How to Make Kids Love Reading
Tom Grimes: Professor Sexton … I need your input. A friend of mine said his son & daughter in law are pressuring their 8-year-old-son to read (his only grandson) … first by paying him $$$ to read … and second requiring him to identify protagonists/antagonists/plot structure … etc. I said that you explained that the most important factor might simply be to let the kid read what he’s interested in … and paying a kid to read is sorta like paying your mom for thanksgiving dinner or your wife for sack time … it’s generally not a good idea. Can you sum up your concise advice on how to encourage kids to read?
Jeff Sexton: Hey, Grimes. Sorry I didn’t see this till now. Here are my thoughts. The very best thing to do is to read to the kid. Read stuff he likes. Before bed is the traditional time. There’s a lot of science that you can dramatically elevate a kid’s ability to comprehend higher reading difficulty levels by reading to them. They understand it just fine when it’s read to them, but have trouble reading it themselves. But the more you read to them, the more they can figure it out when reading themselves.
Read to them. A lot. Read stuff that might otherwise seem a bit too advanced for them — so long as it’s fiction.
If you simply MUST be didactic about it, you can read, like, 5 pages to them, and then have them try to tackle a half page or something. And then flip back and forth.
You can use audio books for this as well. For example, Harry Potter on audio can be great while riding in the car. They’ll get a sense of what a dramatic reading is really like.
After that, Comic Books are good. Get the classic adventure stories in comic book format. For example, The Count of Monte Cristo in comic book form would be a great thing for an 8-year-old boy.
Tom Grimes: Jeff … I know you also taught English … what grades?
Jeff Sexton: 10th, 11th, and 12th
Jeff Sexton: Most people focus too much on a kid’s ability to de-code the letters and sound out words. That’s a skill that will come. But you want to get them spellbound by what gets delivered by all that decoding of words.
“Tell Me: Children, Reading, and Talk” by Aldan Chambers is a pretty good book to help parents talk to their kids about what they’ve read together.
Tom Grimes: Jeff … thanks, I’m going to share this with my son … the kids have a lot of books already … but this adds another level … THANKS!