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How to help your children learn to read and learn to love reading

With many kids starting school again (or starting school for the first time!) over the next few weeks, parents across the country will be ready with their own New School Year Resolutions on how to help their kids with essential skills they need. will use every day as reading and writing. Here are some easy tips to help your child learn to read and learn to love reading!

Books, books and more books. My kids have more books than a small library and they are all easily accessible. There are some in their bedrooms and the rest in the living room. They both see their dad and me reading and we both read to them. We encourage both Baby Boy and Top Ender to read to us, they may not use the words in the book but tell us what is happening in the pictures or tell us what they remember from the story. The important part is that they enjoy using a book, even if it’s just the pictures they’re using.

My daughter loves the Rainbow Fairy series of books (they are easy to read and only take 30 minutes as an adult to read aloud) and they have sparked her interest in reading because she knows that if she wants to read the stories and I am busy she she will have to do it herself! I’ve found that finding books on topics she likes means the books get read, even when the books aren’t that easy to read. I have many young children who read books and my daughter has read them a few times before returning to her favorite and loved books. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from trying to slip in some books on things I’d like my daughter to learn about things like “How to make your mom happy” or “How to tidy up your room.”

I have found that my son loves stories about cartoon characters he has seen or things he owns or loves (his favorite book is Jill Murphy’s What Next as it combines bears and a rocket). I have brought him several books based on movies because then he already knows the story and I see that he is more willing to read the book. I don’t think it matters that I have memorized the books I read to my son or even do the voices for the movies, what I am trying to teach, other than how to read, is that reading is FUN!

When I was little, I remember listening to stories that my grandparents and aunts had recorded for me and I had a great selection of reading books (when you hear this sound *Jingle* turn the page). I listened to the stories at night, reading only with the book that came with the tape (I was born in the ’70s, we didn’t have CDs when I was young!). We have brought several reading books and CDs for our children and even made our own thanks to the wonder of video editing.

I think this is a great way to help a child learn to read independently and it has been enhanced with the Leap Frog Tag reading system. My daughter was lucky enough to have this brought to her by Granny a couple of years ago and she is often found reading one of the Tag books just using the pen if she gets stuck on a word. It’s a great system and we have a Tag Junior for our purpose, he still likes to have someone else read with him.

I believe that all children love to know that they are loved and appreciated and that is why I started writing notes to my daughter and leaving them in places for her to find. There are the usual lunch notes (which were written in hieroglyphic style at first), there are notes left under his pillow, slipped under his door, and then the more advanced notes that lead us all on a hunt for a prize like our treasure map !

I have flashcards, not just from stores, but I’ve also made. I have made ones with numbers on one side and the word on the other, I have made ones with images of emotions on one side and the word on the other and then the ones that I have brought or been given over the years. I keep a pack in my bag, there’s a pack in the car, and I even have a downloaded version on my iPod touch. This way, wherever we are and whatever the time, I can get something out to keep daughter and son entertained, and it’s a bonus that it’s also a teachable moment!

I made clear index cards for my daughter in pink pen (she thinks pink and purple are the only colors worth writing in) that were scattered throughout the house. I don’t think there was a surface that didn’t have a card attached to it indicating what it was. I figured if the words were there, I’d learn them just by looking at them repeatedly.

I often put subtitles on when we’re watching a DVD or TV show (mostly I do it for myself because even though I’m not deaf, it’s easier for me to read and hear what’s going on!) and I’ve found that my daughter often reads a word or three like this, it helps with the debates we have about what a character just said! It also helps when I put on a Studio Ghibli in the original Japanese, as my daughter might have learned a song in Japanese, but there’s no way she’s going to speak it fluently!

Some of the first words my daughter could read were the names of stores she saw when we were in the car. She was determined that this was not reading, that she only knew what these signs said because she was smart. I managed to convince her in the end that recognizing a word like this was what reading really was when I wrote some store names in my handwriting instead of the logo format I normally saw and she could still read them. This has turned into a game where we have to read the names of the shops or the words on the signs or the names of the streets we pass by and again it is something to keep us entertained and a good learning experience!

I also use shopping as a learning experience for reading by giving my daughter the shopping list and asking her to read aloud what is on the list and then cross off what we put in the cart. Of course, this doesn’t always work if someone in the shop is eager to help or if you’re shopping alone without the kids.

The library is a great place to take children whose love of books you want to foster. I could spend hours looking at the different books, selecting which ones I want to read, which ones I want to take home, which ones I think are worth buying, what else is by the same author, but it tends to be a very quick affair. these days with me trying to keep daughter and son in the children’s section and quickly grabbing a stack of books for myself from the recently returned section. Having a library card not only teaches responsibility but also opens up the opportunity to read new books!