Creating a Reading Habit in Your Child

Never force a child to read.

Yes. that is the most important statement of this post.

Why? Because you are actually making the child dislike reading by forcing him to read. Reading must be enjoyable in order to sustain it. By forcing the child to read, you kill his interest for reading before he can enjoy it. This is important. Never force your child to read.

I will suggest 2 main areas to look into when you are creating a habit of reading for your child.

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1. Entertaining the child with story-telling

This is the first step to a habit of reading. My wife started reading to my boys when they were as young as 3 months old. You may think that it is a bit too early, but reading to a child at this young age will expose him to the 'entertainment value' of books before he comes into contact with any other medium (like the phone and tablet). As soon as they developed their speech, they started to read back to me.

Reading a story is a skill. If you read it in a very boring way, your child will receive it in a very boring way. And reading ultimately appears boring to them and they will not want to pick it up. If you read a story in a very dramatic way with all the actions and 'characters' voices', your child will think that reading is very entertaining and will look forward to your reading to them. As soon as they develop their literacy skill, they will want to try reading by themselves because they will want to mimic you.

Believe it or not, I 'train' very hard in my story-telling skills. All my students look forward to my stories and I use them as an incentive for their good behavior. But ultimately, I want them to enjoy the stories and read some stories on their own.

2. Availability of books

This is actually one of the most important ingredients in creating the habit. The sequence is like this:

1. Child is exposed to reading.
2. Child likes reading.
3. Child wants to read.
4. Child reads what he can see (including signs and notices)
5. Child gains self-awareness and requests parent to bring the child to the library/bookshop to borrow/buy books.
6. Child grows up and goes to library by himself.

After your child is entertained by your story-telling, he will most probably develop an interest for reading. You must capture this interest quickly by making a lot of books available to him. This can be done by buying or borrowing the books. Now, here is the crunch. I have seen parents buy many books/magazines but place them all on shelves. A child who has just develop the interest for reading will not be motivated enough to walk to the shelf, take a book and walk back to the couch to read the book. We must bring the book to him first.

One thing at a time. We are cultivating the habit of reading, not the habit of tidiness here. We need to focus on only one.

If you come to my house unannounced, you will find my house super untidy. Many books will be all over the place mixing with the toys and musical instruments. What I want is to let my child access the books even when they are playing with their toys. They will play with their toys and 'discover' a book that is interesting and will switch to reading in the middle of play. At this stage, it is easier to bring the book to the child than to bring the child to the books. In addition, you will want to make the books available when the child is in waiting mode (for example, waiting for meals, waiting to go out, waiting to go school, waiting for a sibling, etc.)

If you have bought many books and your child is not going to the shelf to get the books, try bringing some books and place them on the floor in the living room.

This is a chance issue. The child might not pick up any books even when you make the books available to them. You must be patient and go back to stage one to arouse their interest again. Pick up a book and say "Wow, look at what I have found!" Then, start to read the story to the child and engage him. The next time round when the child sees the book lying around again, he will be tempted to pick it up and read.

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Creating a habit of reading is one of the most important goal any parent should have. It is not going to be easy and as a parent, my advice to you is to be very patient. Your child will thank you for this habit when they grow up.

Stay tuned for the next post!!!

Cheers!!!!
little motivator.