New Year’s Resolution: How to Get Your Child to Enjoy Reading
Our favorite New Year’s resolutions always involve reading. This year, there are so many exciting new picture books out that it’s the perfect time to encourage your child to read a variety of stories. Here are 4 ways that you can get your children to fall in love with reading this year:
Mix up the silly with the serious.
Reading an eclectic selection of stories is one of the best things that you can do for your kids. Exposing them to a wide range of stories will allow them to see that stories come in all shapes and sizes, and it will help them figure out what type of stories they enjoy the most. Just like we enjoy specific genres, kids will have favorites as well.
If you’re looking for a funny story that teaches the importance of family, try The Good Egg, a book about an egg who starts to crack from all the pressure of feeling like he has to be perfect.
For a more moving tale, try Sea Bear, which follows a lone polar bear as she makes her way across the sea ice in the Arctic. Pairing a laugh-out-loud funny story with a serene one will show kids how diverse books can be.
Read both old and new favorites.
When you were younger, what books made you fall in love with reading? Re-reading your favorite childhood stories with your kids can be magical, but don’t discount new classics either. Books like those in the I Can Read brand pair old favorites like Frog and Toad and The Berenstain Bears with newer characters, like Fancy Nancy and Pete the Cat. Plus, they make great read-alouds for you to read to them — and then for them to read to you.
Know that sometimes it IS okay to choose a book by its cover.
Especially picture books! Picture books expose your kids to art and literature at the same time. If you (or they!) are drawn to a book because of its cover, chances are, the inside will wow your family even more. Kids will gravitate towards the bold and colorful cover of Monkey Time, a clever, funny, and informational story about the concept of time.
Likewise, they’ll be drawn to the elegant art of Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré, the inspiring picture book biography of storyteller, puppeteer, and New York City’s first Puerto Rican librarian, who championed bilingual literature.
Let them choose.
We make so many decisions for our kids. Allowing them little freedoms can be liberating for both of you. Go to the library and have them select stories for the week, or go to the bookstore and let them choose one age-appropriate book as a treat. Or, when you read at home, let them go to the bookcase and pick out stories on their own. Knowing that reading comes with decisions that they are allowed to make on their own will help them associate books with independence and fun.
What are your reading resolutions? Tell us below; we’d love to know!
