How I Used Minecraft To Get My Son To LOVE Reading (And You Can Too!)

My son LOVES Minecraft. A lot. But he hates to read books. He’d rather spend hours and hours in his world of blocks than sitting down and discovering the world of books.

His distaste for reading was really starting to impact his schooling too. He had never experienced sitting down for long periods of time and reading. So when it came to class reading time, my little Tommy would get easily distracted, and fell far behind the class.

So, for the fifth time that year, I sat down with his teacher. We went through all the same stuff: Tommy has trouble focusing in class, Tommy is behind on his homework, yada yada yada. And when I came home, I did the same thing I usually did. I yelled at Tommy and banned him from playing Minecraft for a month. But banning Minecraft and forcing him to read a book just didn’t work. If I wanted to get him to read, I would need to get him motivated to read. I prepared a 3-step plan outlining EXACTLY how I would get Tommy reading and caught up on his reading from school, all in one month.

Here Is My Three Step Plan That Made My Son LOVE Reading:

1. Know Thine Enemy: I decided to take a few hours out of my schedule and play Minecraft with my son. Sounds crazy right? Yeah, I thought so too. But, I learned more about my son in those few hours than I did in the past MONTH. He was so well-versed in the game. When I asked him where he learned all this information, he told me that he would spend a lot of time reading Minecraft Wiki. Who would’ve thought my son, who hates reading, was spending his spare time reading encyclopedias?
2. Buy Books: I realized in those two hours that it wasn’t the act of reading that turned my son off. No, it was WHAT he was reading. I immediately went on Amazon and ordered two Minecraft books. The book I can recommend the most is “Trapped In the Minecraft World” (which you can buy here), because it was such an exhilarating story, and Tommy COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. I personally ordered the paperback, because I was doing the best I could to get him off electronics, and hold a real, physical book in his hands. The second book I got was “The Redstone Handbook” (which you can get here), which is basically an encyclopedia for all things Minecraft. He made it his go-to book when he wanted to know how to do something in Minecraft.
3. Family Book Night: One thing I never did before was read with my son. But if I wanted him to pick up reading, I would have to stay with him all the way to make sure he would follow up on my goal for him. It turned out reading with him was a blast — both of us got into the stories.

The Results?

My son became a bookworm. I slowly transitioned the books we would read every night into books that he was supposed to be reading in class, and he enjoyed them almost as much as he did the Minecraft books. Working with my son’s hobbies was far more effective than working against them. I hope parents across the world, who are going through similar problems, can use my three step plan to turn their kids into avid readers as well. Bye bye for now!