My daughter’s school is having a Read-a-Thon called the Knights Crusade for Literacy. That’s one of those activities where people pledge either a one-time amount or a per book amount and the person being sponsored reads during the given time. This particular Read-a-Thon, because it’s in lower grades, allows for chapters in a chapter book, newspaper articles, comic books, small books, and other similar things to count as one book.

The money for this Read-a-Thon will be going to [...]

“Huh? Read to write?”

Well, yeah. Here are five simple facts about how reading makes your writing better:

1. Reading increases your vocabulary. That should speak for itself. But if it doesn’t, let me explain. If you increase your vocabulary you can begin to sound like all of those other authors that seem to write with a thesaurus in hand. But that just sounds pompous and arrogant, right? Yes. It can. But when done right, what it does is [...]