10 Ways to Get Your Children Reading
Reading readiness is one of the most valuable parts of a child’s development. With the influx of electronic attention grabbers this isn’t as easy a process as it may have once been. Whether your children are beginning their reading journey or they’ve already launched, your whole family can benefit from and enjoy a variety of reading activities. This list of 10 ways to get your children reading can get you started.
- Trick them into reading with a board game. Boggle and Scrabble are especially great for building vocabulary and they’ll have so much fun playing they won’t notice they’re learning in the process.
- Encourage nightly story time. Children imitate behavior, so if they see parents or siblings with an interest in reading they will likely follow. Additionally, reading from chapter books each night creates excitement around what happens next and helps children develop prediction skills.
- Start a family library and encourage your children to pick books to add to the shelves.
- Cook! Let your children pick a recipe then read and follow the instructions. Nothing makes reading more fun than a delicious snack waiting at the end.
- Label things around the house, especially the things your children use the most. This helps children start to identify words with objects.
- Write directions to the grocery store or to school and ask your children to navigate. This not only helps with reading aloud, it helps with directional awareness.
- Write messages to your children. Leave a short note in their lunch boxes or stick one to their bedroom doors.
- Read a book and then watch the movie. Ask your children if they noticed any differences between the two.
- Surprise your children with non-fiction books about their favorite interests. Puppies, lizards, trains or beading — this will get them reading and learning new facts.
- Bring your children to Bookmans! Let your child pick out books of their own interest. Sign up for our Kids Club discount or attend a Story Time at any of our locations. We’d love to help your child on the road to great reading.
It’s never too early or too late to foster a love of reading. Reading should be fun and we recommend you find “just right” books for your children and for you.
