Encourage Reading - Waldorf Knoll Academy

Encouraging children to read has been a challenge as long as there have been kids and books. Reading is essential in education, but in the modern business world where so much communication takes place digitally, over email and text-based messaging systems, the ability to read for comprehension and to communicate effectively is vital, and needs to be taught at a young age. Beyond that, reading for pleasure provides a wealth of benefits for kids as they go through school and into adulthood.

Here are some tips for parents to encourage their kids to read and turn a young reader’s reluctance into enthusiasm:

Develop children’s oral language

Depending on the child’s language skill level, give him a story to read or have a story read to them. When the story is finished, ask your child to pinpoint favorite parts of the story. This can enable children to have fun picking out words and develop an interest to move to the next page.

Read several stories every day

The more children are exposed to literature, the more reading will become part of their daily life. A child is introduced to new information, concepts, and phonemic awareness with every story.

Surround your children with reading material

Children with a large collection of reading resources in their homes score higher and perform better on standardized tests. Provoke a reading habit in your child by having a large array of interesting books and magazines at her reading level.

Encourage a wide variety of reading activities

Make reading an essential part of your children’s lives. Let them read menus, movie names, roadside signs, game guides, weather reports, and other practical everyday information. Always try to make sure your children have something to read in their spare time.

Let them use e-readers

E-readers can be adapted to each person’s specific needs. If you have a kid who needs larger font or less lines per page in order to improve their reading ability, e-readers are perfectly suited to this kind of tailoring. E-readers are adaptive for students with learning disabilities as well, and can help level the playing field for children who learn differently.

Let them choose what they read

Reading for pleasure is one of the best ways for a child to improve his performance at school, but teaching a child to love reading involves a lot more than simply handing him a book. Letting children have choices in their reading material goes a long way in raising life-long readers. Kids who choose what they read, regardless of whether it’s a novel, a comic book, or a magazine, are more engaged with what they are reading and more likely to retain the information.

Help them choose age-appropriate books

Help your kids choose age-appropriate books on topics that interest them to spark a passion for reading. Take them to the library or even show them e-readers that provide entire libraries of options at the touch of the screen. Access to a wide-variety of options helps make it easier for parents to help their children find the stories that give them that toehold into the world of reading.

Make use of gadgets and creative apps

Your smartphone or tablets can be used to install useful reading apps where kids can have safe spaces for reading without parents worrying about what they might come across online. Parents are able to choose what their children can access, as well as how long they can do different activities with timer features.

Show interest in your child’s reading

Your response or feedback has a strong effect on how hard they will try to become good readers. Always remember to give them genuine praise for their efforts.

Drop Everything And Read (DEAR TIME)

As part of our commitment to raise students that enjoy reading, we observe DEAR TIME twice daily at our school. Students observe Dear Time by dropping whatever they are doing to read for 5 minutes.