How did you, or plan to get your kids interested in reading, or are you leaving that up to their school ?

Answer 1

The school I went to first grade in taught something called sight reading. Nobody ever mentioned the fact that letters represented sounds. I learned almost nothing. Over the summer my mother taught me phonics, and suddenly I could read. When I tell people about that, they say "Oh that's because she was your mother." NONSENSE! She taught me to break the code. Much later I learned to read Korean in two hours, and not from my mother.

Answer 2

Oh heavens no do not wait for them to learn reading at school. The best time to start. At the age of 1 day. I am serious. Start reading to them the day after they are born. Make books part of their lives. Make it normal and natural to learn and have pleasure from books. If you do this you can have your child reading before his or her 2nd birthday. When teaching reading you must take 3 approaches. First is the whole language approach where the child just learns and mimics the story. This develops interest and language structure skills. Next is rote reading where you show a word to a child and tell the child what the word is. Do not teach far beyond what the child has learned or you can break self confidence. One or two new words at a time is fine unless the child wants more. Last of all is to teach phonics. Start simply and make the phonics more and more complicated as the previous level is mastered. Do not advance on until the previous level is mastered. Consider 100% acceptable and less as needing more practice. You do this properly and your 6 year old child can have a reading vocabulary of over 2,000 words.

Start as young as possible...make it a pleasure...little perfect steps... and soon they will be running perfectly (in a reading sense that is) smile

Answer 3

My daughter knows how to read quite well for a 6 year old. For the first three years she obviously wasn't interested because she was so young, but once her mother left us, she wanted to hang around me the entire time.

It started out with bedtime stories, and when she saw how interested I was with reading the newspaper, she often wanted to come and sit in my lap so that we could read it together.

I think that she thinks that if she does something and is interested in something that I like, it will get her more attention. I also make reading a fun thing instead of a chore. I give her a little reward if we manage to finish an article, or a book together, and other such fun activities that make reading enjoyable.

Answer 4

Reading should not start at school. The best way to start getting children to appreciate reading is by giving them exposure to it as much as possible. So a bedtime story, or an audiotaped story for supervised reading, different textbooks at school rich in colour and topics that strike your child as interesting are all the good ways of starting them off. Also showing your kids athat even you take pleasure in reading is an excellent trigger... there is nothing like a good example.

Answer 5

I read to my son every night before bed from about the time he was two until he could read himself. Rainy days, sick days, nice warm sunny days outside, any day is a good day to have your little one curl up next to you for a story. Be prepared when they decide a book is their favorite and they ask you to read it a hundred times. LOL Mike Mulligan and his Steamshovel still stands out in my mind and my son is 15 now. If they show an interest in a particular subject matter that may lead you in a particular direction. My son loved dinosaurs and developed a great vocabulary due to the wording of some of his books.

have fun with it!

Don't use reading as a punishment.

Answer 6

A good parent doesn't wait until a child gets in school to get them interested in reading. You start pointing to pictures in pictures books before bed every night when they are about 4 - 6 months old. You start reading them bed time stories at ages 8 - 9 months, and you continue this process as they get older. You make sure they see you reading every day yourself, so that they see that big people love to read! By the time they are 3 or 4 years old you point out road signs and read them together. You read other things in the mall, etc. Most kids can read STOP, YIELD, EXIT, etc. by the time they are 3 or 4. When they do get to school, you support their lessons by helping with homework every night and continuing to read to them. Chapter books (one chapter every night before bed) begin at age 6 or 7 and continue until the child is in 3rd or 4th grade. After that, you encourage your kids to read 30 minutes before bed every evening. It's an on-going thing.

Answer 7

I have four children and have read to each of them since they were babies. I had the most time with my oldest and taught her to read before she entered school. She learned the easiest with Dr. Suess books. Although the other three of children have always been exposed to books and read to, they didn't learn to read until they were already in school. They all enjoy reading, but only my oldest can spell well. I believe it was the early exposure to phonics.

Answer 8

My mom & dad read me bedtime stories & took me to the library when I was young. I was crazy about horses so my mom & the librarian would find me all the horse books for my age group, I read my entire life, staying up late at night reading, I'm 45 now & still read every night. Reading is wonderful, read to your kids, take them to the libary & now with all the book mobiles, its fun for a child to go in and find themselves books..good luck

Answer 9

This is interesting---

I have six children, 3 girls and 3 boys.
I am an avid reader,I actually NEED to read something every day.
All of my children were read to and encouraged to "read" to me.

Out of all of my children my oldest girl and youngest girl love to read and read well above their grade level. My middle girl reads if there is absolutely nothing else to do, she neither loves it or hates it.

Out of My boys the oldest has ADD and the youngest has learning disabilities. Neither like to read and have difficulties when they are required to. My middle boy like to read only if he can learn how to do something(usually about games) but other than that he gets bored reading, it does not capture his interest.

I still try to encourage all of them to read because I think it is important. They see me read daily and it really has had very little impact except for 2 of my girls and each of them will gladly sit and read instead of TV.

Answer 10

Very early in life a child will follow what the parents do.If you smoked in all probability , your child on a balance will follow the same course.Similarly with music,painting albeit talent is an essential part of this in terms of quality.But if you read to your children and take steps to take them to libraries, they will eventually have this embedded in their systems and will eventually have no difficulty pursuing this with easy and feel its the natural course of things.It wont be work-let me put it this way.