How Do You Get Your Kids To Embrace Summer Reading?
My first and best strategy is to read aloud to children even if they are able to read for themselves; it is the best advice that I can offer you.
The phrase ‘read aloud to kids’ has been used so many times that many don’t pause to ponder the power of it. But reading aloud to kids is a powerful way to connect them to books, and to bring into being new generations of devoted and passionate readers.
Too often kids learn reading skills but not the joy of reading, and because they think of it as hard, they don’t read. Until they think of reading as fun they won’t do it. In order for kids to understand the fun of reading they must first experience it.
One way to experience this fun is being read to by an adult who is an excellent, and an exciting reader, one who puts aside the mechanics, rules, and difficulties of reading for the child, and lets the child relax and get caught up in the story.
People who are gifted at reading out loud bring books to life for children.
These talented readers bring the characters to life and into the imaginations of their listeners the way that radio plays did for families in the past. Gathered around the radio, families were able to escape from their own worries and visit another world together.
When you read to children remember these points:
1. End the reading periods before they are restless, bored or tired
2. Find the right books for the child’s understanding
3. Make sure the books please the child; always respect their taste.
4. Read to your children as part of your schedule and as a way to spend time together. Make a promise to yourself that in the future your children will remember these reading times as happy times.
5. If you, the reader, are tense or tired read only a page or two and stop.
6. Don’t lecture, and don’t criticize the child during reading periods
7. Never use mandatory reading time as a correction/or punishment when the child has been acting up.
8. And, don’t punish children by taking away their reading for pleasure time.
9. You can deprive them of t.v. instead.
10. Read not to give a learning experience but for the fun of it. The child will learn from the content of the book.
11. Be a good and an interesting reader. Be an actor if you can.
12. Love and value the time you spend when reading to your child, or when the family is together, and everyone is reading their own book to themselves.
13. Welcome those quiet “read together” times. You and your children need them in this busy, techno-exhausting world.
There are many books that help children learn to read and love to read. For instance, Harper Collins Children’s Books offers the I Can Read! series that has books for reading together with children, and for children reading by themselves. Over 6 million I Can Read! books have been sold.
Become an I Can Read! Member
Remember that the problem is that children must not just be able to read; they must also want to read.
Since they won’t want to read if it isn’t any fun, this summer don’t give them books that are ‘good’ for them. Instead, give your kids books that are exciting, mysterious, relaxing and fun. In other words, this summer, let your children read the same kind of books that YOU, their parent, wants to read when on vacation, and most likely, that’s not Moby Dick or War and Peace.
I remember summers on our Iowa farm when I was eleven or twelve, defying the heat, leaning against the trunk of, and cooled by the shade of the Catalpa trees, a book in my hands, and my mind caught up in an imaginary world. This summer give your child an adventure, help him to escape into the pages of a book.
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Readers: This post, and this post, only, is on the Castle Herald as part of an effort by TwitterMoms.com in cooperation with Harper Collins Children’s books to encourage children to read. Harper Collins Children’s Books wants to make sure readers are aware of the I Can Read! series for children. To read comments about this subject go here.
Please note this disclaimer: “I wrote this blog while participating in the TwitterMoms blogging program to be eligible to get an “I Can Read!” book. For more information on how you can participate, go to: http://www.twittermoms.com/forum/topics/share-tips-for-getting-kids-to?utm_source=Twitter
Please understand that I didn’t write this post just because of the book. I wrote it out of my own commitment and City Castles Publishing’s commitment to childrens’ literacy, and my belief that if a child is to be a good reader then he or she must have books and parents to read to him or her.
The strategies in this post, intended to help kids love summer reading, are based on my own experiences and on City Castles Publishing’s effort for Children’s Literacy: Arthur Collins and the Great American Book Race! ™ which can be seen at http://www.citycastlespublishing.com/mediakit.htm
This literacy effort is based on gifted adult readers reading to kids, and through their reading, demonstrating that reading is fun. Some parts of this post were drawn from: To Book Clubs– a few words from Linda Pilkington, Spring 2010 and also from For Parents & Adult Readers: Some Advice.