There is a difference between “book smarts” and “book smart.”  Book smarts is what you learn from reading books and gaining the knowledge they hold.  Book smart is like being street smart.  It is knowing how to maneuver your way through books.  Before your child enters kindergarten, you want them to be book smart.

Actually, you have already started teaching your child to be book smart.  While reading to your child you’ve been holding a book, title side up, with the spine on the left and the opening on the right. That’s Book Smart 101 (sorry, Kindles have no place here).

Even though you haven’t formally set out to make a lesson on how to hold a book, you’ve been watched.  When the time comes for your child to start to explore books on their own, they will naturally imitate what they have seen you do when you’ve read to them.  They will know how to  hold and open a book.

The next step in being book smart is know how to “read” a book.  The warm up exercise for you is to get this tune running through your head…..Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes…..make it drive you crazy, popping up in your head when you least expect it for a day or so.  Then check back and find out just what in the heck you are going to do with it to teach your child how to read a book.