Raise a Child Who Loves to Read
We just loved this article by Dr. Laura Markham for Aha! Parenting on how to ‘Raise a child who loves to read’.
Raise a Child Who Loves to Read
by Dr. Laura Markham
Forget Baby Einstein. The single best way to increase your child’s IQ is to read to her and instill a love of reading. Does your child read every evening, not because it’s assigned, but just for fun? Some kids do, and those are the kids who do better academically, at every step of the way. School performance correlates more directly with children’s reading scores than any other single indicator.
Most parents buy board books for their babies and say they hope they’ll love reading. And yet, by middle school, most kids stop reading books that aren’t assigned in school. Only 28 percent of eighth graders scored at or above the proficiency level in reading in 1994; in fact, only two percent of them read at an advanced level.
What happens? The habit of reading never really gets ingrained in childhood. Our kids love leafing through books as toddlers, looking at the pictures. They may even enjoy reading as elementary schoolers. But reading is hard work, and life offers so many other ways to entertain themselves that reading always seems more like work than play. They never get to that delicious place where reading a book is more fun than almost anything.
So how can you inspire a lasting love of reading?
1. Read to your child from the earliest age.
2. Begin visiting the library regularly
3. Read to your child as often as possible.
4. Don’t push your child to learn to read.
5. Don’t stop reading to him once he learns to read.
6. Ritualize daily reading time.
7. Help her tackle the next level.
8. Help him improve his reading by alternating pages with him
9. Try smart comics for reluctant readers.
10. Never stop reading to her.
11. Read yourself.
12. Limit technology.
Read the full article on how to Raise a Child Who Loves to Read >>
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