Teach Your Kids to Love to Read

Reading is important.  It's one of the first things the pediatrician tells parents when it comes to educational development.  Reading and providing reading opportunities to your kids is shown to increase their chances of success in school.  So how do you get your kids to love to read?  Here are several methods I'm currently using to get my daughters to love to read.

1.  Read to them every day!  Even if it's just one book or a few pages from a book you should make time to read to your kids each and every day.  This makes it part of their routine and they understand that it's an important part of the day, something that they do every day, possibly before bed or after dinner.

2.  Be excited when you read to your child.  Don't read to them in a monotone voice.  Change the pitch and volume of your voice.  Sound excited during exciting parts of the book.  Make faces or talk in weird voices. Anything you can do to make the story more exciting to your child is a plus.  If you are excited about reading to them, your children will be excited to be read to.

3.  Make children's books easily accessible to your children in your home.  I read somewhere awhile back that it's important to have books accessible for your kids at home.  By doing so, whenever your child gets the urge to read he or she doesn't have to ask for help in getting a book.  If you make it difficult for them to get a book in their hands, they are less likely to read.  At my house my daughters have books in each of their rooms, plus a row of books on a bookshelf in the living room.

Children's books in my house.

Both of my daughters grab and read these books all the time.  They are easily accessible at any time for them.

4.  Read your own books in front of your children.  Let your children know that you value reading too by letting them see you read your own book.  If you're reading from an e-reader, such as a Kindle or Nook, make sure your child understands that you are reading a book and not messing around on your phone or laptop.  It's not obvious to small children what an e-reader is.  If you have your own books, have them on display for your children to see.

My books!

Again, if your children see that you love reading, they are more likely to love reading.  Even if it's just a magazine or newspaper, any reading in front of your children will encourage them to read.

5.  Be flexible.  My oldest daughter loves to grab 5, 6, 7, or more books before bed and read them by herself.  This takes place after my wife and I have read her a couple of books.  She's learning several sight words, but can't officially read yet.  But I imagine she makes up her own story using the pictures and words that she knows.  At times this is irritating to Mommy and Daddy in the sense that she isn't going to bed at her bed time, but it's hard for us to say no to her.  We usually let her read for awhile and then if she's still up we make her put the books away.  Many nights she'll fall asleep surrounded by books in her bed!  The last thing we want to do is discourage her from reading.

6.  Take your kids to library...often!  Open them to a world of books they've never seen before.  I love it when my daughter picks out a science book, but I'll never force her to pick out science books only.  I'd much rather her explore different types of books.  After all, a part of science is exploring.  Many libraries have summer programs.  Take advantage of these for your child.  We try to head to the library at least once a week, sometimes 2 or 3 times during the summer months.  If it's too hot outside to play, head to the library to burn off some steam.  That's where we are headed today, and probably tomorrow given that today's high is supposed to hit 101 F and tomorrow is 103 F.

Those are just a few things I do to encourage my daughters to read.  My oldest daughter loves books and loves to read.  She's always asking about going to the library.  My younger daughter (2 this month) is a little impatient when it comes to books.  She loves flipping through the pages herself, but tends to get distracted by other things when we read to her.  Hopefully this is a phase that will go away.

If you have other methods you use to encourage reading, please let me know.  As a parent, I'm always excited to discover new parenting methods.