Reply to Vent - Instilling a love of reading

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a bookworm from birth.  I followed all the recommendations for my kids.  Read to them from birth.  Nightly routine involved reading to them.  Took them to the library often.  Took them to bookstores.  Let them see me reading.  Let them read what they want.  I read a page; they read a page.  Left interesting-looking books around the house.  And on and on.  They still like being read to but they don't like reading.  I waited for them to want to read on their own, but it never happened.  Now, [b]I make them read over their protests. [/b] I still read to them and we still do audiobooks, but I also make them read written words of their choice for 20 min/day.

This vent is because people are always insisting that you can't force them because you need to instill a love of reading.  Guess what, not everyone has a love of reading just waiting to come out.  Most of the adults I know rarely read for pleasure.  No one is telling me not to make my kids do math for fear of killing their love of math.  Sometimes you have to give up on making someone love something and just make them do it because it's good for them.

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Yeah, don't worry, let go, because this :[b] I make them read over their protests.[/b] will have the opposite result. 
Kids need breaks from everything, everybody needs breaks from even the most beloved activity. After period of break, a person can go back to it but if you insist on them to go on while they wan to lay off for a while it is not good for the long run.
Chances are your interest in books "from the birth" was caused by something that your kids do not experience or did not experience..
perhaps your parents did not spend as much time with you when you were a kid so you found a new faithful and steady companion - a book, 
perhaps you did not have friends.. but book was a friend whenever you needed, perhaps you did not have other forms of entertainment and keeping your mind preoccupied like kids have now.

A book in a way was and is just one of the ways of keeping one busy and or educated. Not every book educates you, many if not most are just keeping you buys. Jus sheer fact that a kid does not read a book does not mean that he is not becoming erudite. You must realize that
there are piles of people who read novels that do nothing much to your brain aside from keeping it busy. I do not discount books, I love books but they are food for the brain and just as you can have organic food,  you can have a junk food so the sheer process of reading is like eating, it is not good for the sake of doing it.

I would think that not pushing them will do more good then pushing. Especially now when school is so demanding all year long and kids are so busy, they really want and need a break during the summer. Some will pick up a book, other's wont'. The same kid sometimes will, other times won't. I have a kid who will have a month without touching a page, and then all of the sudden out of the blue will grab some book or will need to go and get a specific book and then the book will not be put down until it is finished, it is like reading frenzy. 
I don't regulate process after the preteen years. I may suggest a book or share some review or stop by at the library or bookstore to browse but we do not leave with the book every visit. Sometimes we just sit and browse and read bits and pieces for fun.. but this is far from being forced process.

Don't push too much. Times are changing, it is not what it was in precompute and pre clell era. Books were the only source of information pretty much and entertainment aside from tv that was not always at it's best. Now kids have more ways to get the same results.
If you think of it, book was just a medium.. to communicate between people. It was what it was invented in the times when there were no other forms of indirect communication. It was not perfect, but it was the best the times had to offer.
Now it is different, for any science book, they became obsolete almost while in the printing press because they can not be updated in real time like online information. So for the rest, the novels .. and all other pleasure reading, there is no urgency. But at the same time
you got Netflix and Amazon when a person who is busy can consume the same amount of fun in fraction of time.

Books are wonderful and they are here to stay because many people love the feeling of tactile contact with the book but it most certainly will be different process and will take different role and place in the next generation that had in previous generation. They are still working on it, they have to find and fit in the way they use the books. It will be natural process and you can not force it. Just like movie theaters,  and paintings, paper photography and bicycles, horse carriages had to find their way to fit into modern world that brought tv, photography, digital photography cars..

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