Do you notice how rare it is nowadays to see people reading, for example, in transport?
But it would seem that now, with the advent of numerous electronic gadgets, everything has become much easier. It is easier to get the book you need, it is easier to carry it not as a pound volume, but as a miniature device. But for some reason most people prefer to play with a ball or shoot with the same device. It’s easier that way. You don’t have to think.
Reading is a process that requires work. You don’t just have to put letters into words and words into sentences, you also have to understand the meaning. And most importantly – to create in your own mind an image of what you read. For a person, especially a child, who is used to getting ready-made images from television, this is hard work, because his imagination is untrained.
If even most adults prefer entertainment when they don’t have to work, what can they expect from a child for whom even the process of putting letters into words is still difficult?
There are two reasons for this plight of reading – the easily accessible entertainment of television images and, oddly enough, school. Often reading books from the compulsory school curriculum is perceived by the child as meaningless and hard work. How do we solve this problem, how do we help a child to love literature, to enjoy it? After all, people who do not read, poorer speech, not developed imagination, as a rule, and they write less competently.
Here are tips to help you:
Reading Culture
First of all, create a culture of reading in your home.
If a child doesn’t see you enjoying a book, he is unlikely to become an active reader himself. After all, children are not taught by our words, but by our actions.
Family read-alouds
If possible, involve other family members in this activity. And read to each other. Choose a book on a topic that interests your child. By the way, think about whether you know his interests well?
Don’t ask your child to read to you yet, let him only listen if he wants to. You can just tell him, “Daddy found a very interesting book about… (the child’s favorite subject) and wants to read it to me. If you want, you can listen too.”
Have a parent read an interesting passage from the book. And then the adults can start discussing among themselves what they have read. Ask the child what the child thinks.
With this activity, you’ll both enjoy yourself, improve the home atmosphere, and show the child that reading is a process that many people enjoy. In addition, while listening, your child develops a creative imagination that will help him or her later in life.
And don’t spare any time to read aloud to your child. It’s not just an introduction to reading. These are moments of intimacy that you will remember when your child grows up.
Deficit and challenge
In the initial stage of accustoming your child to reading, it is very important to do it casually, without any explanations, admonitions and requests for the child to read by himself. Better, on the contrary, create a feeling of scarcity and inaccessibility of the book of interest, if a child asks for it, you can answer: “I myself want to read more. Okay, I’ll give you this book, but not for long, I really want to read it myself, what’s next. And after all you still have homework to do.
You can even add that the child is too young for this book, that he will not understand everything. Such a challenge will encourage many children to prove that they are already smart and mature.
The most important thing in this approach is that you yourself should be interested in this book, because otherwise the child will instantly sense falsity.
Draw illustrations
Especially when the child is young – draw illustrations of the book you read to him. Most children enjoy drawing, and especially if you help. This will attract extra attention and love for the book, give an opportunity to discuss what the child remembered, impressed. And it will foster imagination.
Start with the easy and interesting
First determine for yourself, why do you want your child to read? So he can pass the school curriculum, and you would not be ashamed of him? Or do you want him or her to be interested in reading as a source of joy, interest and knowledge?
Begin by offering your child books that will be fun and joyful. Books that are easy for him to read, age-appropriate. Let it be adventure, fantasy, animal stories or stories about first love – as long as the child is interested. And when he falls in love with reading, then you can offer him something more serious and difficult.
We, of course, want the child to be well acquainted with the classics. As a result, reading difficult, little-understood works, and even written for adults, and more than two centuries ago, may discourage a beginning reader altogether.
Read the work in advance, before it is parsed at school
Often in literature classes the work is chewed up and analyzed in such a long and boring way that it makes you sick just to read it. After all, the work is often dissected as if the task of the school course to prepare literary critics.
Therefore, it is better to let the child read, for example, “Crime and Punishment” as a detective, and then it will be taken apart on the bones of the lesson.
Read the work at the same time as your child
When your child needs to read a big, serious work, like War and Peace, start reading with him at the same time. You’ll have fun yourself, perhaps missed out on at school for the aforementioned reasons, and you’ll get closer to your child and become like-minded. Share with him his findings and reflections, explain the difficult places.
Have a reading contest
You can organize such a contest in your child’s class or involve his friends. Suggest a list of interesting books to the children and announce a contest with a tempting prize, which should take place in 2 or 3 months, for example. First place goes to the person who has read the most and can answer questions about the books. You could even have an impromptu casino game where kids get bonuses for reading a book, which they end up exchanging for prizes.
Get a reader
Preferably with minimal game play capabilities. Then you will always have with you interesting books. And at any time – in transportation, in line – you can read to your child. And when he wants – give this useful entertainment to him.
Never use reading as a punishment or a condition for something else.
Don’t tell your child, “if you read a chapter, then I’ll let you watch TV.” This will teach the child that reading itself is unpleasant. Reading should only be mentioned in the context of pleasure and interest.
