Saturday, March 6, 2010

An Idea From Sam on Getting to Know Authors

One of my twins, Sam, is responsible for reminding me of yet another way kids get motivated to read. Now I know I said I would talk about how to talk about author's purpose, but this sort of fits in perfectly, but it isn't a discussion per se.

The boys and I were talking about Mary Pope Osborne's visit on Tuesday night, and Sam piped up, "Well, we should go to her Website to see her books and things and see her ideas."

He's right. One way of knowing your books is knowing your author. Author's websites offer tons of little insights to what motivated them to write their books, where they will be visiting next, and links to where to buy the books. Many times there are games and things that get them excited and interested too.

Matt does this with his Island book series. The website shows each of the teenage characters and their "personalities," and gives the kids chances to see through surveys who they are most like. Matt loved that.

Scholastic is a great place to start if your child doesn't have any particular authors in mind. They have lots of author links, complete with video interviews and other kid reviews too.

So you see? Sam was right. The ways to get kids to read come from their interests -- in this case, the computer links to these people who write what they read.

I am a personal fan of Mo's site, by the way...lots of fun there!

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