Getting Children To Love Reading – The Advantages And Some Tips On Accomplishing This Goal

I can’t imagine leading a life where I don’t want to read, and I firmly believe that I can thank my mother for that.

One of my earliest memories is of her reading to me – books like Black Beauty and Treasure Island – and as soon as she deemed me old enough, she taught me to read too.

And that was the “old-fashioned” way, I might add, where I learned how to decode the words so that I would have a way to determine how to pronounce words I’d never encountered before. (I was actually the first child in my primary school class to be given books to read – because none of the others were ready yet.)

One of the earliest presents I recall receiving was a set of children’s encyclopedias, and I spent hours reading them. In fact, I enjoyed them so much that being sent to my room was less of a punishment and more of a reward.

I suspect my mum read to me and taught me to read because that’s what her mother did – my nana was an avid reader too.

In that respect (and others), I’m really glad I took more after my mum than my dad, who was lucky if he averaged one book a year.

They probably didn’t realize it back then, in the early 1960s, but there are benefits to reading that go beyond having a way to learn and pass the time.

So, this article, if you haven’t already guessed, is all about the benefits of teaching your children to read, from an early age, and a few things you can do to encourage them in that activity.

Benefits Of Reading

The following are some of the general benefits of reading regularly:

1. It expands your vocabulary.
2. It keeps your mind active, which in turn can slow down a decline in cognitive functions as you age.
3. It can reduce stress – reading a good book is an escape from reality, for a while at least, allowing you to forget your real-life worries.
4. You learn new things.
5. It helps improve your memory.
6. It can help develop analytical and critical thinking skills.
7. It improves your ability to concentrate and focus.
8. It can make you a better writer (which is associated with having a larger working vocabulary).
9. It’s a great way to entertain yourself (often for free if you join a library).
10. It can improve your social skills – the more you know, the more topics you’ll be able to talk about with others.
11. It can make you more empathetic (particularly when you read fiction as you see things from different characters’ perspectives).
12. It stimulates your imagination. For example, you get to create your own vision of the characters and the setting in a book, whereas if you watch a movie of the book, you are seeing somebody else’s interpretation of the story, which is, I think, why so many movies are disappointing if you’ve already read the book on which it’s based.

Reading with and to your children carries additional benefits, including, according to studies:

1. It encourages less harsh parenting.
2. Children tend to display less hyperactivity and disruptiveness.
3. It improves language, literacy and emotional skills.
4. It helps develop a stronger parent / child bond.
5. It’s soothing – for both the parent and the child.
6. It helps your child feel loved, safe, and secure.

So, how important is reading to your children?

According to a study published in June 2918:

“Parents who read 1 picture book with their children every day provide their children with exposure to an estimated 78,000 words each a year. Cumulatively, over the 5 years before kindergarten entry, we estimate that children from literacy-rich homes hear a cumulative 1.4 million more words during storybook reading than children who are never read to.”

And according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, more than six in ten fourth graders aren’t proficient readers, with one third of kids being unable to read at a basic level.

Encouraging your child to read from an early age would therefore seem to confer a significant advantage that will last them a lifetime.

Tips On Reading To Your Children

1. First and foremost is to read to them every single day, for at least ten minutes, preferably from birth.
2. Try to read at least three stories per day. This might be three different stories, or the same story three times. (Yes, I get that this may be boring for you, but this is primarily about your child, not about you – and for them, it doesn’t matter if they hear the same story hundreds of times. You also shouldn’t try to change anything or skip parts – firstly, they can tell, and secondly, the constant repetition helps them to develop trust.)
3. Read with passion – you want to make the story sound exciting.
4. Don’t be afraid to use different voices and accents for different characters. You don’t need to be a professional impersonator here – you need need to make the story interesting and fun to listen to.
5. As soon as they’re able, try to engage them in the story by asking questions or discussing what they see on the page or what they hear.
6. While bedtime stories are the tradition, that doesn’t mean you can’t read to them at other times of day too.
7. Let them choose what they want you to read to them – giving them choice helps them become more enthusiastic readers. Also, some research found that what children prefer to read may not always be what you expect. For example, children from four through six often prefer non-fiction.

Other Tips To Encourage Reading

1. Children learn by mimicking, so if you want your children to enjoy reading, they need to see you reading too – and enjoying it. And it doesn’t really matter what you read (e.g. fiction, non-fiction, magazines, even catalogues.)
2. One study found that having books in the home leads to people not only having better reading comprehension skills, but also better mathematical and digital communication skills. They found that the tipping point is 80 books – once you have at least this many books in your home, you’ll start to see improvements, and that continues up to about 350 books, after which the effect plateaus.
3. Another study showed that having therapy dogs in the classroom can improve children’s reading skills, powers of memory, and problem-solving skills. While not every home can have a fully trained therapy dog, they concluded that the “presence of a dog in an educational setting seems to support concentration, attention, motivation, and relaxation reflecting reduction of high stress levels which inhibit effective learning and performance.” Since there are other benefits to children growing up around pets (e.g. teaching confidence, responsibility, empathy)), this seems like a great idea.
4. Alternating you reading to them and your child reading to you (when this is feasible, of course) can stimulate engagement.
5. Get your child a library card and take them once a week to let them choose one or more books to read. (My father took me to the library every Saturday, which was my mother’s day to have a lie-in, for years.)
6. Make sure your child has somewhere comfortable to read that also has adequate lighting. You don’t want them associating reading with discomfort or pain.
7. Try to offer them a variety of subject matter, authors, and formats to find out what interests them the most at any given time. (These interests will, of course, change as they grow older.)
8. Don’t force them to read books they don’t want to. (They’ll get enough of this at school during the years to come.)
9. Likewise, don’t try to get your child to read a book that is too advanced for them, because this can put them off reading.
10. Read only the first chapter of a humorous book and then stop. If your child wants to know what happens next, they’ll have to continue reading themselves.
11. Try to find a series of books appropriate to their age and skills (e.g. Harry Potter) because this will help motivate them to continue reading (or being read to) after they finish the first book.
12. Have a family-wide screen-free time, where all screens (e.g. television, phones, computers, tablets) are turned off. Ideally, you can all use this time for reading, but any family activity such as playing games together or discussing something can be beneficial too, of course.
13. Have books available for your children all over the house and not only in one place.
14. Remember that actual books are better than digital books in many (but not all) ways. For example, they place less strain on the eyes, you tend to remember more of what you read and are better able to recall it, and it is more engaging (i.e. it stimulates more of the brain in a deeper way).

Reading Learning Methods

I cannot finish this article without touching on the two main methods used to teach children to read:

1. Phonics
2. Whole Language

Although it wasn’t called that in my day, phonics is how I learned to read.

The main differentiator with this method is learning the sounds of each individual letter.

This is what allows children to decode new words and have a good go at pronouncing them correctly.

The whole language method, on the other hand, focuses on the entire word at once, but this leaves children with no way to cope with new words.

For me, the older, traditional phonics method is the way to go, because it provides children with a more flexible toolbox on how to deal with language in a wide context.

Conclusion

As a lifelong reader, I can only echo all of the benefits of reading both for education and for pleasure.

While my time is more limited these days, I used to get through two or three books (mainly fiction, but not entirely) every week, for years.

And my library, such as it was, comprised over 1,000 books at its peak, on a wide range of subjects as well as various categories of fiction.

I don’t see it as a passion that will ever disappear, for me at least.

I would therefore urge every parent to do whatever they can to encourage their children to read – and enjoy it. Reading, for me, allows me to learn new things (I’m a great believer in the adage that a day when you don’t learn anything new is a day wasted), and, via fiction, travel to an infinite number of worlds and live an infinite number of lives, all from the comfort of my armchair.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Recommended Phonics Book
2. SnapWords®
3. Teach Your Baby To Read