With the current global pandemic affecting everyone and forcing millions of children to be home from school right now, parents are taking on a new level of responsibility–making sure that they have enough to do while stuck at home. For many, integrating learning into their new home routine is essential, as school days are being missed. One activity to keep up with while your child is stuck at home right now is reading–but how do you encourage them to do it without being forceful and stressing them out? Let’s talk about four ways to encourage your children to read in a way that is not stressful for either them or you.
Incorporate More Than One Reading Activity
If you are determined to help your children fall in love with reading, you have got to make it a regular part of their lives. Encouraging them to read books can start with other activities like road signs, names of movies, and even takeout menus that you might have saved in the drawer. The key here is to incorporate more than one medium to read. The more they exercise their reading skills in everyday life, the more drawn they will be to read all types of interesting books.
Consider a Reading Comprehension App
While you’re at home with your children, you might start to notice some of the skills that they struggle with in terms of learning. When they are at school, it’s easier for these issues to fly under the radar, but now that they are at home, you get a front-row seat to what learning difficulties they may have.
If your children are not interested in reading because they are not confident about it, consider a reading comprehension app. This is a wonderful, interactive way to encourage your children to read without them feeling like it’s a chore or something that they are going to fail at.
Let Them Choose What They Read
One of the best steps you can take is to encourage your children to choose what they read. This is especially important if you want your children to learn to read for pleasure–not just because it’s required at school. Letting your children have choices when it comes to what they read is going to do wonders for their life-long relationship with reading. It will also make them feel more confident about reading in general and empower them to try new reading material.
Show Interest
If you want to be able to encourage your children to read more, then you have to show that you are invested–and interested. You can’t just leave your children with a book and expect them to pick it up and love it. The more enthusiasm that you show for your children’s reading, the more inclined they will be to engage in it more. Children need encouragement in every aspect of their lives, so showing them that you care about their reading will help them learn to love it themselves.
One way to do this is by making reading together a part of your children’s bedtime routine. Not only is it a fun activity, but reading has been shown to be quite calming. Psychologists believe that reading helps reduce stress so effectively because our brain has to concentrate on the words on the paper, therefore creating a distraction from the constant chatter in our mind. Books help our kids escape from the present moment into a literary world of imagination that intrigues them and captures all of their focus.
While the kids are stuck at home right now, you might be trying to teach them to be more confident around certain skills, like reading. Remember, the more resources you have on your side, the easier it will be to encourage your children to read.
How do you keep reading at home stress-free?
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