Welcome back to Literacy Musing Mondays. This week we have a guest post on “mindful reading.” Encouraging children to concentrate on reading is tough. Vasantha shares her techniques to help children focus on learning and retaining what they read.

Vasantha follows Hinduism, the religion she was born into, but has great regard for the teachings of Buddha about meditation.  This “meditation” although similar differs from the Christian practice of “prayer.”  The Apostle Paul encouraged Christians “to pray without ceasing” and to “think themselves happy.”  The Buddhist focus on positive thinking while the Christian focus on Christ and the power He bestows on us to overcome negativity. We both have deep spiritual practices. I hope you read her full post by going to her blog too. I hope this post will help us to better understand one another.

Will Mindful Reading Help Kids To Concentrate?

By Vasantha Vivek

 

Mindfulness is a buzzword these days. From mindful eating to mindful parenting, mindful walking to mindful talking is the getting viral these days.

Mindfulness is about focusing on whatever is happening moment-by-moment without being judgmental. In mindfulness meditation, you actively choose to control where your mind goes. It’s simply focus on the present rather than worrying about the past or dreaming about the future.

Buddhism teaches to meditate all day–throughout all your daily activities. do all activities in a day mindfully and when you become aware that you are not into present, take a deep breath and come back to your present and continue.

We can also encourage kids to be more mindful in all activities they do. They have to get the idea of being present and how it can help to deal with stress and improve concentration.

Developing mindfulness in kids leads them to success in life. The simple benefits of mindfulness are more connection to themselves, more thoughtful with their actions, and better regulation of their emotions and behavior. Mindfulness teaches them to take a deep breath when things get tough, and deal with life one breath at a time.

Mindful Reading

When kids are not doing mindful reading, then they lack concentration. They get bored. They will get more distracted. So let us explore the ways to introduce Mindful Reading into your kids.

These are the prompts that readers are struggling to concentrate:

• The voice of the reader gets monotonous without feelings or emotions.
• The reader can no longer visualize the images of his reading.
• The reader’s mind begins to wander.
• The reader cannot remember or retell what has been read.
• The reader is not able to answer the questions.
• The reader cannot correlate the characters.
• The reader won’t move forward in reading.
• The reader starts throwing tantrums.
• The reader starts to tell imaginary stories.
• The reader lacks interest in reading.

Now it’s the right time to explain how being mindful at their reading can make it more enjoyable. Even if they are doing something unpleasant — like studying a difficult subject — by accepting that moment without developing anger or daydreaming of hanging out with friends, it becomes more manageable and less stressful. So tell them,

“When you read, you are actually producing sounds, images, and feelings in your mind. Reading simply becomes Mindful Reading when you have that awareness of what is produced in your mind by the book you read. You’re developing concentration when you always bring your mind back to your breath while reading.”

To finish reading her helpful tips on Simple Steps For Mindful Reading head on over to Vasantha’s post.

More about Vasantha:

Vasantha is a happy woman, daughter, sister, wife, mother, teacher, friend, mentor, seeker and lover. Teaching is my profession. She has served as a professor at an Engineering College for nearly 16 years. She writes, “I learnt a lot and hope I had inspired some hearts during this period. Teaching is my passion, reading and writing is my love, cooking is my heart. I enjoy reading and writing very much. I start & end my days with reading.”

 You can connect with her on her blog, My Sweet Nothings, at Indian Moms Connect, Monsoon Breeze, Parnetous, Facebook, and Twitter.

 

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Now on to our weekly Literacy Musing Monday’s linkup. First let’s

Leslie@Forever Joyful  Blog/Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Google+Mary @Maryandering Creatively  Blog/Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/ Instagram/Google+Tami @ThisMomsDelight    Blog/Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter/Instagram/Google Plus 

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Now let’s celebrate reading and learning by reviewing:

Last Week’s Top Clicked Post!

My Favorite Post of the Week:

Figurative Language RoundUp

By Heather at HOJO’s Teaching

This is a great post for homeschoolers or mom’s who want to supplement what their preschoolers and kindergarten students are learning in class. Heather complied 15 neat ideas that you can implement in your classroom immediately because they are all FREE! She also included a list of books to help you teach your students as well.  I really love the cute books she featured.

Remember to check out other hosts’  blogs to see which posts from last week were their favorites.

Want to be the next to be featured! Just link up a post and if you are read the most, we will feature you. Also please make sure you link back to us so  others will know about our link up and join in. We try to make it worth your while to linkup with us by promoting your posts across our social media networks. We also pin our most clicked and featured posts to our Pinterest Board each week!

Follow Mary Hill’s board Literacy Musing Mondays Linkup on Pinterest.   

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Now, it is time to link up to the Literacy Musing Mondays hop! You will have until Saturdays at 12 p.m. now to link up! So come back often.

Linkup Rules:

1. Include a link back or the blog hop button linked to this hop on your posts.
2. Link up the urls to your posts not to your blog.
3. Please remember this is a family-friendly linkup.  Although we believe in the right for adults to read whatever they want to read, we prefer to read wholesome posts that feature literature that edify and uplift families. We reserve the right to delete any posts that are not family friendly. We love all kinds of literature and genres including family-friendly inspirational romances, fantasy, or science fiction. We do not welcome posts featuring books or written with excessive violence, sexual content, or cursing. These posts will be deleted.
4. We also want to be loving community by supporting one another. Please make a point to do this this week! Visit the two posts before yours and at least one other blogger’s post of your choice! I want to see lots of clicks on everyone’s posts. I know as a blogger, you know how it feels not receive comments, right. 🙂 Plus, you could be honored as our Top Commentor if you submit your report to Mary! Remember it is also nice to follow them on their social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
5. Follow your hosts and co-hosts on their social media.
6. Tweet about the link up too.

[tweetthis]Come join the fun! Link up your family-friendly, book- or literacy-related posts at #LMMLinkup ![/tweetthis]

Let’s Celebrate Reading and Learning together this week at Literacy Musing Mondays!

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This post is for letter M in the 2016 A to Z Blogging Challenge. Learn more about it here.

I will also join several of the hops listed on my Link-up Parties page.

Joining several of the hops listed on my Link-up Parties page.