The joy of reading

theSun, Tue, 22 Feb 2011

I would like to share here some of the things I did as a parent, and a few ideas that I think might help a child get interested in books and find reading fun.
As one of my personal interests is reading, I love visiting bookstores (and would love it more if I could buy all the books I want!). Like everything else, it is good to model what we want to instil in our children.

Take your children along and show them the books in the children’s section and let them choose the books they want.

Be flexible where their choice of books is concerned. Try not to dictate what they should read, even if they choose Angelina Ballerina instead of All About Insects for instance.

Allow your children to read books that they like, even if it is the umpteenth animal story. If that’s what they want, it’s all right, as long as the contents are appropriate.

Make reading with your children part of your daily routine. I used to read to my child during the day and at bedtime as well. Now that she knows how to read on her own, she reads and re-reads many of her books, comics, and magazines.

When your children have begun learning how to read, encourage and provide them with lots of opportunities to build their newfound skill in a fun and relaxed way. Avoid turning the activity into a chore.

As children have a shorter attention span, limit reading time to between 15 and 20 minutes. It is not a must to finish the entire story in one sitting. With some children, you may not even get to finish one sentence on a page.

Babies simply love to hear your voice, look at the pictures, or turn the pages rather than wanting to know why Jack climbed the beanstalk.

Toddlers may ask lots of ‘why’, ‘where’, ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ questions while older children may want to discuss certain parts of the book in greater depth.

Reading does not have to be limited to books alone. For example, while on a car journey, look out for billboards and turn reading them into a game, or get some audio books for them to listen to.

While grocery shopping, ask them to help read your shopping list, the signboards indicating the product categories or words on the food packaging.

Show them interesting and child-appropriate pictures or comics from newspapers or magazines and read the captions together.

Get together with other family members for a fun reading-aloud session. Take turns to read, change your voices to suit the characters in the story, and make sound effects for the story to come alive.

You may even go a step further and get simple props to role-play the story after you have read it. Play ‘what if’ and create your own sequel to the story you had just read.

When activities become fun and the children feel involved, they would become more and more interested.

One thing I learnt in my parenting journey is that a child’s interest in something is easier to develop and sustain when there is some variety and fun involved.