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11 Key Tips to Make Your Child Love Reading

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“Help! My child doesn’t love reading. I’m I doing something wrong?” It might not be what you’re doing wrong as a mother but what you may not be doing at all. One thing we know about children is that they love to have fun in anything they do, and reading is not an exception. If it’s not fun, then you might as well count them out. There’s no need to switch to panic mode—just try out the key tips in this article and your child will fall in love with reading. But someone may ask—why should kids read for fun? I will tell you.
  • It enhances their academic success: Children who read for fun and pleasure often perform better academically.
  • It builds empathy: Reading about different characters, and situations develop empathy in children as they come to understand emotions and different perspectives of life.
  • Development of vocabulary: Reading a lot of books will expose the child to a variety of words, thereby developing their vocabulary and language proficiency.
  • Boost creativity and imagination: Fictional stories expand children’s imagination, curiosity and creativity. The more they read, the more they want to create their own stories, too.
  • Promotes life-long learning: Developing a love for reading from an early age promotes life-long learning, a continuous thirst for knowledge and love for reading throughout the adult years.
  • It also builds cognitive abilities in children, which improves their language skills.
  • It’s quite relaxing and provides an escape from stress for young people.
Now you know why it should be fun; let’s see the key tips.

Key Tips:

1. Ensure the book is the right reading level

If you give your child a book that has too many difficult words for their age, they would struggle to read it and find it boring. At the same time, if you give them a book that is far below their reading level, they might not find it challenging and may drop it. You need to know their reading level and let them read books that are synonymous to that level. But how do you know your child’s reading level? First, you can ask your child’s class teacher to make recommendations. They are acquainted with your child’s interest and reading ability. Second, you can try out the Five-finger test with your child:
  • Select a book.
  • Flip to a page in the middle of the book.
  • Tell your child to read that page aloud.
  • If your child does not know a particular word on that page or is not sure of a word, tell your child to lift up a finger.
  • If there are five or more words that your child does not know then he/she should choose another book.
  • Note that you can use this rule on two or more pages just to be double sure.
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Summary of the five-finger test: 0-1 fingers: It’s too easy. 2-3 fingers: It’s just right. 4-5 fingers: It’s too hard (or read aloud with someone)

Other ways for assessing your child’s reading level include: Guided reading levels (GRL), Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), Lexile measurement, and Accelerated reader (AR) levels.

2. Let your child pick a book

That’s right. Allowing your children to select a book from the bookstore, public library or your home library can make them interested and get excited in the book. They are bound to select topics they are interested in and this will make them want to read regularly.

3. Model reading before them

Don’t expect your child/children to love it, if they don’t see you reading. Children naturally imitate the habits of their parents. If they mostly see you reading a book, they may want to read, too. If you love watching TV or using your mobile phone as a form of relaxation, they would definitely want to do same. So, model what you want them to imbibe and love.

4. Plan a D.E.A.R. time as family

This means ‘Drop Everything And Read’ (DEAR). Normally, when DEAR time is done in schools, the head teacher, the teachers, staff, students and all involved in the school system are expected to drop everything else and get books to read for some minutes. Now this can also be used in the family with your children—I’m sure they would see it as fun and exciting, too especially if they have the choice of selecting the books and maybe eating snacks as they read!

5. Give books as gifts

Giving your children interesting books as gifts is a certain way to make kids fall in love with books. For parents who buy their kids gifts, your children already (depending on their ages) have enough gadgets and toys to last them a lifetime, and even if they don’t, investing in books is still a better way to go. I’m not suggesting you should stop buying your children toys, gadgets or whatever else you love to get for them but tilting the balance in favour of books will make them love to read.
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6. Watch the movie of the book

Sometimes that interesting book your child is engrossed in has a movie version of it, getting the movie for your child to watch can encourage them to read more books if they know they would get to watch the movie, too.

7. Play reading games

Both adults and children love playing games. When you introduce reading as an opportunity to play a game you will pique your children’s curiosity. Here are some games to play with them:
  • Reading together: Take turns and read chapters from a favourite story. This will spur a love for books.
  • Silly voices reading: This has to do with the characters in the book and imitating the way a character might sound in a high, or low-pitched voice—children love this. To motivate them more to read, you can also ask them to read and change the sound of their voices, too.
  • Storyteller: After completing a book, let your child be the storyteller. They can make props that might be needed from the story and also put on the clothes of a particular character. Ask your child to tell the story while acting out parts of the story. Then, you sit back and watch your child in action.
  • Red light and green light reading: This game has to do with getting texts to read for the children —random sentences, a list of spelling words, a long passage, a book and textbook etc. When “green light” is called out, the children start to read in a whisper till red light is called out and then they stop. It goes on and off till the end of the reading. You can also have optional colours: yellow light—read slowly and blue light—read in a silly voice.
  • Story starter hat: This is an exciting and interactive game to play with children. Get a hat or container. Get small pieces of paper and write story starters on them, fold the paper and place in the hat. Then, let a child pick a story starter and try to add one or two sentences to it by telling their own story. The next child uses his imagination and continues the same story by adding more sentences and paragraphs. When it has gone round the children, another child picks another paper and the process starts again.
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Reading together spurs a love for reading in your child.

8. Reading break

Have they been reading nonstop for a week now? You can give a break for a day and allow them to do something else they equally like—you guessed right, watching their favourite cartoon or TV show. If reading becomes a drill, they may lose interest.

9. Have family reading goals

Create goals as a family—it could be to read three to five short books in a month, and when the goal is accomplished, you can all have a collective reward. Something as simple as having a movie night.

10. Reading Apps

These Apps help children develop a love for reading, especially if you have a child that is struggling with reading and writing. Examples of such reading apps are: Epic, Farfaria Storybooks, uKloo, Mavel Hero Tales, SwapTales: Leon! Etc.

11. Reward reading jar

Adding rewards to reading can make it more attractive. What are you rewarding? You are rewarding the effort they make as well as progress in their reading. Get a jar and every time your child makes progress, you put a coupon with a stated reward. Then, after the child has made sufficient progress in reading, or after the jar is filled up, they get to pick a coupon from the jar. See some of the coupons you can fill the jar with:
  • A bouncing ball.
  • Have a friend over.
  • Bike ride with mum.
  • Dessert of choice.
  • Choose a game.
  • Build something with dad.
  • 30 extra minutes of television time.
  • Skip your chores for the night and a parent will do it for you.
  • Have a sleepover with a friend.
  • Do a one-on-one date with a parent.
Well, we can’t cover all the tips here but this is enough to try out with your children. Then I will also say—stop nagging. At times, children get turned off from reading because it is turned into another chore they need to do. They get scolded for not reading or not spending enough time at it. It’s time to be a bit more flexible with your children and make them love reading, naturally. All the best! @efelisaifezuo|irevealinglight

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Efe Ifezuo
Efe Lisa is an author, ghostwriter and a freelancer with COINSCRIBES (General Transcription, proofreading, content Online writing Service). She is also an Emotional Health counselor/manager. Her writings are based on faith, real life, family, relationships, and beyond the four walls of school. The aim is to Reveal, Encourage, Strengthen and Transform (R.E.S.T.) She is married with children.

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