Ten Ways To Get Your Kids Reading
1. Make sure your kids see YOU reading (and enjoying it). There’s no point expecting them to do something you don’t do yourself.
2. Read to your children regularly. Make it part of their bedtime routine. Reading together helps parents bond with their children, and later, it gives them a chance to discuss all kinds of problems and ideas.
3. Don’t be a teacher when you’re reading to your kids. Be an entertainer instead. Go ape on the funny voices. Make it fun for both of you.
4. Don’t be judgemental or preachy. Choose books that deal with topics that will really engage your child.
5. Don’t approach your child’s reading as you would their education. Reading isn’t about setting targets, or impressing your friends with your child’s reading age.
6. Read the first half of a story aloud, then allow yourself to be “interrupted”. Leave the book lying around. Ten to one they’ll pick it up…
7. Whatever your child chooses to read, support it. That goes for comics, fairy books, romance or fart jokes.
8. Don’t put your child under pressure. Reading should be a reward, never a punishment.
9. Don’t stop your child from re-reading books, or having you re-read them. It’s an important comfort mechanism.
10. Age banding is irrelevant. Gender is irrelevant. Reading age is irrelevant. Is your kid reading? Then they’re OK.
Lastly, NEVER take a book from your child. Whether it’s a “girl book”, a “boy book”, a silly book or MEIN KAMPF. Don’t be afraid they’ll be influenced in a negative way. Where children read widely, they’re very unlikely to be influenced by any single set of ideas. Instead, they’ll learn to question ideas, and more importantly, to think for themselves…
The BEST advice EVER, exactly why I started this tumblr separately from my Breathing Books tumblr!
If you give a child a book (any book!) … You give that child the World!















