand prize will be a Kindle Fire HDX eReader.

Marcus Folingo, left guard for the Buffalo Sabres, told kids he loved reading when he wasn’t on his skates as a kid. He said he loved reading and learning about the world around him.

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