Motivations to help your child practice reading more!

Reading motivations are just like any other kind of motivation. We must find a way to have our children decide for themselves that they want to read. They must find interest in it to make it beneficial.

This is a great way to encourage your child to read (and it REALLY works). Most children like to stay up later than their normal bedtime. Simply set a bedtime for your child and then allow them to stay up for an extra 30 minutes to read. Allow them to read anything they are interested in. Most children will do this just for the extra time awake. This is also creating a habit that could last a lifetime of reading before bed, as opposed to watching TV until they fall asleep. Make this a fun thing that is totally up to them - don't try to make them do it, simply give them the option.

Find out what your child is most interested in, and help them find material about that topic. It doesn't matter if they are reading books, magazines, comic books, or even the newspaper. Reading is reading. No one likes to read something that does not interest them. Many times, students in school are forced to read what the teacher is interested in, and never experience the joy in reading something of interest to themselves. They think they hate reading, when they maybe just don't like the material they are reading.

Spend time at the library. Expose them to lots of books.

Cook with your son or daughter (ONLY if they are interested in it). This may sound far-fetched but is just an example of being creative. What must you do to cook something? Read the recipe! Allow your child to read all the directions out loud as you cook together. This works on comprehension and is also a great way to work on math skills, such as measuring items. Just don't make this sound like an educational lesson to them - make it FUN!

Play a board game and have your child read the directions and explain the game to you. This is good practice for reading (out loud or silently) and also comprehension. They may have to read the directions a few times and may need help, but will be effective.

Children always have a ton of questions about everything, and it is easiest to answer them. Next time, show them how to look up the information for themselves. Look it up on the internet or in a book and have them read it and talk about it together. This is also teaching them to be more self-sufficient, which is the ultimate goal, right?

Another idea is to provide incentives for reading books. For every book that is read (and explained to you - make sure they understand what they are reading), give them a gift. It doesn't have to be something you buy, maybe your child could choose an activity or game to play with you.

Are you getting the idea? Any thing that a child reads, and any way you can get them to read it, is wonderful. A lot of these activities are things that we do everyday. By making our children do some of these things, we are showing them the importance of reading and understanding what we read. It is also a fun and beneficial way of spending time with our children.

BE CREATIVE! The important thing to remember is that kids do what is fun, so make it fun and interesting for them.

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