Selected Podcast

Encore Episode: Fostering a Love of Reading

It’s imperative to encourage reading in your family.

Reading to your young child can boost vocabulary and reading skills before entering school. Cultivating a love of reading in your older children can open up a world of imagination and opportunity.

Time spent reading with your infant is actually conversation time. You can still read the words in the board book, but interact with your child by talking about the pictures.

Make time to read as a family. Younger children will enjoy the tale. Look up information about topics with older children to learn more about the story.

Build excitement for reading by taking your child to get a library card. Encourage older children to belong to a book club. Share books that are meaningful to you so you can discuss them. Make reading important in your home.

Listen as Dr. Corinn Cross joins Melanie Cole, MS, to share how you can create lifelong readers.

Book recommendations from Dr. Cross:

Picture books
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba (teenager from Malawi who makes a windmill and helps save his village)
Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews (famous musician as a child)
The Little Piano Girl by Mary Lou Williams (Jazz legend as a child)
Salt in His Shoes (Michael Jordan as a child )
Goodnight Gorilla
Sam’s Sandwich

Young Readers
The Rickshaw Girl 
Anne of Green Gables 
Little Women 
Little House in the Big Woods (the Little House on the Prairie series)
Fudge series and Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
Pippi Longstocking
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda by Roald Dahl
Chronicles of Narnia
A Wrinkle in Time
Secret Garden
Wolves of Willougby Chase
The Little Princess
Harry Potter series 
Rebecca
Wonder by RJ Palacio (about a boy with facial anomalies -- going to be a movie soon)
Encore Episode: Fostering a Love of Reading
Featuring:
Corinn Cross, MD
Dr. Cori Cross 2017Dr. Corinn Cross was born and raised in New Jersey. She attended Barnard College where she graduated cum laude and majored in philosophy. She went on to attend the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, NJ, where she was selected for the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. Dr. Cross did her internship and residency in pediatrics at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Dr. Cross has continued to work at CHLA as a general pediatrics attending.

Dr. Cross is actively involved in her local AAP, Chapter 2, where she is an obesity champion. She is co-founder of the Fit to Play and Learn Obesity Prevention curriculum. Through a collaboration between AAP Chapter 2 and the L.A. Unified School District this curriculum is being used to educate at-risk students and their parents on the risks of obesity and to help them to lead healthier lives. Dr. Cross is an AAP Spokesperson and speaks to children throughout the L.A. school district about obesity, healthy lifestyles and the benefits of walking to school.

Dr. Cross is a member of the Executive Board for the AAP's Council on Communications and Media. She is the Editor of the Council on Communications and Media's blog.