School starts. For most moms, back-to-school a sigh of relief and a groan of responsibility! Every family seems to have at least one child who is reading averse. If so, you may be moaning, too! Anna Krafve Pierce joined me this week with some fun ways to boost your child’s reading confidence with maps and signs.
Maps and Signs
“I love maps. And I absolutely believe they are more fun to read than other things. Because inevitably maps have monsters and treasure at the end. They’re so exciting.”
Anna, our artist daughter, called some of her projects, “TV art” because drawing and painting kept her from being bored while the family watched TV when she was a child.
One night, she made a map of the United States of America with sea creatures and all kinds of traditional cartographic embellishes.
One small problem. Florida was on the left.
“The whole thing was backwards. Mirror image. Not the words, just the continent,” she laughs. Of course, our family wasn’t the least bit surprised. Anna always had a knack for seeing the world from a different perspective.
Maybe you, too, are raising a child who looks at life in a fresh new way. Perhaps , your child’s brain isn’t tracking as well as you’d like when it comes to reading.
Moderation and Good Planning
While we’re on the topic of how maps and sign can steer us in the right direction, I wanted to talk about moderation as a truly lovely character quality. I know moderate gets a bad rap in some political circles, so we’re reclaiming this beautiful word.
Camp Krafve Definition of Moderate—the lifelong process of judiciously take into account other people’s perspective, while maintaining one’s own integrity.
Like a compass, moderation helps us understand where we are in the world and where we want to go. Like maps and signs, moderation helps us maintain our integrity, that is our sense of being right where we belong.
Certainly, we hope this definition of moderate will help you navigate any uncomfortable conversations with election approaching.
Reading Maps
Anna and I fully believe maps and signs are a great way to coach kids on how symbols convey meaning, just like the crazy squiggles called letters convey words and ideas.
“Maps are like a puzzle and I love puzzles. You have to figure out how all things relate spatially to each other, “ Anna explains.
She even points to some renaissance maps with inaccurate proportions.
“But you can still them. The mileage might not be recorded accurately but you know what’s coming next because it’s pictured on the map.” Often the pictures were disproportionate, too, but they still conveyed information to long-ago navigators.
Making Maps and Signs Fun
Maps can be fun for kids. Shhh. We won’t tell the kids they are learning!
“I remember we used to make maps of each others’ houses in the neighborhood,” Anna reports, “And we would use them to plot how we were going to get from our kitchen to the neighbor’s kitchen without getting caught by any of the parents. Or to sneak up on one of our friends. Whatever game was going on in our heads, to fight the villains with our super powers.”
Anna, her sister and their neighborhood friends marked everything on their maps, giving each feature a special name or designation. (Shout out to the Glaskes, now all grown up with families of their own.)
“Somebody’s pond might be the volcano,” she adds with a laugh.
Of course. Why not?
But I’ll Never Read! It’s Too Hard!
Ironically, I remember telling my first grade teacher, Mrs. Russell, reading was too hard for me; it was not going to be part of my life. She looked down at me with a gentle smile.
“Oh yes, you will learn to read.” Mrs. Russell was right; I was wrong. Not the last time I’ve been wrong.
Just FYI, in case your child is discouraged, some of the biggest book nerds I know started life as slow readers.
A Sight Word for LOVE
I still like symbols, like hearts as symbols for love, for instance. A sight word for love.
If your child is struggling to read, Anna and I brainstormed a few ways to use maps and signs to make reading a fun.
- Pull out some maps or encyclopedias and just play with them. Anytime I suggest encyclopedias, young mommies can substitute google maps and the internet. Anna and her siblings chuckle about my loyalty to encyclopedias. BTW, encyclopedias are really cheap these days, if you can find them.
- Cut up old maps and paste them back together in a collage.
- Make shapes and letters out of old maps.
- Anna strongly encourages you to make your own maps. “Mark you couch, your kitchen and put a little dotted trail and let your kids see if they can figure that map out and find the treasure,” she says.
- Scoop up free maps whenever you see them. Where to get them? Old contour maps from Energy companies, Chamber of Commerce tourist maps, save them from hotels after your trip, antique store advertisements or other businesses often offer them for customers.
- Look for letters in signs to spell words.
- Stop for treats whenever someone finds an unusual kind of sign. Or the first time a toddler recognizes a symbol on a sign, stop the car and do a happy dance in a parking lot.
- Make silly signs around the house with sticky notes.
- Leave a mystery heart on a neighbor’s door.
Cardinal Direction
In our conversation, Anna used the term, “Cardinal direction.” I looked it up because, well, I wasn’t sure what in the world she meant.
Cardinal direction: The four cardinal directions are north, south, east and west. These directions use the rising and setting of the sun as reference points. Okay, that was so much easier than I thought.
One day, Anna’s young son noticed the N on her rearview mirror and wondered why it switched to an E suddenly.
“Mom, what’s the N on the mirror? Now it’s an S. What is that?”
Her son is trying to figure out about driving because he knows he wants to drive some day, according to Anna. So, he’s noticing the parts of the car. And her children are beginning to read signs.
She explained to him about cardinal directions. As they talked, he made an awesome discovery.
“Eventually, his little brain connects that N sounds like N, N, North!”
It’s so thrilling when your kids begin to sound out the letters. Connecting the words with the symbol.
Finding Your Way
Since her son loves flashlights and gadgets, Anna got him a compass.
“It’s such a confidence builder. You are learning to figure out where you are so you don’t have to be lost. If you can read, if you can read cardinal directions, you don’t have to be lost,” says Anna.
Maps and Signs: Letting God Direct Our Path
As Anna and I talked about how maps and signs help us find our way, we couldn’t forget one of our family’s favorite verses, Proverbs 3:5-6.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”
Naturally, whenever any one reflects His goodness and mercy, our lives become a sign of His glory. It’s like we take out a billboard that’s says, “As weak and sinful as I am, God is great.”
“And the more you practice that, the more easily our hearts trust and have faith in the next turn in the road,” Anna adds.
Moderate: Reading Maps and Signs Well
Of course, most of us when we plan a trip don’t just go about it willy nilly. We get gas, we might buy a guidebook or put an address in an app. If we have toddlers, we pack snacks. We note how long it will take us to get there. Then, we pack lots more snacks.
Just like planning a trip, to moderate ourselves means to carefully take into account many ideas, be judicious, and objective, rather than going off in some wild direction.
To be moderate means you’re careful. You respect others’ perspectives, commit to your own integrity, and then move ahead.
Of course, we all face inevitable detours. Whether it’s a child who can’t seem to read. Or our plan for our family. Something always seems to pop up unexpectedly. Or maybe we feel free one day and take a spontaneous day trip.
But our steady faith in God can be a sign to others, especially our kids and grandkids, that God exists and he is good.
Every day, we’re teaching our kids to observe and to read the signs for faith.
Thank YOU!
God is really blessing us here at Camp Krafve. I’ve been getting more calls to speak and that makes my heart happy. Please pray for an upcoming ladies’ conference at a nearby church.
Plus, our son is engaged. Well, honestly, I find that last one distracting in a good way. I’m having trouble focusing, even to write.
Just when I think it’s silly for me to keep doing this someone says just the right thing to tell me God is still in the process. Like the sweet friend who sought us out last week to pray with David and I specifically for our kids, grandkids, and YOU! Wow! What kindness!
I guess you could say YOU are my sign of God’s goodness!
🙂
cathy
We LOVE to hear from YOU!
When has God directed you in a surprising way? How have maps been a blessing in your family? When was the last time you dug for treasure with your kiddos?
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May we pray together?
Dear good Father, You amaze us with the plans You have for us. Stuff we’d never dream up in a million years. Yet, here we are together with You, doing crazy wonderful things! Help us look to You as we nurture our children and give another generation a love of reading. Teach us how to give them the ability to read and LOVE Your words, dear Lord. For any kids struggling to read, Father, I ask a special blessing of tenderness and patience and creativity on their parents and teachers. Fill them with Your creative Spirit. Bless us now because that is Your heart’s desire. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
More Favorite Quotes
“Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” ~Alexander Hamilton
“Map out your future – but do it in pencil. The road ahead is as long as you make it. Make it worth the trip.” ~Jon Bon Jovi
“Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.” ~Saint Augustine
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Cathy Krafve, host of Fireside Talk Radio and author of The Well: The Art of Drawing Out Authentic Conversations and Marriage Conversation: From Coexisting to Cherished. Your stories, ideas, and questions welcomed here!
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