Ep #96: Building a Balanced Reading Diet: The Role of Nonfiction with Melissa Taylor

How much nonfiction does your child need and how do you get them to actually engage with it? Here’s an interesting fact. The research shows that first graders actually prefer nonfiction to fiction. If that fact surprises you, you are going to love today’s episode. We are talking all about nonfiction.

We’re talking about why kids need it. We’re talking about how it works in their brain. We’re talking about how to have conversation around the books that you’re reading to help children be able to learn how to use the information. So how to use the titles and the text features, right? We’re talking about how to ask them, okay, I have more questions now and what to ask next.

My guest today is Melissa Taylor. She is from the blog Imagination Soup and is talking today about the National Geographic Kids Almanac as one of the resources that she loves to use. But we talked a lot about nonfiction and how to get kids into it. She talks about the children’s reading diet and how it’s great when kids read fiction books and story books. That’s fantastic.

But if your child’s only eating carrots, even though carrots are really good for you, they’re not getting a well-rounded diet and getting everything that they need, all the nutrition they need. And just like that, we need kids to be reading a variety of books. We need them not just reading fiction, we need them in nonfiction too, and we wanna teach them how to do it well and model that for them. Melissa is sharing her tips today. It’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast, where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow, and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves, because, you know what? We all really need and deserve that, too. I am your host, Amy Nielson, let’s get ready to start the show.

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Amy Nielson: Melissa, welcome to the show. I’m so happy to have you here today.

Melissa Taylor: Thank you so much for having me, Amy.

Amy: This is going to be so fun because we’re talking about something I get really nerdy about, and that is nonfiction reading, which not all kids think that they love, right? I actually had a conversation this week with my nine-year-old. We were hiking, and I’m like, what kind of books do you like? And she’s like, the fiction ones. She’s like, I don’t really read nonfiction. This is one of my new kids that I’ve had for just a few months. And so I’m like, okay, well.

Which funny enough, she’s already been reading some nonfiction at my house, and I think she just didn’t really connect that that had been happening. But we’ll talk about that more as we get into it. So I’m so excited to talk about this because I think probably so many of us have kids that think nonfiction isn’t any fun. There’s no elephant to piggy. It’s not like a true story. We want pretend and we want fun things and whatever instead of learning about something. So talk to me. Let’s get into how we get kids excited about nonfiction.

Melissa: Yeah. Well, the interesting thing is that recent research showed that first graders preferred nonfiction over fiction. So that’s kind of interesting. And the problem is that a lot of times classrooms and home libraries don’t actually have very much nonfiction. So they just get used to reading fiction and by the time they progress through the grades, they’re reading more fiction and maybe that’s just because of book access, right?

And we know that now, like the last decade has been amazing for better and better nonfiction books that are more engaging and not like really boring with those seventy photos. Like, that was so horrible. You know?

Amy: Yes. Nonfiction today is not what it used to be. And for adults too, don’t you think for adults too? And like you read these gripping stories and they’re true stories and you’re like, oh, this is so good, like narrative, like nonfiction, it’s fantastic.

Melissa: Yeah, it just sparks kids’ natural curiosity about the world.

Amy: It is interesting, and I love that you said that first graders actually prefer nonfiction because what’s so funny is when my son started like kind of getting into reading in his first trips to the library at school. It’s very exciting. Mom is not there. You get to pick your own books. He would bring home every week a new book about Tesla.

That is what he would read. I’m like, that is the last book in your library I would choose. But that’s what he bring home. And he wanted to read about Teslas. And he couldn’t even read some of the words in there yet, right? But he was just so fascinated by Tesla. He wanted to learn all about Tesla. I’m like, dude, you go bring home all the Tesla books you want. I’ll read them with you. We got this.

So I think that is so true because it’s things that they actually can relate to and are in their real world. And I think I love that you just said, we just need to give them more opportunity.

Melissa: Yeah, that access. So it’s like those front out displays. So they’re not hidden away. And there’s the book talks. And then I think a lot of times teachers and parents, we forget to do nonfiction in our read-alouds.

And sometimes, I mean, you know this too, like we’ll stop at a section and the kids are like, keep reading. And you’re like, I’m so busy, I suddenly can’t read. But if you wanted to read it on your own, here it is. You know, not tricking you at all. And so we do these things that help encourage kids’ natural interests. They’re that, you know, again, that natural curiosity and love for learning. We want to just keep building that love for learning and then building their background knowledge because we know that helps them to be better readers and, you know, lifelong students.

Amy: Talk to me, and we’ve talked a little bit on this podcast before about background knowledge, but just for a refresh of people, our last episode we talked about this just kind of a while ago. So give us a refresh really quick on background knowledge and how critical that maybe explain what that is for just for people that maybe haven’t heard the term and then why it’s so critical for readers?

Melissa: It’s so important that we have a schema for where to put the information that we’re reading. Otherwise we really can’t understand it because we just, it’s like me reading about physics. It’s just not, I’m never gonna comprehend it.

I had fifth graders when I was first teaching. They were mostly from Mexico and the state test was about spelunking. So they had no background knowledge about that. And I’m sure a lot of kids didn’t, honestly. They were never going to show their ability in a reading comprehension on something they didn’t have any background knowledge for.

But if they had asked about something to do with something they were familiar with in the city or babysitting or family customs or holidays, they’d have the vocabulary and the background knowledge that then they could, places that they didn’t know the exact word, they would be able to make an inference and still keep reading and have it not interfere with their comprehension. So background knowledge is really important.

Amy: Oh my gosh, you can’t understand what you’re reading if you don’t have it. I think about, my son loves to tell me about Pokemon and he will just go on and on and on and on telling me about Pokemon. Well, I have never played Pokemon. I don’t know anything about Pokemon. I try to listen supportively as I’m doing things in the kitchen.

I will tell him sometimes you’ve got like 30 seconds of really undivided attention and then I’m going to give you partial attention while I do stuff because you’re going to be talking for longer than that.” I’m like, keep talking. It’s fine. I’m kind of listening. I’m trying to listen partially. It’s not even interesting to me because I don’t have enough background knowledge to know where my knowledge gaps are.

So when he’s like, but this new thing, and I’m like, cool. But how do you get excited about the new thing if you didn’t know what the old thing was, there’s no knowledge gap there because I just don’t even have enough information to really comprehend what’s happening at all. And it’s not even interesting to me because I don’t have enough information to even be curious about it.

Melissa: Right, right. Exactly. That’s very well said. Yeah. So the more we add nonfiction, the more we’re building the background knowledge and vocabulary. And I think it even goes for as low as preschool kids, right? When you’re pretend playing, you’re going to make the pretend play so much more rich when you’re adding vocabulary and knowledge, because if they know what construction workers actually do, then that is a more complex level of play and more sustained.

Amy: Yes. Oh, I like that. That’s fun. And when you’re adding that into their play spaces, and maybe even adding vocabulary with the things that you’re giving them to do. That’s like another version of adding in some nonfiction. Interesting. I like it.

Melissa: Gotta have that balance. But we always forget because it’s just fun to read stories.

Amy: I know.

Melissa: But nonfiction is also fun. It’s just different.

Amy: It really is. So I have some ideas around how to bring nonfiction in more and make it really, really fun. Because I think kids get so much of their attitudes about what we’re learning or looking at or reading based on our nonverbal information we’re giving them about it, right? So if we’re like, oh, we have to read another book about boats, you know, whatever, right?

Then that’s not exciting. We’re like, oh, boats, right? And we’re talking about all the different kinds of boats. This is so cool, right? Then they’re like, oh, this is like I should be paying attention. So anyway, all right. Tell me like, what are some of your tips for getting kids excited about nonfiction?

Amy: So just like you said, that modeling is so important. And that book access we talked about before book displays, book talks. I love that when you’re a teacher, teachers can do book talks. So like this is the almanac and it’s really cool because the one thing I like about the almanac and other browsable fiction like this is you don’t have to start at the beginning. It really sells it, right?

Like you can start at Snowflakes or planets or anywhere you want to, and it’s okay. That’s like totally okay. So it’s talking it up. And then the read aloud, incorporated read alouds. I think it’s fun to do book matching. So if they’re studying something or they’re really interested in something like you said about Pokemon, there actually aren’t very many fiction Pokemon books cause I’ve looked, but there’s a lot of nonfiction.

So finding those, matching those books to the interest of or Tesla or football or whatever it is. So that you’re just like doing everything you can to support that child’s reading development, sharing what you read. I just read that the biggest snowflake on record was 15 inches. So it’s funny because as then you model about being a good reader, you’re like, I have follow-up questions because that’s what good readers do.

And like, how do they know that? I would like to learn more. And then you’re like, because my background knowledge tells me that snow melts and I, you know, yeah. So it’s that enthusiasm of that you can model. I think you can even do book clubs with nonfiction books and that’s kind of fun too. So it doesn’t have to be like, okay, we’re learning about animals, pick an animal. It’s like, hey, let’s make it, like you said, make it exciting, make it fun.

Amy: And I love what you did there with, like I have follow-up questions, makes me so happy, right? So the book Curiosity, I’m trying to remember the name of the author. It’s Ian Leslie, I think. And he talks about trying to create more mysteries than puzzles, right? Puzzles are like solvable in a short period of time, right?

And then curiosity is done and we’re not curious anymore, right? But when we’re turning it into a mystery, oh, I have more questions. And then it just keeps going and going and going and the learning continues. And that’s one of the challenges with just like, well, let’s look it up on Google, right? And get like this really quick answer.

Let’s have several questions, follow up questions with more follow up questions And modeling that I think is so fun and we can do that with nonfiction and it’s so good.

Melissa: Yes, it’s so good. And I think for the kids like yours, there’s a lot of kids that are just sort of natural retellers. They just don’t know how to summarize. So I love that using nonfiction to help with that because we have these text features and we’re like, okay, so here’s what the text features are and like this title tells us what’s important. But this is something interesting, right?

There was something on the Eiffel Tower and the almanac that was about like, there’s an apartment in the Eiffel Tower. And that’s really interesting. It is not the most important thing, but then we’ll say the most important thing is that it’s a building in France. So I think you can do a lot of that sneaky teaching of ways to read nonfiction that help support their comprehension strategies, like summarizing and determining what’s important.

Amy: Oh my goodness. If someone had like taught me that before I went to university, I was like, where were you back in the day?

Melissa: That’s my highlight.

Amy: Right, but if we can teach kids how to do that, right? And yeah, you get so much information just from that and it helps you like you can go through and just kind of skim to find what you’re looking for. So okay, can I tell you about something we’ve been doing at my house that’s one of my favorite things to do with nonfiction?

When I read The Knowledge Gap and was starting to become more and more concerned about background knowledge and some of the things that my children were getting, you know, maybe in public school, and I like to do what I called side-schooling, which is school during the summer and just, I don’t know, we’re learning all the time, right? It’s just fun.

So we started doing ancient history units and I would go and we’d get all these books about whatever civilization we were going to learn about. And then we would do just fun activities, right? We have duct tape all over the floor, like in the carpet doing ancient Mesopotamia and building cities with blocks and farms and all kinds of things, right? We did one recently. We did Egypt, right?

And we were making mummies out of Sour Patch Kids and little fruit roll-ups and stuff. Anyway, we were practicing and we’re watching National Geographic to learn all about mummies and making mummies while we’re doing it. It was fantastic. But anyway, so what I do is I give these kids a couple of challenges and I’m like, all right, here’s the books. The answers for these challenges are in these books.

So like you got to make us a meal from this culture. So you got to go through and find out what did they eat. So they’re thumbing through. And sometimes even just to get my young kids started, my eight-year-old, my nine-year-old, I would have sticky tabs and I’m like, maybe check out these pages. I didn’t label them. So they had to dig a little bit, but to make it easier than just being like, here’s a stack of books, go read.

You’re looking for something specific and here’s like some places maybe I recommend you start or here’s the index at the beginning of the book and just go through and find the different things you’re going to… Anyway, so then they came out with these amazing things. They were doing ancient Rome. We had a toga dress required dinner this summer and building aqueducts in our backyard and they built all of their armor out of cardboard boxes. It was intense. So much fun. But I loved it because it was giving them something to go look for. And then that was more fun than just being like, here, you should read a whole bunch of nonfiction.

Melissa: Well, and you’re scaffolding it, right? So that they can figure out incremental steps to titrate the learning. So here’s a text feature you want to look for, here’s that for index, and then here’s a sticky note. You’re not doing it for them, but you’re giving them the support that they need so that they will be independent at some point, but they get that practice while you’re scaffolding for them. That’s amazing.

Amy: Isn’t that so fun? And I love that our nonfiction is so good that there’s those options. And then you can bring in, I like bringing in actually a little bit of fiction with it too. So can I find a fictional story that goes with my non-fiction stuff and we can kind of play with the two together?

Melissa: For sure, because we know that stories, we remember stories so much more. And then it’s also really interesting, this is a little bit off topic, but I think to remember that we need to teach kids about information bias and that all nonfiction isn’t like true, you know what I mean? It’s not facts, it’s got a perspective and that as critical thinkers, we can figure out, did they have a bibliography in the back of the book? And what is their perspective on this? And to really think critically about the information that’s presented.

Amy: So good. And to be seeing stories from different perspectives, I think. Yeah, all of that, so good. Oh, this is so fun. Okay, so text features.

Do you have specific types of nonfiction you recommend? Like I loved the Almanac, right, that you’re showing because like you said, it’s kind of like a wonderful place to go get lost in and just find whatever it is that you’re curious about or interested in. So I love that. Are there other ways that you also recommend for, I don’t know, like getting someone into a specific topic, or is it kind of better to just have a variety of all kinds of, there’s so many ways to go with nonfiction.

Melissa: Right. Yes to everything. Have you seen the Melissa Stewart book about the five kinds of nonfiction?

Amy: I don’t know if I have, but I’m gonna write it down right now.

Melissa: It’s really interesting. She’s a nonfiction author, but then she started doing some independent research and she sort of classified all nonfiction into five different categories. So the one like the Almanac is what we call, she calls browsable. That’s where you can start it. And there’s information chunks.

You can start at any place. You don’t have to read in order. There’s usually lots of longer captions, shorter text blocks. She also classifies another category as active. So that’s like a craft book or a cookbook, which is also really important to remember to provide access to.

Traditional is more like, this is a book about dogs or cats or cars. Expository is then the topical of dogs or Tesla, but it’s more focused on the writing craft. That’s a little bit more interesting. She wrote one called Whale Fall about what happens when whales die and then they fall to the bottom of the ocean floor and they become food for all the other ocean animals. And then the final category is narrative, and that’s written as if it were a main character with dialogue.

And so I like those classifications because it helps me think about, am I providing too much of one kind or only one kind of… What can I do more of? Do I have enough craft books? Do I have enough narrative books? That kind of thing. Something to consider.

Amy: That is so interesting. I’m pulling it up here right now.

Melissa: Isn’t that cool?

Amy: That’s so cool. I love it. And it’s interesting, I think, sometimes to point out to kids that they like things that they didn’t think that they liked, right? So when you have a kid that’s like, I don’t really like nonfiction, and then you’re like, but you bring home a cookbook from the library like every week when you go to the library, that’s nonfiction. It’s one of the kinds and there’s different kinds. So it’s so good to test things so we find out what we like, right? So good.

Melissa: Yeah, and find out what’s that gateway. Because if your kid really likes Harry Potter, do they want to read the nonfiction books about how they made the movies? So what’s the gateway into reading more nonfiction for that kid?

Amy: Interesting. Okay, so here’s a thought that just came to my brain. One of the books that my kids wanted, in fact, it was the first book my daughter bought, my oldest daughter, and she picked, I don’t know, several thousand dandelions to be able to buy this book. But it’s this really thick, looks like a nonfiction book called Dragonology. And it’s all about dragons and all the different types of dragons.

I mean, it is like an encyclopedia of dragons. And I was like, really? This is what you want? But then I kind of fell in love with it. And my kids, all my other kids now, my daughter called me a red dragon once, and my other daughter’s like, no mom, you’re not a red dragon, you’re a gold dragon. I’m like, okay. I don’t even know what that means. But it was so fun. It’s just an interesting thing. So it’s interesting to me how much they like this kind of stuff and really digging into those different pieces.

And like you say, if they like Harry Potter, what can you do around Harry Potter? I like to look for the things around the thing they’re interested in to see where we can bring in more.

Melissa: Yeah. I’m the same. Just go with their interests and try to figure it out based on that.

Amy: Do you have suggestions? Because I do think sometimes kids don’t know what they like until they’ve got exposure to it. Do you like the idea of like Bob, you know, at school, right? The battle of the books or like the 40 book challenge or some different things where they kind of give them some suggestions of books to read. Bob, I found to be kind of interesting because it exposes my kids to different types of literature.

Amy: Yeah, I think every kid’s a little bit different, you know, and sometimes that, for me, book clubs are the same way where you’re like, I don’t really want to read this book, but it turned out I got something from it. I didn’t even like it, but because of the discussion – but I do think sometimes too much assigned reading can be detrimental because kids push back. So it just has to be a balance. And again, it depends on the kids. I know adults who love those reading challenges.

I, as a book blogger, you think I would hate, I wouldn’t hate this, but I hate being told what to read. And I’m sent hundreds of books every month, and I’m like, what am I doing with my life? It’s fine. I’m like, I choose to read this. You can’t make me, but I’m just choosing it.

But I think kids are the same way, right? Yeah. They just want to have a choice between two books. So if it’s, that’s the thing about Bob, you can have a choice of a list, which is nice. Cause then it’s still yes. Choice.

Melissa: Yeah. Which I like. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Ooh, so good. So it supports comprehension. I love the talking about text features because, oh my goodness, like we said, that helps you be able to find the information you need faster and compartmentalize it better and organize it better in your brain and all of those things. Talk to me about critical thinking and nonfiction.

Melissa: Also, what you were saying just reminded me that the ultimate goal of reading nonfiction is that we’re reading for meaning and that’s all they’re gonna be doing as they go up, progress in the grades, right? They’re in high school, they will read some fiction but not as much. And by college, forget about it, unless they’re English majors. So they have to be able to comprehend nonfiction text.

And then yeah, the critical thinking, I think it’s just those skills of again, like, can they ask questions and find the answers? Can they determine what’s important? What’s interesting? Do they connect to the other books they read or background knowledge or movies that they’ve seen. Can they make inferences? Can they synthesize information for later? All those things that are so important as a critical thinker and reader, you’re going to be practicing in anything you read, but especially in nonfiction for sure.

Amy: So good. And then because like a joy thing, I’ll tell you a little secret about me. I was trying to find a way to enjoy the gym. I’m like, if I have to go to the gym like every day, then the way to do that is going to be to find a way to make it fun. Otherwise it’s going to be a battle forever.

So one of the things I did was started getting audio books or listening to podcasts. And that for me, right? Some people want to listen to music. I get that. But for me, I love having my brain time where I get to listen to something, learn something.

So It’s like one of my favorite things is to go listen to something on Audible or whatever, right? I get to listen. It’s just so interesting because then you take these things. I find myself listening to an audiobook over here, and I’ll be listening to a podcast over here, and they’re completely unrelated, right? Just so unrelated.

And yet, there’s like this idea that comes from one that just so beautifully connects to this other, and I’m seeing things in different pieces, right? And that is how we create new things. I remember reading about Steve Jobs and the way that he was able to create what he was able to create, he didn’t necessarily come up with brand new ideas, but he took these different things that he knew about. And then they’re all kind of in his back of his brain warehouse going around back there, and they bump into each other, and you create new combinations of new things with all the information you have. And that’s how you develop these beautiful new ideas that change the world.

And I’m thinking, oh, kids, listen to all the books, read all the interesting books about things. And yeah, so this critical thinking you’re talking about and just giving them all that background knowledge to have there to bump against each other.

Melissa: And practicing reflection I think cements it, don’t you? Where it’s like, if you can encourage kids to think about how did this change me, or what do I think that’s different than I thought before after their learning is so important. Same thing with us, right?

If we just move on with our lives and don’t think about it, we’ll probably forget it. But if we think about whatever it was that you were learning on a podcast or hearing on an audiobook, character reacting some way and you think about it deeply and reflect on how it changed you or what you’re still wondering, that’s everything.

Amy: Yeah. And then I think sometimes, what do I agree with in this and is there part of it that I’m not sure I agree with or that I have more questions about? I love that you keep saying that. That’s such a good—I’m going to steal that phrase. It’s so good.

But yeah, do I have more questions about it? Because I think when we hear nonfiction, we’re like, this means it must be exactly true or whatever, right? But then the idea that this is from someone’s perspective, right? And someone else might have a different one. And so we get to kind of do that.

And then we know that in our brain, the way to get things very accessible is to connect them to as many other things, right? And so if we can build those connections like you’re talking about, how does this relate to something else I’m interested in or a thing I’ve seen over here or whatever? And then it sticks there. It’s more sticky than if we just read a thing once in the detail. For me, dates are names.

I read them and they go back into the back bottom basement of the very bottom of my brain. I really could not tell. I think I’ve gotten to the end of a book before and I really couldn’t tell you the name of the main character, but the story I’m like, oh my goodness, and this thing that happened. So maybe different details stick out for us because we relate it to other things.

Melissa: For example, if you read a book another time, a second time, you’ll pick up new things because of where you are in your life and time and space or whatever.

Amy: Oh, so true. I love that. Do you have like suggested like maybe a couple quick tips for parents when reading nonfiction? So for example, we have a lot of parents of young children listening or teachers of young children. So what would be some couple quick tips when reading aloud nonfiction to your kids? What would be some like reflective questions you would ask or some ways to kind of engage children to help them make those connections and things that we’re talking about.

Melissa: Yeah, I think it’s just encouraging that dialogic reading, right? So that you’re saying, oh, I have a question. First model and then practice and then give independent time, but you’re practicing. I’m having a question about this, about the snowflake, what questions do you have? And you’re gradually releasing responsibility as they get older so that you’re saying, this connects to my background knowledge less.

You’re saying, do you find this connects to your background knowledge more? You’re not modeling as much, but you wanna do that, especially when they’re little, a lot. And so that they see that’s what good readers do. And I say, I don’t know this word, but I’m guessing from the picture, you don’t need to say inference, but you can say, I’m gonna guess that this word means castle because it’s a castle pictured in the book. So stopping to talk a lot I think is really helpful with nonfiction.

Amy: So good. I also really want to go learn more about the 15-inch snowflake right now. So it’s snowing outside today and I’m like, oh, that’s a good one. We’re gonna talk about that after school.

Melissa: Cause can you imagine how all that will lead to? You’re gonna be doing, making snowflakes and yeah.

Amy: How is that even possible? Yeah, that’s gonna be a fun one. So thank you for sharing that tip with us.

Melissa: You’re welcome.

Amy: We are like almost out of time. Oh my word. It’s like flown by. But I want to just have you share with us, you’ve written an article or there’s an article about this that you have to share with us. Can you tell us about that?

Melissa: Sure. So I write a blog called Imagination Soup and I wrote a little bit more about what the importance and the research behind reading nonfiction and why I like starting with the Almanac because it’s like almost one page for every day of the year and it’s really inexpensive. It’s less than $15 so you can get a lot of bang for your buck. It’s like mini reels for kids because it’s just like little bite-sized information.

So I wrote an article that kind of shares different activities that you can do at home with the Almanac, races and games and some of the features that people maybe don’t even know about because they’re thinking of the farmer’s almanac, that was pretty boring. This is not. This is color photographs and quizzes and really cool information. So yeah, that’s on Imagination Soup. You can find it there. I’m sure it’ll be in the show notes.

Amy: Yeah, we’ll put it in the show notes for you, of course. The thing that popped into my brain when you just said that about the National Geographic Almanac that you were sharing is that sometimes I think you can model something for children in a shorter period of time than we think, especially if you build it as a habit.

So that’s amazing. If there’s enough pages for essentially the year, my goodness, if you just do one a day, it’s only going to take a couple minutes, but the conversations you can start and have. And then that pattern that you’re setting up for your child, you’re just setting them up to be a really successful nonfiction reader, right?

And being able to take in information however it comes and think about it and make those, you know, just be able to use information and language and be able to reshare and communicate it and all those things we want kids to be able to do. That sounds so good.

Melissa: Yes. Think of it like a balanced food diet. It’s a balanced diet between fiction and nonfiction.

Amy: That sounds really fun. I kind of want one. Okay. So we’ll look that up and we’ll try to include a link to that in the show notes for people as well so they can go find that almanac because that sounds like a fantastic resource. Is there anything else before we have to go? Is there anything else you wanted to share with our listeners today?

Melissa: Oh gosh, I think sometimes with nonfiction is so motivating, if a kid is interested in it, they can read more advanced text than you would think. So maybe their comprehension level might be at second grade, but they’re so motivated to read. You’d be surprised. Well, you wouldn’t be, but many people would be surprised that they can read higher level texts because they just have that desire so strongly. That’s pretty cool.

Amy: That is really cool. And when we’re reading aloud, we can read at a little higher comprehension level than they can when they’re reading on their own, which gives us the chance to kind of stretch them a little bit and get to read some really interesting, fun things. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us today and helping us feel a little more motivated and excited and have some ideas on how to get our kids more into nonfiction.

Don’t you just love all the fun things we’re learning on this show together? Well, we wanted to give you a chance to practice a little bit of it at home. And so we made you a special freebie just for being a listener here. You can grab it at PlanningPlaytime.com/special-freebie.

So what this freebie is, I’ll tell you, is an amazing alphabet activity that you can start using with your kiddos. And it is based in play and is so fun. You can use dot markers with it. You can use Q-tip painting. You could use circled cereal.There’s all kinds of options. You can print it out today and get started. Just head over to PlanningPlaytime.com/special-freebie, and we’ll send that to you right away.

Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website PlanningPlaytime.com. See you next week.