How to Raise an Avid Reader

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty.  It should be offered to them as a precious gift. —Kate DiCamillo

These days, unfortunately, we as the parents are giving the gadgets as gifts to the kids and forgetting the most important gift, which opens the entire world in front of them. A wise old man had already said that “Books are the Window to the World”. But honestly, how many of us are really opening this window to our kids?

As a toddler, most of the kids would be happy to see the big pictures on the board books and they will spend more time with board books. But as they grow up, they get more attracted to gadgets and lose touch with books.  This trend would continue even after they enter the school, which will be followed by lower marks and grades and the permanent struggle for parents.

To avoid this struggle, it’s easier to keep the kids in touch with the books, even after they have been introduced to gadgets. As a parent, one needs to take efforts to make books attractive to kids along with gadgets. Since we can’t avoid the entry of gadgets into kids’ life, we can use the very same gadgets cleverly to increase their love for reading.

Avid Reader, Book Blogs, Shravmusings, Chennai Bloggers

Introduce Audiobooks:

Audiobooks are a great way to engage a toddler who has not yet started reading and get him glued to the interesting stories. We have a wide variety of books available in the form of audiobooks and there are a lot of apps that offer the audiobooks to the kids. We can download a few of them on our gadgets and make the kids listen to them.

Introduce them to EBooks:

For the kids, who started reading and are not willing to sit down with books, Ebooks is another option. These days, a lot of Ebooks are coming up in multiple languages with beautiful pictures too for kids. Subscribing to the Kindle app is the best way to keep the kids engaged with books even while using gadgets. This habit, in fact, would reduce the load of the books to be carried while traveling.

Give them puzzles on the gadgets using the storyline from books

Some of the kid-friendly apps have puzzles designed from their storybooks. One can download those apps and these apps do provide Ebooks as well as the puzzles that go with these books. Otherway, would be for the parent to prepare the puzzles for the kids. Puzzles are always an interesting start for the kids to prepare them for a new book.

Books from the Movies:

A lot of kids’ movies were built on children’s fiction books. So making the kids read the books after watching the movie together would give the kids far better insights into the plot and the author’s creative skills. This will interest them to pick up more books before they watch the movie.

 There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book. —Frank Serafini

So it’s upon us as the parents to help the kid find out the right book to rekindle the love for books which he had during his early toddlerhood days. There are different genre books which the kid would love based on his interests:

  1. Joke books: We can use these books, to make the kid sit down for a couple of minutes and enjoy a joke or two in the book.
  2. Growth Mindset books: For the kids who are having difficulty in dealing with various emotions, the growth mindset books which capture the various emotions or the struggles faced by a person and how he overcame would help them in dealing with their feeling emotions and feelings
  3. Fiction: For kids who are interested in storytelling, fiction would help them in their creativity
  4. Non-Fiction/History: Helps the kids gather the facts and details about their point of interest.

This list can go on endless but has captured the most important categories for the kids. So we as parents, if we want to give the best and greatest gift to our kids, then its only books and books

One of the greatest gifts adults can give—to their offspring and to their society—is to read to children. —Carl Sagan

This article is written for the topic number 5 under “BookBlogTrain, Season 2”. The topic is “Tips and tricks to increase reading in kids”

This article is written as a part of #Thebookblogtrain conducted by Vidhya Thakkar and Siddhi Palande powered byPenguin India and Redwolf should not be repurposed, republished or used otherwise. The content herein is owned by the blogger. Hosts are not responsible for any infringement caused.”

58 Comments

  1. Reading is really important for children’s brain development, as we well know. But listening is super important as well. Kids (and adults) can listen audiobooks, which exposes them to new vocabulary and ideas. This list of audiobooks for preschoolers isn’t meant to supplant carer/child reading time, which is really important bonding time for children. This is meant to support reading by giving a the child carer a chance to make lunch, take a shower, or anything else, without having to flip on the TV.

    1. Thanks a lot for your kind words. Yes we need to inculcate both the listening and reading habits in our kids

  2. Gadgets are now part of kids generation. We cannot avoid them yet we could make use of them. E books is a good one to introduce after some years.

  3. Touchwood I succeed to develop the habit of reading in my daughter. She loves to read new books full of pictures. Useful post!

  4. Gadgets truly, have become a part of child’s life. But, if correct book is given, then no one can stop them to develop the habit of reading. Amazingly penned your thoughts. 🙂

  5. Great tips, it’s important to make our next generation better readers.

    1. Yes, very well said Ramya. We need to make all our kids good readers.

  6. Nicely compiled points. For ebooks, i think they should be exposed after some schooling years, not so early. Let them fall in love with the paper quality, smell of the books and dog-earing pages!

  7. Loved the quotes. So aptly written.

  8. That’s a great post. Even i narrate stories to my niece through picture books and she got so intrigued by them.

    1. Yes, all the kids are attracted towards picture books initially and we as parents at times fail to sustain their interests

  9. Such a useful tips and I agree all of these points. Loved the quotes. going to apply these tips when I have kids 🙂

    1. Thanks a lot my dear

  10. These are some.great tips to inculcate reading habit in kids. I’ve written on the same topic as well.

  11. I really really like the puzzle part. This way they are actually interested in the book and maybe want to know more. Great Article.

    1. I am currently using this technique Maria thats why I had captured all my real life experiences

  12. Good Tips

    It’s really important to have reading habits on kids

  13. That’s a wonderful post and so many points that would definitely help in growing even a long time reader. Thanks for the post.

  14. This is a really good & informative post! Thanks for writing it

    1. Thanks for liking my post Sumith

  15. This is a really nice & informative post! Thanks for writing it! ?

  16. Suhasini, I am glad to see a fresh perspective on raising readers. I am not sure about ebooks and audiobooks yet, this mom is learning. My little Penguin is quite young for that may be in future we would try hands on that.

    For my 2.5 years old I started early and documenting my experience in http://lifewithmypenguin.com/category/parenting/raising-a-reader/

  17. Reading is so important for a child’s development! And, you have raised some valid points! It’s amazing!

    Pari xx
    https://parishmitasaikia.wordpress.com/

  18. I absolutely agree with you Suhasini- it is so important to inculcate a love of reading in children. These are some great tips.

    1. Yes, we need to develop our kids into next gen readers Noor.

  19. Great post! Very informative and really helpful. 🙂

  20. Totally agree with all the informative points you wrote. Loved it <3

    1. Thanks alot for visiting my blog

  21. Puzzles and joke books is a good option. Thanks for sharing!

  22. Very realistic points. Definitely helpful for anyone trying to raise an avid reader 😀

    1. Thank you Ankita for reading my blog

  23. The idea of puzzles is really innovative ??

    1. Thank you…That’s from real life example

    2. Thanks a lot for visiting my blog and thats a real life incident only which we use regularly

      1. I don’t have much real life experiences with kids (I’m not even an adult lol). Sounded very innovative to me. I read a lot of posts about the topic but didn’t find that reference anywhere else. So credit goes to you!

  24. Incredible points. Sound arguments. Keep up the amazing work.

  25. I hear you! My cousin has given me the job to introduce the nephew to books since I have a better relation with books than her. Even when he was 3 months old, I got 3-4 books for him, just so he’s familiar with them 🙂

    1. Thats so wonderful Suchita. Introducing kids to the books is such a wonderful experience

  26. All GREAT suggestions! I’m an avid reader myself. I’ve been reading to my son since he was born! He’s falling in love with reading now too!

    1. Thanks a lot. Even I do the same to my kid

  27. We LOVE reading at our house! Thanks for sharing your great tips! 🙂

    1. Thanks a lot for dropping by

  28. I love these tips on how to raise an avid reader. Reading is so important and I’m glad my parents shared their love of reading with me. I hope to continue to share the love with my kids.

    1. Thanks a lot for your warm comments. Yes, thats the main concern of all book lovers parents. To pass on our book love to the kids

  29. Excellent tips! My son is at that age where he’s curious about the world: bugs, animals and dinosaurs. So we got him several books on these topics and all of a sudden it’s a desire to read and look over them before bedtime. Getting them hooked on books could be as easy as finding what interests them and giving them a resource to look into. Just avoid showing them anything on Youtube or electronic devices. The book is the primary resource in our house!

    1. Well said Margaret! Even we do the same at my house. Always keep buying books which interest my kid

  30. What a great post!! So many great tips! Reading is so important!

  31. That quote at the beginning is beautiful and so true! I read with my little ones every day. They’re too young to read on their own, but they LOVE books and I hope we keep it that way!

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