One of the fears I’ve had throughout my life (aside from heights) is that my children, whenever I got around to having them, would not be readers. I’ve always been one. If you’ve read my bio on the About page, you’d see that the best punishment I could have received as a child was to be grounded to my room, because it meant uninterrupted reading time.

My parents should have been suspicious when I never complained.

So now I have two children, both boys, ages 7½ and 6½. Was my fear unfounded?

Yes. At least for my older son. Of that I’m sure. But I’ll get back to him in a sec.

While reading about kids reading, I stumbled upon an article in the Washington Post by Valerie Strauss about a teacher named Donalyn Miller, “The Book Whisperer.” She’s helped teach how to make kids lifelong readers, and in her latest book co-authored with veteran teacher Susan Kelley, “Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer’s Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits,” she discusses five traits that lifelong readers have…traits you can cultivate in your young children. What I found so interesting about this is my older son is exhibiting ALL five traits — at age 7½! Woot!

So what are they? Continue reading →