4 Simple Ways To Encourage Reading in Your Home

 

You already know the importance of reading to your child every day.

I think it’s safe to say that Sarah McKenzie’s Read Aloud Revival has everyone pumped about the benefits. So this post won’t really be about encouraging you to read to your child every day, or even about having them read to you every day, although I do hope you’ll feel encouraged by the end.

This post is all about HOW you can fit reading into your everyday life.

Let’s face it. I know you’re busy. Who isn’t?

If you’re anything like me, and I’m so hoping that you are, you read all of the different posts about what you should be doing and you walk away with a ton of guilt. Like “Yep, another thing I’m not doing. Yay me!”

Because, just because you know what to do, doesn’t mean you can figure out how to fit even one more thing into your busy schedule. Into your headspace even.

When I was a teacher, before I had kids, I had all of the answers about how busy parents could find time to make reading apart of their children’s lives.

Then. the. kids. came.  and I realized that all of my advice was not quite realistic. Uugh, I cringe at the thought of what my student’s parents were thinking of all of my well-intended advice. (rolling their eyes probably) I clearly had no understanding of how busy parents are.

But here is what I have learned. In order for reading to become a habit in my home, I do have to get creative, and intentional, in making time for it.

So if you are already convinced of the importance of reading in your home, here are four simple ways I encourage a habit of reading in my home.  Hopefully, you’ll find one or more that will be useful to you or will spark an idea for your own family.

1. Have books in your home. One of the easiest and most effective ways to encourage your child to read is to have lots of books for them to read independently and for you to read aloud to them.

Give them as gifts for birthdays or Christmas. Ask others to gift them in lieu of toys. Borrow them from the library, or purchase them from used book stores, consignment stores, or thrift stores. I’ve found great buys at Goodwill and Salvation Army, but I really rack up at our smaller neighborhood thrift stores. Give a special book for your child’s birthday and Christmas with an inscription about something special from that year.

2. Make time for reading. I know. We’ve already established that it is hard to find time in an already busy schedule. That’s why you have to make it. Prioritize it and squeeze it in whenever you can. Listen to books in the car. (Yep, audio books do count.) Let each child bring a book in the car and give them time to read out loud to everyone or to themselves. Keep a funny joke book in the car and have children read one or more each trip and see who can get the most laughs. My kids LOVE trying to make me laugh.

Have a D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) time some time throughout the day. It can be as short as 5 minutes or as long as an hour. Ours are usually about 20-30 minutes. I’ll usually ring a bell and say, “Grab your book. It’s DEAR time.”Everyone has to get a book or two, depending on their age, and go to the couch or the floor with a pillow or blanket. Sometimes I’ll join them and read my own book or other times I’ll do some chore I need to get done. It’s definitely more enjoyable when I can join in. (Cause really DEAR time is my opportunity to catch up my reading guilt-free.)

3. Let them see you reading. As I mentioned above, I love to join in our DEAR time when I can. For me, it’s a perfect opportunity to ensure I get to engage in something that brings me real joy. Even better, my children get to see me reading. This helps to show them that reading is something I want to do rather than have to do. I have to try hard not bring books to the table when I’m eating but I have been caught with a book in my hand a time or two (or three) at times that I probably shouldn’t. The other day I asked one of my children why it always takes them so long to get out of the car. He said he didn’t want to stop reading the chapter he was on. Then he added that he sees me do it all the time. And sadly he was correct.

4. Talk about what you (and they) are reading. You know how you read a good book and you just want to tell someone about it? Because talking about it makes it better? It does. Well you can do this in your home. If you all read a book together, you can talk about it, but you can still talk about something that you reading. I always share things that I think might be useful with my children. And I encourage them to tell me about what they are reading. Right now my boys are into Captain Underpants and My Weird School books and I can tell that I know too much about these stories, but I love that they want to share with me.

Those were easy enough, right?  One tip I didn’t stress above is reading aloud to your child. I do read aloud to my children everyone and quite enjoy it, but you can encourage reading in your family if you don’t read stories to them every night. My parents read the Bible to us during family worship most nights, but I don’t remember them reading too many books to us. For me the greater impact was that we countless books everywhere in our home and if we ever complained of boredom, we were encouraged to pick up one and read.

If these suggestions don’t feel easy to you because you don’t love reading yourself, don’t worry. You are reading this post right now, which means that even though you might not necessarily pick up a book for enjoyment, you will read when you need information, which is a good place to start. So you can talk about the blog post you’ve read, introduce your children to safe blogs for kids, or websites that include online stories. We listen to a daily devotion from http://www.keysforkids.com but it also online and in written form, so that you or child can read it.

The most important thing is to start somewhere and remember that it doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s family. Which one of these suggestions do you think you’d do? What’s worked in your family?