Are you reading to your kids? No I mean, really reading to your kids to foster Creative Writing skills?

I have been informed by my boys teachers that they need to either be read too (my youngest) or be more creative thinkers (both).  Like what?  They have vivid imaginations and we read to them every night (seldom does a day go by that we do not read 3-10 books with them).

So, what is up?

We read to them but we are not always analyzing the book and breaking it down.  For my youngest, this means asking him to explain:

1. What happened in the beginning of the story?  Who is the story about?  What is the location and situation?
2. What happened in the middle?  What as the problem that occurs to the characters?  How did you think they might solve this?  (Ask that last one in a new book only part way through when the problem is presented and watch their imagination run wild, you hope.)
3. What happened in the end?  Was that good for the characters?  What would you do?

So, ok, we are reading but are we reading and analyzing the books in depth?  I would have to say no.  So that is something that has been added to our routine.  The number of books has gone down but the quality of our reading will go up I hope.

For my older son, he has to cover the same issues but we need to ask more open ended questions so that he can come up with creative answers to them.  We have a couple books that ask such questions at the end and I will lean on those a bit.

So far that has gone well.  Only tired that a little bit so far.  What can I say, we are more math oriented parents.  Math comes easier to us and hence the creative writing/thinking is something I am struggling with a bit.

I'll post more as I find other things that work with this area.