Reading is an activity that is often deemed to be ‘boring’, with the prospect of sitting and staring down an array of text seemingly daunting for hyperactive children who just want to play. Hence, reading is seldom picked up by children.
However, reading can be a pleasurable hobby and can even benefit them academically. A study that noted down the reading habits and academic success as children of more than 17,000 people discovered that students who read for pleasure not only did better with their vocabulary and spelling, but also in mathematics. Cultivating a love for reading in your children does not have to be difficult! Here are some tips that might help you promote reading to your young ones.
- Start from young
Children are most impressionable from young and tend to pick up hobbies and interests that have been cultivated since young. With the help of visually appealing books, a sense of curiosity can be sparked in your child that might interest him to pick up reading.
- Exposure to a wide selection of texts
There is a wide range of reading materials from novels, comic books to magazines, all of which can cultivate a sense of love for reading. Having exposure to different forms of content allows the child to have wider variety to choose and gain an interest from.
A fun family trip to the library would be a good start to introduce your child into the world of reading while enjoying the sights around the library, especially architecturally aesthetic libraries like the Library@Orchard.
- Make reading fun
Reading might be dull for some children, hence you can spice up their reading experience by making reading more entertaining, such as role-playing the story or reading it out loud to your child. Narrating the story allows for an extra sensory experience that further immerses him in the plot and makes for a more interesting read. This might just be the tool to get your child to fall in love with storybooks!
- Give children the liberty of choice
Giving them the freedom to choose what books they want to read allows them to be more engaged with the contents of the book due to self-interest. Since they are reading for pleasure and can pick out books that they are actually interested in, they would naturally gravitate towards reading when it is done out of interest and not forced. Even if the book is graphic-heavy like comics or manga, it is still a book in hand!
