Stress-Busting Holiday Reading Tips for Families

To make reading a part of your holiday traditions, try some of these fun literacy activities.

Encourage your child to create bookmarks to enclose in a gift book or to mark the place in your own book where you leave off during read-aloud time.
Ask your child to help with holiday shopping. Have him or her write out the list and then read the items aloud as you peruse the aisles together.
Give your child a complementary book to traditional holiday gifts, such as a book on juggling and several brightly colored balls; a book about fossils and a bag of plaster of Paris; or a book about stamp collecting and a stamp album.
When it's time for holiday baking, ask your child to read the recipe aloud to you. While the cookies are in the oven, read a short book together.
Suggest that your child’s teacher turn the classroom holiday gift exchange into a book exchange.
Help your child make his or her own holiday gifts for family and friends by following the directions in a how-to-book.
Ask your child to help you write out gift nametags. Use extra large gift tags for tiny hands!
Encourage your child to volunteer to read to residents in a local retirement home or hospital.
Give a bookstore gift certificate as a holiday present so your child can select a new book on his or her own. Read the book together.
Visit the library and pick out some holiday favorites for festive family reading all season long.