Dear Parents,
Education is an essential part of every child’s life. With education, the possibilities in life are vast. One part of education is reading and the importance of reading cannot be emphasised enough.
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When your children develop a habit of reading, they gain knowledge and their command of English improve because they are exposed to new words. Thus, this article will cover on the 6 ways to cultivate the love for reading.
#1 Let your children read whatever they want
When your children choose the book that they would like to read themselves, it helps them to explore the kind of genre that appeals to them.
When you start to determine what your children should or should not read, it will narrow their thinking and in the long run, they would not have an open mind to the various issues they come across.
Furthermore, if your children is forced to read something they find boring, their interest for reading will be killed even before they can find out if they are avid readers innately.
#2 Discuss with your children about a book ONLY after they have finish reading it
Discussing with your children a book even before they have finished reading can sometimes take the “magic” out of reading it, especially when you dissect it into unexciting terms like “plot,” “setting,” and “rising action.”
Your children can post questions regarding chapters as they read them. However, you shouldn’t interrupt the flow of their experience with a bunch of literary jargon. Instead, discuss a topic that complements their reading, such as historical context or particular literary devices that show up in the book to interest them further.
#3 Explain the value of reading to your children
Your children could be naturally ignorant about the value of reading and they are bound to see it as a chore instead of a good habit to possess. As a result, it is the duty of tutors or parents to explain to them the rationale of reading in the long run.
One can possibly highlight the benefits that could be gained from reading, such as a peace of mind, enhancing of linguistic skills and the ability to acquire knowledge at a rapid pace.
When students eventually understand that reading is something that is part and parcel of education, they would then eventually start reading without any prompting from the adults for self-improvement purposes.
#4 Give your children books to take home
Just having books present in your home has been proven to enhance your children’s appreciation for reading. Your children would automatically start reading when there are books at home whenever they are bored or have free time to kill.
Hence, as parents, you could form a habit of bringing your kids to the library regularly, every weekend or so. This enables your children to be exposed to a variety of different books.
By doing so, your children can also no longer give the excuse that they do not have books to read.
At the library, you should prevent your children from choosing comics or manga as they are written in too informal a manner. Thus, this will only deteriorate your children’s standard of English.
#5 Offer your children memorisation tricks to help them retain information
Your children might have the problem of reading just for the sake of doing so. This is because they might be unable to absorb from reading. One cause of this is you’re your children may possess a short attention span.
Therefore, in order to help these children, you can provide them with memorisation techniques in order to help them remember whatever they have read and to absorb this information into their sub-consciousness.
One such example is to teach your children to visualise while reading. This is especially effective for children with visual minds.
At the start, the rate of reading might be slow but that is perfectly fine as the kid just needs to adapt to reading and absorbing information.
#6 Teach your children to compare the social value of different media
It is necessary for your children to not just be limited to one kind of reading material. This would enable them to have an open mind about various issues and also gain new insights.
For example, when your children read the newspaper daily over and above the books they can obtain at the library, their general knowledge will improve. They will also be able to think critically and analyse various world events.
Blogs are a good source of reading too. This is because blogs enable your children to be exposed to different opinions of different people. Although there is no right or wrong, being exposed to various opinions would help them to form their own opinion in the long run.
Hence, you should advise your children to expose themselves to different kinds of reading platforms such as newspapers, novels, academic articles, and blog posts.
In conclusion…
Given that reading is a critical aspect of your children’s education, it is vital that these 6 tips are put to good use to ensure that they develop more passion for it.
Once again, it is down to you parents to enforce this.
