Parental Secrets of Encouraging Children to Read – What Can’t Be Done?

Everyone knows that reading is useful. Books instill literacy, replenish vocabulary. By reading, a person develops spiritually, learns to think competently and grows as a person. This is what all parents wish for their children. But not all children share parental enthusiasm. For them, a book is a punishment and an uninteresting pastime. The younger generation is understandable, because today, instead of reading, you can listen to audiobooks and watch movies in 3D.

The content of the article:

How NOT to teach a child to read books – the most common parenting mistakes

Parents concerned about children’s education strive, by all means, to instill a love of books, and in their impulses they make many mistakes.

• Many parents try to forcibly instill a love of books. And this is the first mistake, because you cannot force love to be forced.

• Another mistake is late training. Most mums and dads only think about reading at the start of school. Meanwhile, attachment to books should arise from childhood, practically from the cradle.
• The downside is the haste in learning to read. Early development is trendy today. Therefore, advanced mothers teach babies to read when they are just crawling, develop creative, athletic and mental inclinations ahead of time. But it is worth remembering that your impatience can cause a negative reaction in a child to books for many years.

• One of the most common mistakes – this is reading books not for their age. An 8-year-old child cannot read novels and poems with pleasure, you should not demand this from him. He is more interested in reading comics. And a teenager is not interested in the works of the eternal classics, he still needs to grow up to these books. Let him read modern and fashionable literature.

Methods of introducing children to reading – how to teach a child to love the book and get interested in reading?

• Show by example that reading is good. Read for yourself, if not books, then the press, newspaper, magazines or novels. The main thing is that the children see the parents reading and that you enjoy reading. In other words, parents should relax with a book in their hands.
• There is a saying that a house without books is a body without a soul. Let there be many different books in your home, then sooner or later the child will show interest in at least one.
• Read books to your child from childhood: bedtime stories for kids and funny stories for preschoolers.

• Read when your child asks you to, not when it suits you. Let it be 5 minutes of reading more enjoyable than half an hour of “obligation”.
• Instill a love of books, as to subjects – this is an indispensable condition for the love of reading. Learn to handle publications carefully, not to break the binding, not to tear out the pages. After all, a respectful attitude distinguishes favorite things from unloved ones.
• Do not deny your child readingwhen he learns to read himself. The transition to independent study of books should be gradual.
• It is important to select the book by age. For kids, these will be large tomes with beautiful, vivid illustrations. For schoolchildren, books with large print. And for teenagers there are fashionably designed editions. The content should also be appropriate for the age of the reader.

• Learning to read a child needs to be non-intrusiveespecially if you know the letters before school. Read signs, newspaper headlines, write short notes to each other. It’s much better than posters, cards, and compulsion.
• Talk to your children about what you read.… For example, about heroes and their actions. Imagine – you can come up with a new continuation of the fairy tale or play “Little Red Riding Hood” with dolls. This will generate additional interest in books.
• Play reading… Read in turn, by word, by sentence. Alternatively, you can sketch the fifth sentence from the tenth page and guess what is drawn there. It is worth coming up with a lot of entertainment with books, letters and reading, because game learning gives good results.

• Maintain interest in what you read. So, after “Masha and the Bears” you can go to the zoo and look at Mikhail Potapovich. After “Cinderella” buy a ticket to the performance of the same name, and after “The Nutcracker” to the ballet.
• Books should be varied and interesting. Because there is nothing worse than reading a boring and incomprehensible story.
• Do not prohibit watching TV and playing on the computer for the sake of reading books. Firstly, because the forbidden fruit is sweet, and the child will strive even more for the screen, and secondly, because of the imposed prohibitions, the child will develop a negative reaction to books.
• Allow to swap books with peers.
• Provide comfortable reading spaces in your home. This encourages everyone in the household to read more.
• Start family traditions reading related. For example, Sunday evening – general reading.
• From childhood, read to your child with expression, use all your artistry. For a kid, this is a whole idea that a book opens up to him. May this personal theater remain with him forever. Then, even as an adult, a person will perceive the book as vividly as he once did on his mother’s lap.

• Tell your child about the author’s personality, and, perhaps, having become interested in biography, he will want to read another of his works.
• Ditch TVs in bedrooms, both for children and adults. After all, such a neighborhood does not engender a love of reading. In addition, TV with its noise interferes with reading, and satellite TV distracts with many channels, interesting cartoons and TV shows.
• Use surprise books with opening windows, holes for fingers and toys for babies. These toy books allow fantasy to unfold and generate interest in books from infancy.
• Don’t be nervous if your child doesn’t like books or doesn’t read at all. Your mood is transmitted to the offspring, superimposed on the already formed rejection and creates a stable barrier for the emergence of love for literature.

Perhaps today gadgets have almost completely replaced printed materials, but they will never succeed in completely ousting them from our life. After all, reading is also a tactile pleasure, a special ritual with a unique atmosphere, giving rise to a play of imagination that no film, no new invention can provide.
Read books, love them, and then your children will be happy to read themselves!