Making Reading Fun with Disney Story Central!

As a kid I loved to read and I would read anything I could get my hands on.  I always had my nose buried in a book–in fact, when I was in middle school I was told not to bring a book to school because I would rush through my lessons just to be able to read my book.

I loved to visit the bookstore and I loved when we got to order books for school fundraisers and as a parent I want to instill the love of reading that I had as a kid in my kids.

As a homeschooling parent, it is a source of pride for me that 3 of my kids are now independent readers (with another one quickly getting there!) but the struggle now is to keep enough age appropriate reading materials in the house to keep them all happy.  It is also tough when we travel because with 5 kids in the car space is at a premium and we can’t take lots of books with it.

That is one of the reasons I love having electronic devices for my kids.  They can download reading materials, books and games and they are happy in the car for hours but it can be tough to find options that work for my kids because they are all at different reading levels.  I was thrilled to recently find out about Disney Story Central, which is the largest collection of Disney digital stories, and it is available for iPhone, iPad, tablet optimized website and Video-on-Demand.

Making this service ideal for my family is that you can customize it for each member of your family, setting up reading levels by age and favorite characters, reading recommendations and reward systems designed to encourage your child to read even more. Characters such as Disney Princesses, classic Disney characters, new favorites such as Frozen, Doc McStuffins, Cars and more.  My kids loved being able to chose their own books and it was great because my older kids could read them by themselves while my younger two could have the books read to them–and did you know that having books read to them is important for beginning and emerging readers by teaching them word recognition and fluency.

The read aloud feature really came in handy recently when we were going on vacation and were in the car for 3+ hours.  My 3 year old really loved seeing and hearing all of her favorite Disney characters come to life through the Disney Central App on my iPad.

You can chose to access the expansive library with a subscription service of just $7.99 a month or download individual books through Disney Book Tokens.

Make sure to check out this great program for yourself and your kids this summer by checking out the Disney Story Central website here or visiting the iTunes store here.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.