There are some sights that warm your heart like when you finish a call and see your child buried in a book you know you have done something right 🙂 Fortunately for me its a sight that I get to witness very often, Aren’t pictures like this very heartwarming. They give me hope that reading is not going to die a slow death to ipads and the likes. They give me hope that books are going to be alive and the kids of the next generation will still know the pleasures like smell of a book
People often look at O and tell me you must be lucky, he loves books so much, these days kids hardly read all they want is an iPad. Though I agree that touchwood I have been lucky but this luck has come its share of hardwork.
Reading is a habit I wasn’t introduced to as a child. I mean neither my mom or dad are into reading big time and while growing up reading meant course books. However that changed somewhere when one of my uncles introduced me to Famous Five and there hasn’t been any looking back ever since. So whenever I used to think about my child there was one thing clear in my head, love of reading is something I want to pass down to child… Love of reading is something I want to introduce to him as early as possible and something I was keen to cultivate in him. So here are just a few things I did and think should generally to encourage reading in your child
Give him a headstart : The first thing I ever bought for him was a book, yeah might sound funny but its true. We started reading to him as soon as we could settle down with the initial euphoria and madness of becoming parents. Did he understand, most likely not but kids have memory and that made him comfortable with books. Fabric books, books with textures and board books are perfect for kids.. By the time he was 5 months, he would often lie like this and play with his favorite fabric book
Take time to read to him : As they grow older, take time to read to him EVERYDAY… Make a schedule, a time of the day which is dedicated to reading.. May be bed time? In our house time before bed time is reading time. We started with reading one book to him when he was small, slowly the number of books increased (he asked for it) and we would read four books to him. Now we read two books to him, he reads two himself and then sleeps
Let them choose the books : From as early as one year, O had preference on what books he likes, encourage them to select what books they want to read to. Read those books everytime they want. It might get boring to you as they will want the same book over and over again but trust me they will eventually get done with it and move on to another. The thing is the they can only assimilate little and also familiarity is a big thing at that age and hence they want to read it over and over again
Nothing like a good library : Reading can be an expensive habit (ask me ask me) also there is nothing like a charm of a library. Introduce your child to a library early in life. There are kids libraries in town like Hippocampus, as well as bigger libraries like Easy Lib have kids section. Take him, let me explore, let him spend time in the company of books. Let him learn to relish them
Make it a part of the family time : At our house, you can often find all three of us immersed in our respective books sitting next to each other. Make it a habit to read together, when the child is younger give them picture books and let me just browse through it. Start with smaller time durations even 5 minutes is good and slowly increase as the concentration span of your kids increases and he goes from seeing pictures to reading himself. Switch off that TV and open books for the family time and you can thank me later 😉
and last but not the least – the biggest way kids learn is by example, so pick up that book yourself too 🙂
