06 Apr Do you have a kid that despises reading?
Do you have a kid that despises reading? Take a couple of minutes and read NFK’s secret to turn any kid who hates reading into a rock-star reader!
1. Figure out what’s behind the reluctance. Finding out the ‘why’ behind it will help you figure out how to address this issue. That might mean choosing a book more appropriate for your kid’s reading level, find a book on a topic that’s interesting to your child.
2. When your child resists reading, Say, ‘How many pages do you think you can read before you need a break?’ Or, ‘Do you want to do one of your chores and then sit down and read? Let them break up the reading, have them finish this page or that chapter, and then tell them, ‘Let’s do something else and get back to it.’ They deserve that. They deserve a break; they deserve playtime.
3. Read aloud to him as much as you can – encourage your child to read a book that’s appropriate for his reading level, preferably about something he’s excited about.
4. Let your kids loose at the library. Let them roam the aisles and tell them that they can check out as many books as they can fit in a bag. “If they can fill a bag with books that look good to them, they’re going to read some of them. They don’t have to read all of them. They might only read one, and that’s better than nothing.
5. You can cultivate this growth mindset by modeling it yourself. And when reading is a slog for your child, remind your kid of how far they’ve come as a reader and that when it feels hard, that’s when she’s growing connections in her brain and getting smarter.
Our founder @niyatimehta17 gets nostalgic about this and says, “If you cultivate the habit of reading in the right way as I did, then your kids will also ask to read more like how mine did with a cup; of hot chocolate on the side.”