Simple Tips on Reading

You can inspire a love for reading in your children.

Given all the benefits of reading, it's no wonder parents want to instill a love for reading in their children. Mary Leonhardt, author of Keeping Children Reading and Parents Who Love Reading, Children Who Don’t offers these simple tips.

• Have lots of books.
• Buy books at garage sales and flea markets.
• Take your children regularly to the library.
• Read books aloud, including comic books and poetry.
• Use your special talents to make reading come alive for your children. For example, give each character in the story a different voice or accent.
• Teach children to read to themselves.
• Have a special book-looking-at or story time on a regular basis.
• Treat your child as a reader; sooner or later he’ll be one.
• Make books part of the social scene (i.e., when friends come over, suggest reading stories or reading games).
• One way to help your children form a habit of reading, without trying to regiment their reading, is by encouraging series books.
• Provide reading material that is easy and fun for children. You want them to have the experience of effortlessly breezing through books.
• Increase your child’s self-confidence by treating him as a reading expert in his field. Ask your son’s opinion about the books he’s reading. Take his opinion seriously.
• Encourage daily reading by having irresistible reading material wherever your children spend a lot of time — in the kitchen, in their bedrooms, in the den.
• Find books that completely absorb your children. Find magazines and nonfiction books about their current passion or interests.
• While children often enter reading through a particular interest — they read everything they can find on sports, for example — they develop many other interests through years of reading.