Don M. Winn's Blog, page 34

Sir Kaye Contest – There Will Be Prizes!

Sorry for the long pause in the blog, everyone. I’ve just about finished up the manuscript for The Knighting of Sir Kaye, and I’ve sent it on to the proofreaders. Pretty soon it will be off to the printer and then we’ll have a new book here at CBA! I’m really excited… this will be the first chapter book ever published by CBA, so in one sense at least, this book COULD be described as “a groundbreaking new children’s novel.”

But we’ll just have to wait to see how other people will want to describe it.

If you live in the Austin, TX, area, we’ll be having two launch parties for the book in September. The first one will be in Georgetown at All Things Kids, on September 15th at 2 pm, and the second one will be in Round Rock at The Book Spot at 2 pm on September 22nd.

As part of the book launch activities for Sir Kaye, I’ve decided to offer some prizes to you loyal CBA fans out there, especially since many of you won’t be able to make it to the parties.

Here’s what’s in the prize packages: An autographed hardcover copy of the first edition of Sir Kaye, the Boy Knight, Book One: The Knighting of Sir Kaye, AND a $25 gift card to Starbucks. Plus I’ll probably throw in some Kaye stickers too.

Here’s how to win one of the prizes: Sign up for the CBA newsletter with your name and email address between now and September 15th, which is the official launch date for the book. Here’s a link to sign up for the newsletter. Or you can go to http://www.donwinn.com and look for a button near the top of the page that says “subscribe to Newsletter.” If you already receive the newsletter, you are automatically entered in the prize drawing.

Starting September 16th, and then once a week until October 7th,  I’ll randomly “draw” a name from the list and that person will be the prize winner! I will contact the winners by email to get their mailing addresses so I can send their prizes through the mail. There will be a total of four winners drawn by October 7th.

In case you’re wondering how I’m going to draw names from an electronic list, I believe I will use a program to generate a random number and if the program generates the number 156, then the 156th person on the list will be one of the prize winners.

So I hope everyone is ready for Sir Kaye and for the contest!

Start signing up now and you could be a winner!

Excerpt from Sir Kaye

Well, I’m still hard at work editing the first Sir Kaye book right now. It’s going well, but it’s a lot of work, so I thought that today I would share just a short excerpt from the first chapter…this excerpt involves the first meeting between Kaye and Reggie, the boy who becomes Kaye’s best friend and shares with him in all his adventures. Reggie’s in a spot of trouble, as you will see…but he can tell you about it in his own words…

“I was usually very careful when I explored the Knotted Woods. I’d heard hundreds of stories of young boys that entered the Woods, never to be heard from again, and even though I’m not sure all the stories were true, I sure didn’t want anything like that to happen to me. But this particular morning I found a young fox cub that seemed to have lost its mother. As I moved slowly towards the cub our eyes met for one sharp second. The fox’s eyes were dark and had a little spark in them. It didn’t seem afraid at all. It took a good long look at me like it was figuring me out, and then it started walking away. It looked back at me over its shoulder and then without even thinking about it, I started following after the fox cub. The little cub was fast and kept darting back and forth and under logs and around trees and I struggled to keep up. My heart was racing faster than it ever had before. I was so close to it! Then the fox dashed under a fallen tree and made a sudden sharp turnaround just as I was leaping over the log. I wasn’t able to change directions in midair, and I landed hard on both feet right in the middle of one of the Knotted Woods’ mostly deadly traps—quicksand! I was stuck fast.

At first, I was just surprised, but then I was suddenly more afraid than I had ever been in my life. I realized this was why my parents had forbidden me to go into these woods alone. I started trying to pull my feet out of it, but this only made me sink faster into the murky porridge. I was soon up to my knees. Then I remembered something I had been told about quicksand—that if you get stuck, don’t move! Moving will only make you sink more quickly. So I tried to calm down and be very, very still. It helped a little. I wasn’t sinking so quickly, but now what was I supposed to do? It was up past my knees. There was only one thing I could do, and that was to shout “HELP!” at the top of my lungs! But since I was exploring where I wasn’t supposed to be, how would anyone hear my calls for help? I could only hope some stray bandit might be nearby and that he felt like doing something good for a change. Anyway, I’d rather deal with bandits than quicksand. I could at least talk to bandits. Arguing with quicksand wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Although I might have eventually tried it if I hadn’t happened to turn my head and see the very interested-looking, green-eyed, short-nosed, ginger-haired face of a boy looking through the bushes at me. It startled me. My heart almost jumped out of my chest and landed in the quicksand next to me…”

That’s all for today. I hope you like it! Please don’t forget to come back and check out this blog next week for an exciting announcement…hint: there will be prizes!

Hooray! Hooray! We did it!

It’s official! As of this morning, thanks to you all, CBA has officially received 277 votes! Congratulations to everybody, you put us over the top! We are now officially in the running for this grant. We couldn’t have done it without you, and you all deserve a great big THANK YOU!

And maybe even an eHug or two!

Thank you for voting and for passing the info along to your friends and family and for encouraging them to vote too. Your support and good wishes mean so much to me and to everyone here at CBA.

I will probably find out the results of the grant competition in September, so I will let you know how things turn out.  I really hope we’ll have great news to share with you then! But even if we don’t receive a grant, I’ll still have some other exciting news this September, so stick around! There are big things brewing over here at CBA.

If you’d still like to vote, please go ahead and do so. Voting continues through June 30th. Voting instructions can be found in previous posts. And again, thank you!

CBA Voting Update!

Good morning everyone! I hope you are having a great day so far today. Here’s an update on the Facebook voting status from last week…we are doing well and I want to thank you for all your help so far. It’s been so encouraging to have all your support and good wishes.

Here’s the status for Wednesday morning: We’ve made it to 179 votes.

We only need 71 more votes by the end of this week!

Can we do it? I think we can make it! I’ll update the countdown tomorrow too and every day until the end of the week.

Please vote if you haven’t already. The instructions are below. If you have already voted, I want to thank you so much for your support.

I also want to ask for some extra above-and-beyond type help from you…here are a few ways you could continue to help:

Please ask a friend or two to vote for us. You can email them the link to this page so they can get instructions for voting.
Or you could post the link to this page on your Facebook page and ask people to vote for us if you would like to help out that way.
If you are a fellow blogger, and if your heart so inclines, you could encourage your blog readers to vote for Cardboard Box Adventures and refer them to the instructions on this page. I would be okay with that!

Thank you so much!

(link to this page at http://www.cardboardboxadventures.wordpress.com)

How to vote:

Go to www.missionsmallbusiness.com.
Click the link in the lower right-hand area of the screen that says “Login & Support.” A window will pop up where you can log in with your Facebook id and password. You have to have a Facebook account to vote.
After you have successfully logged in, you will see a space near the bottom of the screen where you can type in a business name. Please type in “Cardboard Box Adventures” in this space and click “Search.”
A business listing for Cardboard Box Adventures in Round Rock, Texas, will appear. Click “Vote” and you’re done!

Quick backstory in case you’re reading this for the first time: My children’s book publishing company, Cardboard Box Adventures, is applying for a small business grant from Chase Bank and Living Social. Part of the application process includes getting 250 votes from Facebook users. And that’s where everyone has been helping out. If you haven’t voted yet, please help out too!

Making Cardboard Box Adventures Grow – You Can Help!

Good morning, everyone! This will be a short blog posting today. I’m all wrapped up in editing Sir Kaye these days, but I hope to finish that soon. It’s going really well.

In the meantime, I would like to ask you for your help. I am working hard at making Cardboard Box Adventures into a successful independent children’s book publisher, so I am applying for a small business grant from Chase Bank and Living Social. Part of applying for the grant involves getting 250 votes for my company from Facebook users, and that’s where you can help. It’s not hard to do, but it does take a few minutes.

Please take the time to vote for Cardboard Box Adventures as soon as possible. The deadline is near!

Here’s how to do it:

Go to www.missionsmallbusiness.com.
Click the link in the lower right-hand area of the screen that says “Login & Support.” A window will pop up where you can log in with your Facebook id and password. You have to have a Facebook account to vote.
After you have successfully logged in, you will see a space near the bottom of the screen where you can type in a business name. Please type in “Cardboard Box Adventures” in this space and click “Search.”
A business listing for Cardboard Box Adventures in Round Rock, Texas, will appear. Click “Vote” and you’re done!

Thank you so much. Please don’t wait to vote!

Writing Contest Winners…Honorable Mentions!

Here are the three stories that merited an honorable mention in the Grandview Hills third-grade tall tale and fable writing contest. Each one of them had something special about it that made it stand out, so here they are! I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I did.

Honorable Mention for Use of Similes: Even Deeny for “The Final Race.” Even, I chose your story for honorable mention because you did a great job using similes in your story. I really enjoyed them. My favorite one is about how his shoes were like “light at daybreak.” Those are some fast shoes.

The Final Race

Have you heard of a great running race? Well I know the greatest running race ever ran!

It was a hard day but a happy day on Mars, a.k.a. the rusty planet. Young Adrian Person was at Marinas Trench, Mars. Adrian is American and has black skin and he is very fast. He was here to race Asan Bolt a.k.a. The Fastest Man in the World! Bolt is Jamaican and has black skin. The race would start here and they would run around Mars once. Then they would take a space tunnel to Earth and run around Earth once. Then they would end at Mount Everest.

Adrian lined up at the start. He was wearing his fast shoes. His shoes were like light at daybreak! Then he saw Bolt line up at the start. When he lined up at the start the announcer said to get so the race could begin! “Ready, set, GO!” the announcer said.

Bolt and Adrian Peterson took off and they ran so fast people thought they were a bonfire! They went around the planet Mars once and they were heading to the space tunnel when BANG! They were teleported to Earth because the space tunnel was broken. When they stopped teleporting they hit a mountain so hard it made Mount St. Helen’s! Their shoes were hotter than the sun because they were running for a whole day!

At last Adrian and Bolt stopped for water. But when they did Bolt and Adrian drank a whole gallon of water! When they finished drinking they found that the space tunnel was fixed. When they started to run again they couldn’t stop! So when they crossed the finish they still couldn’t stop! But they still run because when you go to Mount St. Helen’s you can hear Adrian’s and Bolt’s shoes against the concrete. The end.

Honorable Mention for a Great Ending: Saxon Fryar for “Dr. Seuss and the Big Laugh.” I really liked this story. It’s a tall tale with an unusual combination of characters. I especially liked the end. In fact, I liked it so much, I decided it needed to be honorably mentioned.

Dr. Seuss and the Big Laugh

One day I met Dr. Seuss at a hotel in Utah. I was happy because I just made a book about being a train conductor and about my life. I wanted Dr. Seuss to publish it for me. I walked up to him and said, “Hi, I’m Casey Jones.” Then he said to me, “Hello, I’m Theodore, but you can call me Dr. Seuss.” I asked him if he was working on any new book and he said “no.” He asked me if I could spend the night with him so I could give him some ideas about a new book and I said “yes.” So we went up to the room and went to bed. When I woke up in the morning he was already downstairs eating waffles. “I never thought that he would eat waffles.” I just made myself some cereal. When I sat I told him, “whenever I read one of your books all the characters come to life.” After that I asked him, “how long can you write for?” he said “for hours without getting tired.” Then he asked me “what I was doing in Utah” I said “just came for fun.” Then for some strange reason I asked him if he wrote the first children’s book and he said “yes.” Then I asked him if he wanted to go to Arizona and see the wildlife and he said “yes.” We left at 6:00 pm. We got there at 9:00 so we went to the nearest hotel and waited (?) for an hour then went to bed. We got up at 9:00am then went downstairs for some breakfast then we went swimming for 30 minutes then got back in the car and went to see some wildlife. When we got there I decided to show Dr. Seuss my book. He looked over it for a long time then he started laughing and it started an earthquake then the earth cracked open and in the crack was water so Dr. Seuss must have cried a bit. Then everybody called it The Laughing Hole of Dr. Seuss but then some time in history they changed the name to the Grand Canyon and made a gift shop. And by the way I’m Casey Jones. Bye!

Honorable Mention for Creativity: Mackenzie Murray for “Bunny and Dodo.” This story isn’t exactly a fable or a tall tale, so I couldn’t give it one of the prizes, but I liked the characterization and the way Mackenzie showed the interactions between the characters. So I thought it was very creative and deserved to be mentioned with honor. I think this could be the story of how the bunny got its short tail…or maybe the story of how the dodo became extinct.

Bunny and Dodo

One day Dodo was walking up the stairs to Bunny’s bed. When he got to the top he was so tired he plopped down right in the center of the bed.

Then Bunny came in and started yelling, “Bed time! Bed time!” as he bounced on his bed. After he got that out of his system he started to fall asleep.

“Ow!” said Dodo.

The next day when Bunny woke up, he sat up and scratched his back.

Then Bunny grabbed Dodo and put him in his bed.

“Time to get dressed,” yelled Bunny an hour later.

So they went to their dressers and Dodo started to think about what to wear.

Dodo was deciding which pretty outfit to wear when Bunny’s dresser tumbled over!

Bunny tried to pick it up but it slipped out of his hands on to Dodo again.

Dodo crawled out and said, “I’ll sleep on the floor, Bunny.”

“Suit yourself,” said Bunny.

Just as Bunny fell asleep, Dodo began gnawing on Bunny’s long tail.

When Bunny woke up, he scratched his tail and let out a scream, “Eeeek!”

“Do you know what happened to my tail?” Bunny asked.

“I ate it,” said Dodo, quite impressed with himself.

Then, without warning, Bunny grabbed Dodo in his hand and ate him in one big gobble.

A few weeks later, Bunny’s family came for a visit. They asked, “How was Dodo?”

“He was delicious,” responded Bunny.

Writing Contest Winners…Third Place Tie!

As promised, here are the third place winners from the third grade at Grandview Elementary. Don’t forget you can leave a nice comment for them!

Third Place Winner: Dylan Frazzell for his tall tale “The Gods’ Creation,” a new take on greek mythology. Dylan, I especially enjoyed the modern-day jobs you gave to the gods and the tall tale ending of the story.

The Gods’ Creation

I bet you’ve heard the Greek myth, but this is the original. In the middle of the universe, three gods were born. Their names were Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. When their father, Kronos saw them, he ate them. The gods grew in his stomach until Zeus broke his brothers out. When they broke out, the brothers blasted him in pieces and threw him into Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. Not long after, the gods lived in LA and acted like mortals and forgot the fact that they were gods. Poseidon was a sailor, Hades was a bad guy, and Zeus was an electric engineer. But one day, they remembered that they were gods and they thought they needed a temple. Poseidon said, “I command a car,” but nothing happened. So he tried again. “I summon a flying car!” but still, nothing happened. So Poseidon called his brothers and said, “If you try to summon a vehicle, it won’t work.” So Poseidon summoned a horse, which went so fast it went faster than lightning.  Zeurs said, “I summon a bolt,” and Hades said “I summon a dead army,” and they flew to Athens, Greece to build their temple, but Zeus and Poseidon wanted a sky temple and Hades wanted a temple of the dead and he would rule. Zeus and Poseidon got so mad smoke flew out of their ears. Hades got punched so hard he hit the ground and caused an earthquake and they fought so hard they actually created Mount Olympus, and they lived happily until Hades got mad again.

Third Place Winner: Ryan Banda for “Pig in the Mud.” Ryan, I really like the way you kept the fable simple and had the main character learn a lesson with the help of another character. I think the illustrations are great too! I’m not sure that this was the original title of your story, so I’m sorry if I changed it somehow.

Pig in the Mud

Once upon a time there was a big pig. He loved to have mud baths but he never shared it. Everyone kept complaining about it. There was a mouse who lived under the house. The mouse was mad because he can’t get any sleep.

He was going to talk to the pig. He went out there and said, “What was the racket out here!” he yelled.

“Well, the cat and the duck were complaining for nothing.”

The mouse said “You were not sharing and you need to share.”

“Well I don’t want to!” the pig said.

“Well try sharing,” said the mouse.

So the next day when his friends passed by he said, “Do you want to be in here with me?”

They said… “YES.” So he let them go in!

Moral: Share your things. No matter what!

I’ll publish the honorable mention winners next week…stay tuned!

Writing Contest Winners! First and Second Place Winners!

I’m happy to announce the winners from the CBA writing contest for third-grade students from Grandview Hills Elementary School. Students submitted either an animal fable or a tall tale, and I have to tell you, there were some really good ones. It was hard to choose the winners, but I will be posting the ones that I thought were the best examples of either tall tales or fables. I’ll post them in a series. Today will be the first and second prize winners. Next time I’ll post the stories of the winners who tied for third place, and finally I will post all the stories that earned an honorable mention. Please feel free to leave a nice comment for any of these student authors, because they and their families will be checking this blog to see their published stories. School’s almost out for the summer, and this is a great end to a good year! Congratulations to all of you! I really liked your stories. Thank you for sharing them with me.

First Place Winner: Erin Houchins for her very tall tale, “Abraham Lincoln and Selena Gomez.” Great job, Erin, for having all the classic elements of a tall tale in your story along with a modern twist and lots of fun exaggeration.

Abraham Lincoln and Selena Gomez

I bet you’ve heard of Selena Gomez or Abraham Lincoln, sure they’re in stories, well have you heard one with both?

When Selena Gomez was born the world had an earthquake on all seven of the continents like North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Antarctica, Australia, and Africa!

After Selena was born she started walking! Her parents were so surprised they said, “She’s the only baby I know of that got up and started walking right after they were born!”

Astonished, Selena’s parents called the doctor (who was over in a flash) and said, “Nothing is wrong with her but it’s odd for her to be walking at this age and her pace.”

When Selena turned one she could speak full sentences and could sing an entire song! Her parents, again surprised, said “Should we call the doctor?” but before they could even pick up the phone Selena said, “You better not call him because he has to do all the tests on me.” After that Selena’s parents always spoke to each other in a whisper but every once in a while she would hear them whispering behind her back.

By the time Selena was two she could sing Fifty Nifty as well as a fifth-grader and her parents didn’t even know it! When little Selena was six years old she could sing a trillion songs and sounded as good as the writer who wrote the song and sung it! Selena’s parents were so shocked but surprised at the same time! But next they called American Idol and they thought she was twelve but when she showed up the judges thought she was so tiny and helpless she didn’t stand a chance, but when it came to be her turn she won first place, “WOW,” said the judges, “We thought she was so helpless but she is the most talented girl we’ve ever seen or heard!”

When Selena did turn twelve, her favorite subject was music and she was the music teacher’s favorite student out of the entire school and we’re talking middle school!

One day Selena was visiting the Museum of Natural History and stumbled upon a wax sculpture of Abraham Lincoln and accidentally went back in time and no time machine just her mind!

When she reached the time she accidentally went to, she was in the White House! With Abraham Lincoln! When Selena was wandering around when she stumbled across his office and Abraham was in it! “I’m so sorry, Mr. Lincoln, I should leave,” said Selena. “No, stay to have some tea,” Abraham said. “No thanks, I’m not a big tea fan.”

After that Selena went back to the room she appeared in and teleported back to her normal life but what she didn’t know is that Abraham teleported back with her! In the morning she was making breakfast and Abraham came down! “Could you make some tea for me?” he said. “How did you get here?” Selena said. “I went to follow you and you teleported with me back to the museum.” Abraham replied.

After they worked everything out, Selena Gomez went to her concert but Abraham came too! “Yes, he’s a relative that looks like Abraham Lincoln,” said Selena. “Go in, and hurry!” said the security guard. “Thanks, I gotta go!” said Selena.

When she got on stage she started singing so the crowd started screaming like crazy! The singing was so loud it traveled all the way to Mars and pushed a big crater into it but near it a huge mound of Mars was pushed up and magma spewed out the top!

Second Place Winner: Landen Kerns for another great tall tale, “Bombs Away.” Great job, Landen, for having lots of the elements of a classsic tall tale and for the unique way you chose to narrate the story.

Bombs Away

February 23, 1836. In the Alamo. Hi. I’m Davy Crockett. A little bit about myself. I wear a raccoon-skin cap, I’m tall, I’m thin, and I have brown hair. The Alamo is an old church. It’s dark, dusty, but could stand against a good fight. The Alamo was recently layed to siege by the Mexican army, led by Santa Anna. We’re fighting well, but we are wearing down. This might get ugly for us.

February 24, 1836. The Alamo. We recently discovered a cavern full of boiling hot lava underneath the Alamo. We are holding a council to decide what to do.

February 25, 1836. The Alamo. We have decided that to move the lava Sam Houston would dig miles of tunnel and I would shoot the lava to make it move.

February 26, 1836. Under the Alamo. We started digging today. I thought we were pointing in the wrong direction. Sam said no. Let me tell you about Sam. He is tall, white skin, white hair, and wears a suit like George Washington’s.

February 27, 1836. Middle of Nowhere. We dug in the wrong direction. We dug through Arizona and later a section collapsed, forming the Grand Canyon. We finally got going right.

February 28, 1836. Who knows where now. Still digging.

February 29, 1836. Mexico. We finally got the lava moved. We walked back to the Alamo. But when we got there, everyone was dead. We knew we had lost. We didn’t know it, but later the lava we moved erupted, forming the Paritucan volcano. Serves them right!

Stay tuned for the tied third-place winners…their stories will be posted soon, along with some illustrations.

The Early Days of Sir Kaye

Well, once upon a time, I was a dealing with a little writer’s block. So I gave myself a writing exercise that involved using all the words in the dictionary that started with a silent letter K in a short story. Here’s the result…I was just playing around when I wrote it…but I found it a few years later and someone read it and said to me, “What if K was a kid?” Then the wheels started turning…this is the scrap of writing that inspired the novel I am currently working on.

The Silence of the K’s

There once was a small English community, sometime between the 13th and 14th centuries AD, called Knox.  On a wooded knoll in the land of Knox lived a quick-witted Knight named K.  K was no ordinary Knight.  Unlike other Knights, K had a knack for knitting and became well known in the land for his knitting knowledge in addition to his quick wit.  The Queen of Knox heard of the Knight’s knitting knack and invited him to the castle for knackwurst and to see how much he really knew about knitting.

Thrilled with the invitation, the Knight put on his nicest knickers, packed his knapsack with his best knitting and a few knickknacks for the queen, and began his journey through the Knotted Woods to the castle.  Along the way, a young knock-kneed knave, brandishing a knife and brass knuckles, ambushed the Knight, demanding the knapsack.   With his knickers now in a twist, the Knight quickly knocked the young knave to his knees and then pulled out a knotted knitted knout and gave him a good flogging.  The Knight then warned the young knave that the next time would be the death knell for him if he didn’t change his ways.  Feeling like a knucklehead, the young knave took the Knight’s advice and acquired honest work kneading bread in the local bakery.

Arriving at the castle, the Knight was impressed by the massive knurled doors, a large gold knob, and a nifty brass knuckle shaped knocker.  Already tasting the knackwurst, the Knight knuckled down and began knocking immediately.  Upon entering the Queen’s chambers, the Knight kneeled, regaled the Queen with his wit, and then ate a hefty serving of knackwurst.  After eating his fill, the queen then asked, “So… are you the Knight with the knack for knitting?” The Knight replied “Why… yes, I am, Your Majesty.” To which the Queen said, “Then please, show me your knitting.”  Kneeling on his nicest knickers the Knight emptied his knapsack, presented the queen with a few knickknacks, and then proceeded to share with the Queen his knowledge of knitting.  The Queen was so impressed with the Knights knitting knowledge and quick wit, that she proclaimed K to be “the greatest Knit-Wit Knight in all the land of Knox.”  And in turn, declared that the name K should remain silent whenever used in the common language.  Obviously, this left K the Knight… Speechless!  Of course, the Queen of Knox gave the new proclamations plenty of time to gel.

Thus today, thanks to one Knight’s knack for knitting, we still experience the vestiges of the silent “K”.

The moral of this story is that if you are a writer, or if you are interested in being a writer, or if you live with a writer…you should NEVER throw away any little bit of writing…it may just come in handy sometime later on!

Teaching Young Readers to Read

When’s the last time you really looked at the words you were reading? Of course you have to look at them to read them, but did you look long enough to really see and feel the shapes of the letters and words? Probably not. And that’s okay. But I came across an interesting press release lately, and since one of the goals of Cardboard Box Adventures is to help parents help kids learn to love reading, I thought I’d share it with everyone. After all, an important step in helping kids learn to love reading is to make it as easy as possible for them to master the technical aspects of reading.

A recent study published in the journal Child Development highlighted the benefits of using certain methods while reading with kids to help them discover relationships between spoken and written words. The study focused on low-income children who were at risk for developing reading problems, but I believe these principles apply to all children who are learning to read.

According to this study, it is very important to draw your child’s attention to the shape of letters and words on the page. So here are a few tips from the study that I thought might be helpful, along with a little commentary from me:

Let your child look at the page as you read together. This has more of an impact on their reading skills than simply letting them hear you read aloud.
Draw their attention to different letters–have them trace the shapes with their fingers. Maybe if you’re reading an eBook together and can enlarge the text, this could be a great way to help them trace the shapes. They could also trace the shapes in the air with you.
Talk about a some different words that start with the letter you just traced, so kids can relate the shape of the letter to other words than the one on the page.
Point out the shapes of different words. Maybe you can have your child look for other examples of the same word on the page if possible.
Make sure your children know about the directionality of the type on the page. Many parents do this automatically as either they or their children or both together move their fingers from left to right across the page as they read. You can also ask your child where you are supposed to start reading each time you get to a new page and let them show you. Before you start reading that page, you can also ask them where you will stop reading on that page.

I have a feeling we do some of these things without even thinking about them as we read with our children. But I think it’s great news that some of these things we do instinctively have been proven to have a definite benefit to helping kids learn to read. So keep up the good work!