The way we read together

When my son was little, he would collect a stack of books at bedtime for us to read together. We would talk about the story and ask questions (which he would ask me to wait until the end of the book for questions because they interrupted the story). We would lay together on his bed and make our way through the stack until it was time to turn off the light.

When he entered Kindergarten, they offered a reading program online that could track a child's progress. While I appreciated that it gave children a wider access to books and could offer progressively harder stories, it started to interrupt our reading together time.

The online program made it difficult for my son and I to read together. He would get distracted by the device, or it would narrate words he had difficulty with and it wasn't as much fun to hold a device as it was to turn the pages. I was mad that I was replaced. 

I talked to the teacher about limiting his use of it. She agreed because he was reading so much at home already. And my son and I figured out a balance of his reading online on their program but keeping real books around.

And now I feel slightly justified in talking to the teacher about limiting his interaction with it: Physical books are better than electronic books for toddlers. Granted, the study on that link was for toddlers and not for Kindergartners (as my son was at the time), but I think the same principles apply when reading together at any age: Paper books are more fun for us to share.

Do you prefer to read on a device or with a physical book? Tell me in the comments.