Reply to How to make young elementary kid love reading?

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "How to make young elementary kid love reading? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We never force. We have a voracious 6 yr old reader who loves to read and here's what we do:

1) No limit on books. We go to the library once a week. We regularly hit up the bookstore and let both kids (we also have a preschooler who is not reading independently yet) pick out a book to buy. We never say "you have enough books" or "you have to finish what you have" or whatever. More books are always better. Books are like water or fruit -- always a good idea.

2) We don't police what she chooses to read on her own. A lot of her solo reading are those series about, like, a witch opening a cupcake shop so she can buy hair accessories. Okay. It's not what I want to read but whatever, she can read whatever she wants, and if she says she likes a series or author or subject, we will figure out a way to make it happen (I regularly check to see which library branch has the other books from a series, or buy used books online to satisfy whatever her book wants are).

3) If she's reading something and asks one of us to read to her because she'd tired, we almost always say yes. Sometimes it's like "okay I'll finish the chapter for you" and sometimes she has to wait until we are free. But even though those books

3) We read together as a family every. single. night. Like everyone in the family sits down and reads the same book together. We didn't always do it this way (DH and I used to trade off and it was solo time with kids), but once we switched to chapter books, we started doing it this way and it's awesome. Mostly DH and I choose these books, but we take kid's preferences into account, and if we start a book they don't like, we stop and read something else (my 1st grader finds surprising books scare sometimes, and we don't push that). DH and I mostly take turns reading chapters, but sometimes we'll ask our older daughter if she wants to read for a bit. Usually these books are well above her reading level, so if we do this she will just read a page or two. Mostly we read and the kids get to relax and enjoy. We'll stop to explain things or talk about something interesting or scary or weird, though we mostly try to save that stuff for the end of our reading time. We LOVE reading books altogether as a family and how this is creating a whole universe of stories that we have shared as a family. If there's a movie based on a book, we'll often watch that on a weekend family movie night after we finish the book. I would like to keep this up as long as we possibly can, even well past when both our kids are reading well on their own. It's really instilling a love of books in our kids, it gives DH and I chances to revisit beloved books from our childhood and discover new classics, and it's just nice family togetherness time. We pile into one bed and cuddle and listen and read and it's heavenly.[/quote]

Sorry for the long post, but to finish number 3 -- even though I don't love the books she chooses for herself, I still read them to her when she asks because it encourages her fondness for books generally. Sometimes I'll ask that we trade off reading chapters, or I'll only read a bit, but I am careful to never criticize the books she chooses or say I don't want to read them. She know she loves them more than we do, but we are not negative about them. It's important for kids to develop their own taste in books and to to be encouraged in it, within reason.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics