How To Encourage Reading
How do you encourage a child to love reading, to love writing and to engage in the learning process of it all? I go to my favorite quote by Benjamin Franklin, “TELL me and I forget, TEACH me and I remember, INVOLVE me and I learn. Think about that for a moment. In human nature when we are TOLD to do something, how many times do we forget about it? Or, when we are TEACHING an activity or a lesson, does one remember? But, when we are INVOLVED in an activity or a lesson, we REMEMBER, we LEARN and we want to do more of it, if it interests us.
The same is true when we’re teaching our children the process of reading and writing. When a child is interested in something, it sparks their curiosity and they want to learn more about it. In infancy we usually sing and read to our child, it’s comforting to say the least. As they grow we introduce them to music and books by engaging them in both. The music you may dance to and the books you will look through. It’s fun, and usually very cute! Do you remember when your toddler danced to your favorite song or sat on floor thumbing through some books? It’s the beginning of the process of learning a love for both. It’s important to expose your child to books, to music and build that love of learning.
At first books are small, maybe made of a soft fabric. But, your child learns to hold the book and begins to look inside. You start reading books to them and they listen, they want more. Keep up the good work! Before you know it your child brings books to you to read to them! Have books in your home, go to the library and borrow books, go to the library and engage in story time with your children if you have the opportunity. But, expose them to books! Soon they’ll want to know the words in the book after they’ve looked at the pictures. It’s called a picture walk through the book. Let your child hold books, look through them and offer a variety of books to them. For example, you may be teaching your children colors, there are a lot of books about colors. There are a lot of songs about colors, too! There are even a lot of objects of color! It’s the learning process that brings the book to life for a child. Have fun with it all! In your color book there may be a picture of an orange. You ask your child what color is the orange, you ask your child what shape is an orange, you ask your child what does an orange taste like? Slice up an orange for your child! You’ve now TOLD them about it, you’re now TEACHING them about it and you’re now INVOLVING them in it. They will know what an orange is, what color an orange is and what an orange tastes like. Now, you may not be able to do this in one sitting for many things, at least get started with it though. As with all good things, it takes time and it won’t happen over night.
In our classroom we were talking about behaviors and I introduced my students to Behavior Bear. We talked about what it means to have good behavior. We talked about our classroom and how we all were so well behaved by listening, sharing and taking turns. Simple! I printed out this little booklet you can print one out here. The students colored the folded booklet and had their own reminder to have good behavior. I told them about good behavior, I taught them what it means to have good behavior and I engaged them in an activity that they can internalize and have as their reminder if need be to have good behavior. You can take this further with what good behavior is on the school bus, in the classroom, in your home, driving in the car, etc. Introduce your child to new ideas, new topics and new things to spark interest and run with it!
When I taught on the schools Reading Team, I myself learned a few things and wanted to pass them onto you. As a young parent myself I never thought of the process of reading, but I soon learned that there is one. In the beginning of the school year we did an assessment on each student to learn where they were in the process so that we could meet their needs. Today, most children have been to a daycare or early learning center and know a lot more than back in my day of teaching and raising children. However, the process remains the same. During the assessment we asked a child take the book, where the cover was and to pretend reading. Sometimes the book was upside down. Sometimes a child started reading to me! But, every time I learned where the student was and our team met their needs to encourage them in a love of reading, writing and learning. Today, some are teachers themselves! Life is about experiences, the good, the bad and the ugly. I’d like to share the good so that it doesn’t get ugly for you.
TIPS TO TEACH READING AND WRITING TO A CHILD:
Have a variety of resources in your home readily available for your child to engage with. Perhaps a Reading chair or corner that they will go to and cuddle up with a good book, it’s where it all begins. (wink, wink)
Introduce your child to books at an early age. Remember, you may go through a picture walk and soon build your own word wall on the fridge.
Find topics of interest to your child because you’re more likely to keep their attention. Once you do your picture walk through a book, at that time or another time go ahead and start to read the book with your child. You may read it first and the next time your child may chime in!?
Use your finger or a pointer to read the words at first as your child follows along. You may ask your child to find a letter or a word by them using their pointer finger or get creative and make your child their own personal pointer! (put their face on a pop-sickle stick and say, “Oh, wow, so and so is a reader” get excited) Or, put their favorite item, person, place, etc. on some sort of pointer where they have ownership.
Does your child know how to hold a crayon or pencil. Show them! Let them first get used to this tool by providing them with paper and such. Keep this in your special place if you must and allow them to be their own kind of creative! I was lucky our kids didn’t draw on the walls!
A trick to the proper way to hold a pencil is this, using your thumb and pointer finger pinch the pencil towards the led and flip, try it and encourage your child to hold it this way. I learned this when working with a physical therapist and a student. It’s the little things.
As this process unfolds, you’ll notice your child asking questions or wanting to learn more. Be encouraging through it all! For beginners, we started with our name. Write each letter in your childs name, cut them out individually, and also have one as a disply showing their name. Point to each letter and say it with them. You eventually can mix them up and ask them to put their name together. You’ll do this with a lot of words in the journey of reading and writing.
I have so many tips and ideas to support reading and writing for our children. We actually just made a chain link with colorful paper and cut out I AM and glued them together on Tik Tok. We’ll be sharing a lot more there with some character building ideas. After all, the characters are my passion, my purpose and my heart. I’d like to share them all with you! Follow us, please!
In our NEW composition notebooks, start the day off by writing your child a note of encouragement, an affirmation or a positive word to get the day started on the right foot! Simple.
Always try to remember that YOU are your child’s role model or even a role model for others, so make good choices, do the right thing and encourage others to be the same. I recently designed some wide ruled composition note books with the Characters of Character! We have them in a Superhero theme, Back to School or School Rules and a Western Theme. Coming soon is our Halloween Theme, too! These are fun to carry around, bring crayons, color pencils or pens with you and let your child get creative inside this note book! On the back of each one is a message from the character as a reminder what their trait means. What a fun way to encourage your children to be of good character! We hope you’ll like them, use them and encourage your child, your coworkers, your family and friends to be of good character. Let’s make the world better together! All our books are available on Amazon,
All proceeds for any book sales in the month of September go towards our project of September Focus which is to donate fifty Superhero Activity Boxes to Shriner’s Children’s Hospital in Chicago. Learn how YOU can make a difference here.
TELL me and I forget, TEACH me and I remember, INVOLVE me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin