Making Reading a Fashion Trend

Reading can be a magical experience for many children as they are transported to another time or place. Tales of exotic lands, space frontiers, detectives solving mysteries and friends discovering adventure all serve to feed your child's imagination.

Reading is one of life's most important skills and being a good reader will help your child, not only throughout their school career, but throughout their life as well. But what if your child doesn't like to read?

Children who resist reading are sometimes referred to as reluctant readers. Reluctant readers do not read for many reasons. There are children who are intelligent and interested in reading but do not have the skills, children who are not interested and are in danger of falling behind in class, children who have a specific learning disability and children who read well but are just not interested.

So what can you do if your child is a reluctant reader? It is important to help your child learn that reading is a fun and enjoyable activity. Here are a couple of tips from Joyce Melton Pages Ed. D. to help interest your children in reading.

Set up a children's home library and let your children help select new additions to the collection. Focus on books that are about their favourite activities, sports, or hobbies.

Subscribe to children's magazines in their name on a topic that coincides with their interests. Children love getting mail and the anticipation will help to fuel their need to read.

Take frequent trips to the public library and let your child have his own library card to check out their choice of books.

Let your child read below their level at first. You may also want to allow them to have read along books with tapes or CD's. It is important for them to benefit from the enjoyment of reading before they are challenged with more difficult material.

Help your child to increase their skills and confidence in reading by encouraging them to read aloud. You should begin early by reading to your children so that they can appreciate the variety of language and the pleasure of a good story.

Later as your child learns basic reading skills, it is important that you encourage them to read to you. You may want to start with books at their level and take turns reading pages or chapters together. Progress to the point where your child takes on the role as the prime storyteller. Also take advantage of teaching moments, ask them what a sign says or to read you the recipe aloud as you cook together.

As your child's skills and confidence grow, they will want to take on the task of independent, silent reading. Encourage them by shutting off the TV and having an hour long, silent reading period. Make sure the whole family participates.

It is important that you are a good role model. If you are telling your child that reading is fun, yet never seem to pick up a book or have few books in the home, it will be hard for them to believe you. So pick up some books yourself and reacquaint yourself with one of life's simplest pleasures.