How Parents Can Encourage
Their Children to Become Good Readers &Writers
1. Read to your child. (Obvious, but often overlooked in our busy lives.)
2. Kids not enthused readers? Set their bedtime twenty minutes later IF they use that time reading.
3. Create family reading time. Techno-gadgets off!
4. Game night! Play Scrabble, Charades, Pictionary, or any game that encourages thinking and creativity.
5. Be prepared. Everyone waits. Doctor offices, restaurants, in lines . . . Have kids bring their books to read, or an activity book to do. Or play a game like Story Building, where one person begins a story and the next person continues. Play I See . . . Person sees something and others ask him yes or no questions to deduce what it is.
6. Watch movies together. Afterwards, discuss. Movies are stories. What was the best part? How did people in story reveal their characters? What choices did they make? What were the conflicts or problems in the story? How would your family react in similar situations?
7. Make scrapbooks. Kids collect and take photos, cut pictures from magazines and newspapers that represent things they love, create art projects, write poems, stories and personal narratives (true stories about themselves) . . . etc.
8. Listen to stories on CD in the car.
9. Visit your local library as often as you can. Do your children have library cards?
10. Design Art for Author! After reading a book the child enjoys, he/she creates art about the story for the author and writes the author a letter. (We love mail from readers!) Send the letter in care of the publisher. Their address can be found online or by calling your local library.
11. Have children make fun lists: wish lists, favorite lists, books you have read lists, movies you want to see lists, travel destinations!
12. Help your children build their own library. Every special occasion you plan to give your children gifts, make sure at least one of them is a book. Find inexpensive books at used bookstores, library book sales, and thrift stores.