Forcing your child to read is lot like making him eat brussel sprouts. He’ll do it when you’re there, but once your back is turned everything goes under the table. Give your child some credit. Show him how wonderful, how exciting, how limitless books can be, and voila! He will love books with the same focus and passion he directs to playstation and computer games.
But how exactly can you accomplish this?
1. Make the reading environment pleasurable.
Reading must be associated with something fun and beneficial. Try setting aside a specific hour each week when the whole family can relax in one room with his or her own book, then build up hype with plenty of enthusiastic group preparation. Announce your plans the day before, and then have each member of the family choose a book and place it in designated “Reading Basket” On the day itself, make popcorn together, or simply talk about your books over breakfast. “I love that book because my mother used top read it to me when I was a child,” or “I pick this book because the cover looked interesting.” And during the activity, don’t hesitate to show the book’s effect on you: laugh, sigh, cry, read aloud favorite parts. Then afterwards, discuss among yourselves. “What was your book about? What do you like about the story? What happened to the princess in the end?” Not only will this help your family bond, it will introduce junior to the concept of reading as something to be enjoyed and relished.
2. Make reading seem natural-through yourself.
Now that he sees reading as special, he also has to see it as something to be done every day-while waiting for dinner, listening to music, getting a haircut. But how can this happen when the only time junior sees you reading is when you’re scowling at the at the newspaper? Browse through Magazine while waiting for his favorite cartoon show, read aloud postcard you get from friends, share with him the recipes you follow in the cookbook. “Look, son, doesn’t this cake look good? Now I’m going to bake it. Want to help?” be a vivid, active example and both of will benefit from efforts. After all, you are the most important figure is his life, and if first word is “mama” he should also get his love for words from” Mama.”
3. Make TV and the computer your allies
He watched Jurassic Park seven times? Buy him a book on dinosaurs. Plays Nintendo for hours on end? Look up “microchip” in the encyclopedia together. Loving Walt Disney movies isn’t bad in itself, as long as it prompts him to read the original fairy tales and a few nature books on the animals that portrayed them.
4. Expose them to all kinds of topics and print, media.
Don’t allow your child to see books only in the context of school or Archie and friends. Pore through National Geographic, Dr. Seuss, Enid Blyton, juvenile paper bucks, and comic version of school classics like Huckleberry Finn. The more books he’ll read, the more books he’ll like.
5. Get him involved in the book.
He doesn’t like the ending of the little Mermaid? Help him write a new one. He loved the story of Peter Pan? Bring him to a museum on Aerodynamics. Just as TV and the computer should lead him to discover books, books should lead him discover himself. Be sure to ask follow-up questions that will connect the story to his own life.” What would you do if your nose started to grow like Pinocchio’s? Rafunzel felt lonely in her tower… do you over feel lonely too?” and don’t turn every story into a vehicle for morals, while fables and bible stories occupy indispensable seats in a child’s reading library, whimsical adventure books encourage equally important values like interaction and imagination. (Some suggestions: George’s Wonderful Medicine, James and Giant Peach, Charlie and Chocolate Factory, What I saw on Mulberry Street.)
6. Buy him books on topics he loves, setting he knows, and experiences he can relate to.
The best way to achieve suggestion number five is to give him books that can somehow relate to. While Ugly Duckling’s countryside setting can be picturesque and informative, a story about Cars and Palm trees are familiar enough for him to ask you repeatedly to bring him to Zoo, buy him a book on animals. If he’s jealous of his new baby sister, look for a story that will help him overcome it. Show your child that reading can be extension to the things
He knows and loves, a doorway that allows him to explore his worlds with much more vivid understanding and freedom, and more importantly, to release and come to terms with the feeling and fears that this own world can sometimes terrifyingly unleash.
Suggested Reading:
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