Love of Reading
Almost everyone agrees that a love of reading is at the heart of learning. A child who loves to read usually loves to learn. He is also much more likely to be a self-learner–what should be the goal of a real education.
Granted, some children naturally love to read more than others. And we need to understand that and be OK with that, knowing that the non-readers have other gifts that should be allowed to flourish.
But as I’ve educated many children, with different strengths and weaknesses, (and gone back and forth about this) I’m pretty sure that rewarding children for reading is always a good thing.
Reading Marathon
And so we’re going to try a reading marathon this year, pulling “eligible”, age-appropriate books from our library.
I will give each book a point value and make a chart for each reading child to keep up with the books he has read.
At the end of the marathon, the points will be tallied. We will either give a cash prize or some other prize, determined ahead of time, for each point.
Ben Carson (who I am secretly hoping runs for President) said that even if a child begins reading just for the prize, he will likely develop a habit and begin to love it just for the sake of reading. I’m going to bet with him.
Also, creating a cozy place for reading, if possible, is a great idea. We have a play room with a bunk, and I’ve strung lights underneath the bunk, hung a front-facing pallet bookshelf with some cozy chairs/bean bags, hoping they’ll enjoy hanging out there with a book.
Let me know YOUR ideas about fostering a love of reading!
13 comments
Well mine are all 4 and under so nobody actually reads independently yet, but my 4 year old gets a great big stack of library books to peruse during rest time and we then read one or two favorites before and after rest time when it’s just him and me — he loves that 🙂
I love this! I read once that a famous author (maybe Stephen King? someone along that multi-million quantity of books sold) learned to love reading because after school he stayed with an elderly neighbor lady while his mom worked, and she would make him a root beer float every day if he would sit and read a few chapters from a novel. At first he hated reading, but he did it for the yummy treat that accompanied it, and each day the lady would chat with him about what he read afterward. After several months of this, she stopped serving the floats and he didn’t even notice – he was hooked! 🙂
One thing I love is that my parents instilled a love of reading in us. When we were small, they made a point of reading to us daily and as I got older, I would be charged with reading out loud to my grandparents or my mother and then we would talk about the book. I especially liked those times because I got to pick the books!
My boys aren’t in to reading to themselves at all, but all my children love being read to. My oldest (turns 10 in May) could listen to a book for hours on end. So, read aloud time at bedtime is something that is rarely skipped. Right now we’re in the middle of “The Secret Garden”, which they love. We’ve done many of the Narnia books, another favorite was E. Nesbit’s “The Railway Children”. I don’t know if the boys will ever really enjoy reading to themselves, but they certainly love books.
Have books around all the time, all over the house. And read… read books to your children, read to yourself, put audiobooks on mp3s and let your kids listen to it. When they get a taste for the word, they will want it all the time. Make it exciting at first… not too long, not too complicated. Use the Bible on audio too, short Bible stories, Christian audio dramas (The Brinkman adventures, Jonathan Park).
I didn’t grow up reading but one day a neighbor (she was a teacher) invited me to her house and showed me her books. Every wall in her house had bookshelves and they were covered in books. She lent me a book and I read it. Took it back and she gave me another one. I was 10 years old… that year I read 40 books. And never stopped.
One more thing… take your kids to the library every week! They will be amazed at all those books on the shelves and will love to take one home. Promise to come back to get another one when they finish the one they checked out. Our library trips are a treat!! A bag full of books from the library at my house is compared to Christmas morning! 🙂
Kelly, thank you for posting on Dr Ben Carson. I knew his story but hadn’t heard his recent speech and was so exciting to see someone shove the PC stuff out the window. Hoo hoo!!!
One idea I heard was to let your children keep the light on in their room as long as they are reading. Obviously you might have to set some boundaries to go with that: as with any family there are always those kids who would never sleep. I do that often. It’s an incentive to go to bed earlier
(“If you get ready for bed extra quick, you can read for awhile”).
btw.. love the pallet shelf!
Okay, so at the risk of sounding super geeky, my students love audiobooks. No, I mean REALLY love them. As in, listening while we’re chopping up fruits and veggies to prepare a meal or clean up the dishes. Whether we’re on a long trip in the car or just relaxing around the house. From Jane Eyre to Jane Karon. We are blessed to be a part of a library system that has a fairly extensive collection of unabridged works on CD. I do what I can to preview and anticipate any problems (I.e. they end up on the “NOPE! ” list.)
I think that most of our inside family jokes come from lines delivered in the audiobooks. Of course we read the printed word individually and out loud to each other. But there are some pieces that are produced so well that it’s just a joy to pop in the cd, grab a plate of cookies and some tea, and gather round for a good read. That in itself becomes a marathon!
And as for Dr Benjamin Carson: we did have the wonderful privilege of hearing him speak when he was down our way at Birmingham-Southern last year. But given the way the media tears apart candidates for president, I hope he doesn’t run. Doesn’t that sound horrible?? But he seems like such a nice person who has already been through so much and is making such an important contribution to all of humanity doing what he’s doing right now. I can’t say how angry it would make me to see “somebody” destroy him and his family all for sport (or worse)! And if he is contemplating a run, I hope he goes into it fully aware of how ugly, nasty, and disgusting the process is for everyone involved.
I should have said “Jan Karon” not “Jane.”
I’d also like to add that another benefit of listening to audiobooks is that I think it has improved our oral-reading skills. Listening to professional voice actors has kind of–well–given us “permission” to try different accents, use a more conversational style when approaching dialogue, and just generally get totally wound up as we get wrapped up in the world of the story.
I love this idea! While we have plenty of reading during the school year, this is something I will definitely be keeping in mind for during the summer. Also, since the list of books I would love them to read is longer than the school days, maybe I’ll give bonus points for reading from an approved list. That way they can still get books from the library, but they’ll earn more for “approved” books.
I was wondering if you could please, please make a list of books you and your family like? I love to read! I already have two bookshelves full of my own books even though I’m only 17. But it is so hard to know before you begin to read if the book will be good or not! So many times I have begun to read a book, only to throw it down half way through it because it had a bad part or the message wasn’t good. So any suggestions would be awesome! I am currently reading Hard Times by Charles Dickens, whom I love! I read pretty much everything, from old classics such as Homer, to Jane Austen, to Harry Potter. I also love biographies of inspiring people! So please, please make a list!
Hi Eva –
While I know I’m not Kelly I saw your post and had some suggestions for you. First – if you read a book you like go online and search the author and find what other books they have available. I have noticed many times that if we like or dislike a book it can be because we like/dislike the writing style the author uses. Second – I am assuming that you are looking for some books that carry good messages – I would recommend looking into some Christian authors like Max Lucado (my favorite), Charles Stanley, C.S. Lewis, and Mark Driscoll. There are also some people that have one or two books only – Helen Keller, Corrie Ten Boom. Third – if you are just wanting to see if you might like the books first try looking for them on Amazon Kindle because you can download an app to your PC that will let you read the books and most of them offer a sample that you can read – not to mention that there are tons & tons of books on Kindle that are free! But you can always Google a book and find reviews or other ways to read a little before you get the book. And don’t forget the library – lots of free books to sample!
You remind me of myself at your age…those books will probably become something that you can look back at and they will remind you of different times in your life AND give you something to share with your own kids one day!
Great suggestions & ideas! I am a book worm, although it isn’t as much as when I was growing up. But I had a huge bookcase full of books by the time I was in high school and kept every single one! I love adding to the collection – both kid & adult books. When I first started having kids I began another collection just for the kids and have enjoyed adding to it over the years. Each bedroom has a book shelf with age-appropriate books, we also keep books in the school/play room – living room – kitchen – and bathrooms! In fact, every room in our house has some sort of book/magazine/etc in it somewhere.
When my oldest boys were growing up they would tolerate me reading to them every night at bedtime, but they never read themselves. Until I found this book “Captain Underpants” and they read these books over and over again. It got them started on the road to reading. One of our 15 yr olds love plays – especially Shakespeare! And I do everything I can to make sure they have time to sit back & read daily…besides just during school time! But I never thought about setting up a seating area around the bookshelves. I also never thought of having them read out loud just for fun.
This is opening up a whole area of ideas for my family! Since we do “school” year round instead of just during a regular public school year calendar this will help me come up with even more ideas for when the kids are bored with regular reading. I just got the Mystery of History series for their education lessons and talked to their father about using it as a family tool for both devotion AND education…now I knwo that I can take it one step further and add in Bible reading AND have the kids turn what they learn into plays, or something else fun for them to do!