Reading is a fundamental activity for the development of a child’s personality in all its aspects: in school performance, in self-esteem, in the way they relate to the world and in the process of learning. So, the big question is knowing how to stimulate in your child a taste for reading. Reading ability is critical to the level of performance in all areas of knowledge.
Knowing how to read and interpret a text or a small article in a book, a magazine or even on an online blog like the one on Materlu is important not only for the subject of English or other languages, but also for Mathematics, the study of science and for all others. With the entry into the 3rd year of the first cycle, the child gains a new rhythm and needs to create habits and rules of work and study. Due to its importance, knowing how to motivate a child to take up the habit of reading is a question often raised by parents.
This is not to say that you will stop playing or develop extra-curricular activities, but it is a phase where a child should learn to be focused on what they are doing. There’s a time for everything. To work and study and to play.
How can we, the parents, teachers, brothers, and others help to stimulate the taste for reading?
1 – Learn to appreciate different types of art
Children who come into close contact from an early age with various types of art become more curious, like to learn new things and develop critical thinking and achieve the ability to socialize in a natural way.
Going to museums, exhibitions, concerts, or theme parks and connecting with works of art, and with music while all the time understanding their meaning, the message, and emotions they intend to convey, are all ways to help a child interpret more subjective means of expression and improve their critical thinking capacity. These activities provide very rich experiences and allow a child to develop new knowledge in a playful way, without the “imposition” of the school curriculum.
2 – Grant the tools for the development of imagination
Kids love to roll-play. They imitate parents, make playrooms, play with puppets, invent adventures with toys… All this contributes to awaken pleasure through knowledge and to enrich a child’s free time.
Attending cultural spaces is another way to stimulate the taste for learning. Theatre, for example, is an art where word and body expression come together to communicate feelings, messages, and experiences.
3 – Show children the importance of knowing how to read
Knowing how to read is much more than “knowing how to read”. It is the possibility of knowing new worlds, of understanding other points of view, of imagining, of learning about oneself and about others and of reaching much further in life.
In addition, reading is fundamental to understand and to be able to interpret the world around us and to have access to an inexhaustible source of information.
4 – Choose the books more suitable for your children’s age
The first books are made up, fundamentally, with images. The story is narrated through illustrations and some subtitles, and this gives great freedom to a child who can then imagine and invent new stories.
When the child is older, they begin to appreciate another type of reading: Fairy tales, fables, and little stories still accompanied by images. As the taste for reading settles, the child chooses their own books. The readings they like the most. Encourage this taste with regular visits to bookstores and libraries and by doing shared reading.
5 – Include books in their daily routines
Parents should start reading to their children long before they learn to read and encourage the interpretation of illustrations and the manipulation of books appropriate to the child’s development phase early on.
Reading a story before going to bed, as part of a sleep routine, is an excellent strategy to help develop a taste for reading but also to strengthen affectionate bonds between parents and children.
6 – Setting an example
As with many other issues of parenthood, setting an example is a great way for parents to encourage their children to adopt a certain type of behaviour. If you are in the habit of reading and if reading with and for your child is an activity you do regularly, it will certainly be easier for your child to develop a taste for reading.
With books like Fly High and The Great Chef, we can help you to make your child passionate about reading. Reading stimulates creativity, learning, interest in new areas of knowledge, enriches vocabulary and develops writing. It also promotes creativity and the ability to write longer texts and explain more complex ideas.