How To Encourage Your Child To Read More

How can I encourage my child to read more?

Encouraging older kids to read is sort of a tough thing. You're going to find that some kids love to read and they do it naturally, and other kids hate it. One of the tricks is finding something that they want read. And so again, I am such a huge fan of series. If you can find a series that your child likes and will read you're so lucky, because if they're long series you can keep them reading forever. So keep up that quest for things that you like. Talk to their friends, talk to their teachers. Go to the library, look at the kind of the new, hot books. You can even take them out. Go to readings, go to book signings. Sometimes they'll just get hooked because they met an author and they think that's a cool thing. You've got to make it easier for them to grab a book than to grab the remote control on the tv. And so that's a really hard sell. And I think to expect kids to read when they can watch tv is a hard sell. I would also say no TV in the bedroom. It's a great time to read, before you go to sleep, but if you have TV you're not going to do it, because by then you're tired. And I would say you limit some of those other things. You limit video games, and you limit television, and that makes books a more viable option. Then you've got books, you've got board games, but you don't have to decide ‘Ok, I'm not going to watch TV and I'm going to read.” Rather, you think , “Ok. What am I going to do now? I'm going to read.” That's a different decision. So part of it's just setting up your home so that reading is one of the primary activities.