Reading is one of the most basic competencies children need to learn to succeed. Good reading skills benefit students academically and play a significant role in their lifelong success. Reading not only helps develop vocabularies, but also increases attention span and promotes stronger analytical thinking.
Although encouraging children to read has been a challenge as long as there have been kids and books. Reading is essential in education and the modern corporate world where most communication takes place digitally, over email and text-based messaging systems. Literacy to understand and communicate effectively is essential and must be taught at a young age.
As per a study, more than 17,000 people stated that students who read for pleasure did better with their vocabulary and spelling and math. The connection was four times stronger than that of students whose parents had graduate-level degrees. However, the question is, what about those who do not read much?
This article brings quite a few tips and strategies to bring into practice to get your kids to read more.
Set an Example
Kids often learn from their parents, and to get your kids interested in reading, you would have to act as a role model and read in front of your child. Watching you read books, magazines or newspapers will show your child the importance of reading. Encourage your kid to join you with their book as you read.
Read to Your Child from the Earliest Age
Reading to your child from the earliest age help develop reading habits into them. Prefer to buy either board books or cloth books as some of your kid's first toys. Set a "reading hour" in which you both get into a comfy environment and associate love and cuddling with reading.
If this is not possible, grab a book and read to your child any time after lunch or breakfast or any suitable "cosy time" that you spend with your kids.
Establish a Connection Between Reading and Real Life
Rather than reading books casually, make your child apply what he or she is reading to everyday life. Establish connections between books and your child's own experience. Such practice can help increase his or her interest in reading.
Place Varieties of Book
Mixing up your child's reading material is also a great way to interest your kids in reading. Reading matter even if kids are not reading books almost every day. Magazines or newspapers count in, so consider keeping the library full of a variety of reading materials. You may also set a digital library. Today, the majority of libraries have a digital media lending section. Visit and check whether your nearby library has "Electronic Library" or "Digital Media" sections and if found, get your kids indulged in digital reading. Digital books are so fun and affordable!
Watch Book-Based Series
The best way to make kids addicted to reading is to have them "fall" for a series based on the book. This way, they become curious to read more, they look forward to learning more about the topics, and they want to track their favourite characters through more adventures. Additionally, watching series based on books leads to major discussions, including the age-old question of what was better and why; how would you respond to the hero's situation? etc. If your child is not much impressed by the series, read the book first (which has a series). Later, watch the series together make them explore the topics. This would generate their interest in reading.
Organize Reading Challenge
Another best way to get your kids into reading is to run reading challenges. It is worth checking out because many families include a "reading challenge" that adds push to get rolling.
You may also create your family reading challenge where each family member reads several books each week; everyone can do something fun together over the weekend. The objective may be to record read hours or read chapters, read magazine articles, or complete a series; it may be all as you wish. The family's involvement as a whole, boosting competition, is excellent at making kids read.
Develop a Reading Culture at Your Home
Creating a reading culture at home naturally becomes a part of your daily routine. This may include cuddling in bed with early risers and sharing a book or reading news headlines to your kids in the morning, enjoying a story during snack time, partaking in family reading time where each member looks at a book own or together or relishing in books at bedtime.
Make Books Accessible
It is strongly recommended to make the books accessible to your kids. Set up a small library at home, place magazines or newspapers near the dining table, have some in the car-make them accessible to almost every corner they come across. It is good to have your children's favourite books or magazines visually appealing to their eye level to generate a curiosity to read.
Teach Respect for Books
The things we value are the things we care about. This goes in reverse, too. Teach your kids to keep books respectfully; teach them to take good care of books; they will see them as having "value." Instruct them not to write anything on the book, avoid folding down the pages, be careful around food, etc. The things we value are the things we care about. It works inside out, too. Teach your kids to keep books respectfully; teach them to take good care of books; they will see them as having "value." Ask them not to write anything on the book, avoid folding down the pages, be careful around food, etc.
Help Your Kid Advance to the Next Level
Choose a book you want your child to read. The chosen book can probably be a little more difficult than the children could choose themselves. Read together at least a quarter of the book, so your child becomes addicted. Then, have your child read the rest.
Sit down with him/her to assist as needed, anytime. Furthermore, if the child cannot address the difficulties, lower one level to a slightly simpler book. Keep picking up interesting, slightly harder books.
Use Audiobook
In this highly digitized era, shifting to audiobooks from physical books is a great alternative to bring your kids to read as audiobooks counts in as reading and help children do it better.
Whether you read aloud to your kids or get the audiobook to do the same impacts kids differently. Hearing someone read a book with confidence is excellent to help them experience fluency, the capability to read texts correctly, quickly and with a good expression. You may borrow an audiobook at your library or get a free listening app at Audible.com.
What are your thoughts? How do you encourage your child to read more?
