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The essential problem is this: If you don't read, your children likely won't either. It's that simple. My wife and I are both readers. We always have books in our hands. So if you want readers, you have to be a reader yourself.
My children were always read to when they were young. But we read them interesting books. The Harry Potter series. The Iliad. The Odyssey. The Hobbit. Endurance (Holy smokes, that's the best true-life adventure story ever written). And a bunch of others. For our long car trips, we had books on tape. I remember a thousand-mile trip once where we played The Poisonwood Bible. The kids whined about it at first but, as the trip ended with three chapters left to go, they made us play the remainder the next night.
As a result, my two older kids are avid readers. My 23-year-old daughter is wrapping up her masters and is apply for Ph.D. programs. My middle child took time off from school, but reads a lot of Sartre and Nietzsche. My youngest is not, but he is proficient.
The other thing? Have books in your house. Novels. Picture books. Encyclopedias (If you can still find them). My parents bought a set of World Book encyclopedias when I was six. I read them voraciously. If I asked my mother a question about something, she would answer with, "Go look it up in the encyclopedia. That's why we bought them." To me, there's absolutely nothing sadder and more telling than to walk into someone's house and not see a book anywhere. Or, almost as bad, those who view books as ornaments rather than part of the life of the household. My in-laws have a set of the Harvard Classics lined up neatly on the shelf by the television collecting dust. Yet reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is easy to do and very rewarding.
The biggest problem in education isn't distractions, but rather the choice of reading material. The summer reading list for our kids' school system (A top-notch one, by the way) was some of the blandest stuff you can imagine. So little wonder kids turn to what's on TV or the videogame console. And if you watch television from the moment you get home until it's time to go to bed, then you're telling your kids what really matters in life.
Summer reading lists are often composed and (lazily) recycled unchanged for years by teachers who don't appear to keep up with new books. See what your public library children's department has to offer, instead, as the children's librarians tend to be passionate about kids and reading and very much aware of what's available out there that is both appealing and more current (as well as classics that have stood the test of time and not grown stale).
I agree with everything you have to say about motivating kids to read and love books. Good job!
My son's grade school would have reading challenges. For each book read they would fill out a form with name if book and tape it on the hallway walls at school. I can't remember the number of books the school principal said at the end if the contest if the school met the challenge he would kiss a pig. They made a big deal of it at kick off and really got the kids working hard. They had a different challenge every year for a while. It was a point of pride with each classroom how many books they read. One year they almost doubled the goal because of competition between each classroom.
By the way, the baby pig was really cute and got a big kiss at the ceremony.
A strong and physically-fit body are required to carry an active mind through life. Those parents whose children do not develop their physical abilities and spend time outdoors, are allowing them to place an extreme handicap on their lives. They will face an early decline and age badly. One of the main causes for the current obesity crisis among young people, is found in their sedentary habits. No amount of reading and pursuit of academics will offset this. A balance between the cerebral and physical must be found and the earlier in life, the better.
I have always been someone who is an avid reader and into fitness. There is no reason why you can't do both. The issue, however, is some people are not motivated and/or interested to do either.
Take reading, I have four brothers. My one brother and I were always avid readers. The other two brothers have probably read a total of three books in their lifetimes. Why do some people exercise and others dread breaking a sweat?
Schools are not doing a very good job of motivating students to develop a lifetime love of reading and exercise. The problem is, this should be the time when it is easiest to develop these types of lifetime habits. The issues are very similar. I hear kids almost daily say that they hate to read and they hate to exercise.
I'll be watching my own little study. I have two granddaughters. The oldest has loved to be read to since she was about 2.5 months old. She wakes up in the morning and looks at books. She has a huge collection and keeps getting more as presents.
The younger sister has no interest at all in books. We are hoping this changes as she get older but you have to wonder how much of a love of reading is innate and how much can be developed. I'll be watching closely.
As others have said I think it depends on the child. There could also be other factors beyond lack of parents encouraging reading, being obviously voracious readers themselves, taking kids to reading groups at the library, etc.
I read all of the time. I never understood people who had no interest in reading - like my husband. My kids were read to before they could crawl and when they (my older two) learned how to read, they still liked to be read to.
My oldest (19) still likes to read for pleasure, just doesn't have a lot of time for it. My middle decided reading was a chore somewhere around the age of 13-14 (now 16) between his summer reading lists & English reading requirements. I still encourage him to pick up a book for pleasure, but I'm not going to force him.
My youngest HATES to read. Always has. Being the 3rd child with a 6 & 9 year age difference between him & his older brothers, I always thought I just didn't spend enough time with him as I did my older two. He struggled a lot from early on & still does; not only with his reading, but his ability to sound out words (which I though was because he didn't read enough), spell easy words, (again, thought because he didn't read enough), understand punctuation, etc. When I say "read enough" I mean more than the 20-30 minutes he has had to do every night since Kindergarten (I think kindergarten was 10-15/night). I could never understand why he just didn't want to read to the end of the chapter or even farther to find out what "happened next" in the story. He NEVER got "lost" in a book like my other two.
This summer, thanks to a friend of mine who shared that one of her daughters is dyslexic along with how her daughter struggled at the ages of 3, 4, 5, etc. (which were the same exact struggles my son had), I had my 10 year old privately evaluated. Going through the county/state would have taken too long & we wanted to know before he started 5th grade in Sept. We found out about a week before school started that he has mild dyseidetic dyslexia. Explained a lot.
Last edited by Informed Info; 10-28-2018 at 11:25 PM..
I'm a reading specialist in an elementary school (grades 3-5). In today's world, educators are competing with video games, sports, busy households, not-so-great home lives, etc. It can be really tough to get students motivated to read, especially outside of school hours. What are some things that your school does to help get your students to love reading?
It seems inherent to me - for the most part - that any particular school or teacher cannot have the lion’s share of the role in creating a love of reading for a young student. School will likely be the place where a child will perhaps learn, improve upon, understand the rules of and develop the techniques for the skill of reading - but to place the role of also developing a “love†for reading in a young child to a teacher or school is probably unfair. It seems clear to me that a “love†for reading will likely have to come from the parents and family.
Any commenter to your query is obviously anecdotal.
My own anecdotal perspective is as follows. My daughter is 7 and attends 2nd grade. Her preschool was one of the early proponents of “outdoor learning†that is very popular these days - in essence, they spend absolutely no time on the 3 Rs and allow kids to learn basic life skills through play and social interaction. I was actually a fan of giving preschool aged kids at least some exposure to the 3 Rs so the decision to send my kid to this type of preschool was a leap of faith: I knew and had to accept that she would be behind many of her peers once she started elementary school.
What she did have was myself or her mother reading to her every night of her life since she was younger than 1yr. In addition, as I had given up TV 25yrs ago myself, she never developed the TV habit and certainly not video games. She loves arts & crafts, Legos, catching insects, playing outside with friends, etc...she basically likes to be creative and explore. She also loves Barbie, Fairies, Princesses and Dragons.
Anyway, I am writing this note - today is my ever visit to the Education section on this site - because I am a proud Daddy who noticed this particular thread. Having caught up to many of her peers during 1st grade, she has accelerated her love for reading especially in the past few months. Without prompting, she currently reads for pleasure about 1hr each day - I don’t think that I read for pleasure for an entire hour until high school, if then.
The one specific thing that I did which may have helped is that I let her know that I would buy whatever and as many books as she wants as long as she reads them. I had bought a nice bookcase from PBKids that is already full, with books now lining and stacked around her room waiting for another bookcase to arrive.
I had visions that perhaps my daughter would be a great athlete so that I can play sports with her. But it appears that I have a sweet little bookworm - and this Daddy is really proud of it...
I'm a reading specialist in an elementary school (grades 3-5). In today's world, educators are competing with video games, sports, busy households, not-so-great home lives, etc. It can be really tough to get students motivated to read, especially outside of school hours. What are some things that your school does to help get your students to love reading?
One of the things that my friend's inner city school did was take the 1st graders to the library to get a library card. Not sure it helped though since the parents would not walk to the library through the gang territory.
Another thing that my friend and I did was go to a big garage sale and buy books which she would level and have he kids take home. Many of the kids had no books at all at home other than the Bible and a cookbook, so having their own books did help.
I'm a reading specialist in an elementary school (grades 3-5). In today's world, educators are competing with video games, sports, busy households, not-so-great home lives, etc. It can be really tough to get students motivated to read, especially outside of school hours. What are some things that your school does to help get your students to love reading?
Speaking from my own childhood experience, I think the best thing that you can do is to respect the individual interests of the student, instead of choosing reading material for them which they may or may not be interested in. Almost everyone will find their own interests if given the chance. For me, I have never been much of a "fiction" person, always preferring the "non-fiction" aisles of the library. Being forced to read fiction in public schools, especially when I knew I would be grilled over it on tests and homework, only caused me to resent it and pushed me further away from it, while my science, math, and political books and articles that I got into, outside of school and on my own free will, when I was young are still the main thing I read today. I can imagine that some others may have the reverse problem, enjoying fiction but not being too much into math or science or politics. They should be allowed to pursue those interests too.
The problem we have is the idea that school should train students to be like assembly line workers or soldiers, always following commands and not exploring their passions in their own ways. Also, all children will go through phases where they seem to be missing out on something (they spend too much time on one thing, and seem to be not reading enough, doing enough math, etc.), but these are almost always temporary. Watch any child over a 3-5 year period, if their interests are respected by adults, they will get into some math, some reading, some history, etc. if given the chance.
[As a side note, no one taught me how to use online forums in school, yet here I am over 12k posts later! ]
Watch any child over a 3-5 year period, if their interests are respected by adults, they will get into some math, some reading, some history, etc. if given the chance.
My observations are totally the opposite. This is after growing up with three brothers, have three children, and two grandchildren, plus numerous cousins, nieces, and nephews. Children tend to become obsessive about certain behaviors, whether it is the type of books they read or playing video games.
From my own perspective, I read a tremendous amount while growing up but tended to read the same type of books. School forced me to read books that I would have otherwise read.
Kids are reading stuff.............sponsored content
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