June 12, 2012 by Melissa Taylor
- Choice is essential - let your child choose what she reads, even if it's magazines.
- Time to read. Do you have a chunk of time in you day to read?
- Read aloud to your child -- even older kids. Read at a meal or bedtime.
- "Read" audiobooks - they count as reading for a variety of reasons. Try Playaways or Tales2Go .
- Read comic books - they count, too.
- Read with a headlamp and stay up late. Breaking the rules is fun!
- Get help. Ask a librarian or bookstore employee for suggestions.
- Start a parent-child book club. Let your child pick the book. Socialization can be very motivating.
- Get him a library card to use voraciously. (Hint: don't limit the amount of books!)
- Use bookstore money as a reward.
5 Tips to Motivate Your Readers Over the Summer
Do you have UN-motivated readers this summer? Because I do. Here's my best tips to motivate your kids and mine to read.
For the first time ever, my oldest daughter is very motivated to finish as many reading programs as possible. She's on her second library program, already having completed the local library program. But my younger daughter, a beginning reader, is still resisting reading. I don't want her to hate it so I'm finding ways to make reading more fun and motivating.
1. The local library reading program is our number one summer reading programs. (If you're weird like me, you consider register in the neighborhood library districts, too.)
2. National summer reading programs usually offer prizes and coupons and they're online. Do you think any of these would motivate your readers?
iVillage and PBS Kids
Scholastic
Pottery Barn Kids
Barnes and Noble
TD Bank (10 Books, $10 Bucks)
Pizza Hut
Sylvan Learning
3. Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer, knows about getting kids to love reading. In "Building Up Your Book Muscle " on EdWeek, she writes that following book review blogs might help motivate young readers. Good books help. She recommends:
Watch. Connect. Read.
Nerdy Book Club blog
Sharpread
100 Scope Notes
The Goddess of YA Literature
The Nonfiction Detectives
A Year of Reading
The Brain Lair
4. Reread The Rights of the Reader and allow your kids to choose their own books. That helps a lot, too.
5. Use the 10 Weeks of Reading Adventures from Reading Rockets. Look at these fun ideas they suggest for Week 2 . . .
Thankfully my kids love to read. My oldest is turning into a little gamer and likes to read stuff about Pokemon most but I'll buy him what he will read if it keeps him interested!
My sister has her kids do book reports over the summer. They can do one per week, for like money. However many book reports they do, is how much money they have to spend on school clothes in the fall.
Thats a good idea :)
Quoting new_mom808:
My sister has her kids do book reports over the summer. They can do one per week, for like money. However many book reports they do, is how much money they have to spend on school clothes in the fall.
DS is FINALLY starting to enjoy having me read to him, and actually asking for it outside of bedtime.
I am (or was, when I had time) a big reader. I really hope to teach him to enjoy it too.
My oldest would read all day if we let him! I hope my other two are the same once they learn to really read.
They say kids will do what their parents do and the more you read in front of him the home he gets what a fun thing it is. I need to read more. I have a pile of books in my bedroom waiting to be read but where is the time?!
Quoting new_mom808:
DS is FINALLY starting to enjoy having me read to him, and actually asking for it outside of bedtime.
I am (or was, when I had time) a big reader. I really hope to teach him to enjoy it too.
I think I left it back w/ my pre-baby hips. LOL
Quoting Vertical15:
I need to read more. I have a pile of book in my bedroom waiting to be read but where is the time?!
Quoting new_mom808:
DS is FINALLY starting to enjoy having me read to him, and actually asking for it outside of bedtime.
I am (or was, when I had time) a big reader. I really hope to teach him to enjoy it too.
HAH! I hear that!
Quoting new_mom808:
I think I left it back w/ my pre-baby hips. LOL
Quoting Vertical15:
I need to read more. I have a pile of books in my bedroom waiting to be read but where is the time?!
Quoting new_mom808:
DS is FINALLY starting to enjoy having me read to him, and actually asking for it outside of bedtime.
I am (or was, when I had time) a big reader. I really hope to teach him to enjoy it too.
Yikes!!! deer tick!!
Yellow soft drinks or dark?
- Vertical15
on Jun. 25, 2012 at 9:54 PM