involved a very simple task for families with children at primary school. It was over a summer holiday and I asked parents to commit to at least ten minutes every day reading to or with their child. The results were amazing! In nearly every case the amount of reading and the enthusiasm for reading increased markedly. The response of Tariq (age 8) when he was back at school after the holidays was typical of the ones I got from just about all the children: ‘I would like to read more and more each day. I love reading with my mum and dad.’ One mum told me that before the project her daughter did not read for pleasure very much. Time was the main problem and the lack of a reading routine exacerbated it. The mother felt very guilty. After the holidays had ended, Rose (age 6) simply said ‘I enjoyed it. I felt jolly and excited. When my mum finished reading I wanted her to read more.’ This was on the back of simply setting aside ten minutes each day.
What you need to do
As you read through the book, you’ll find lots of ideas and tips about how to read to and with your child, how to make your home a ‘reading home’ and so on. I just want to talk briefly about the fundamentals that underpin the whole ‘project’ of turning your child into a lifelong reader.
First you need to make a commitment to get involved and stay involved, probably for longer than you think. It is not a quick fix. You need to share with them and encourage them well into their teens, creating a rich environment for reading for pleasure to flourish.
The point about reading for pleasure is that it is for pleasure. Don’t stress about the level your child is reading at or about the subject matter or format – the point is that they are reading. I’ve met many families where school reading becomes the priority. In the primary school years parents will talk about reading homework and focus on their child moving up the reading levels. I have also seen plenty of families where a bedtime story happens much less – or even not at all – because it is replaced by the child doing their school reading. Of course it’s vital that our children learn to read. The world is competitive and they need to read to do well at school. But if we are not careful we can give them a message that reading is something they have to do, that it’s a chore, that it’s just homework. In their minds it can become no fun. If children feel pressured we can easily turn them off reading.
EXPERT VIEW
One of the best ways to take the pressure off is for them to see you enjoying reading and for you to talk to them about an interesting book you’ve read recently. Children learn by copying and you are your child’s version of ‘normal’, so if you read for pleasure, they will expect to grow up reading too.
Dr Amanda Gummer
There is a prevailing assumption that once children can read, they will read. Not so! Quite simply, many children don’t want to read because they don’t associate it with pleasure. Getting your child to read for pleasure is much more than getting them to the point where they can read independently, and your role in this is really, really important. Let the school take the lead on teaching reading and support the school in this by listening to your child read their school books. However, your focus should be primarily on instilling the love of reading. If the focus is on the pleasure of it and children grow to love it, the rest will follow. Together with the school you will create a reader.
Children who have parental support at home and read for pleasure have a much wider range of vocabulary, and their verbal reasoning is much more advanced than those who do not. Their education journey is going to be much more rapid than those children who don’t read for pleasure.
East Midlands primary school teacher
Our children’s lives are conspicuously lacking in quiet time and this is, of course, when reading happens. Lack of quiet time is probably one of the biggest challenges to children’s reading for pleasure today, so carve out time when all screens are off (including your own!) and when interruptions are kept to a minimum.
Parents often say to me ‘I don’t understand why my child doesn’t read because I used to love it so much.’ I can say with certainty if you contrast your own childhood with your child’s you can see why: after-school clubs, homework, 24/7 on-tap entertainment from consoles, phones, laptops and television – all these things compete successfully with reading.
Think about when you were a child. You will have some memories of technology, but how much will depend on how old you are! In the 1970s your family might have played the tennis game Pong through the TV, in the 1980s you may have played Space Invaders in arcades or had an Amstrad computer. Gradually through the 1990s and beyond, more families got PCs and computer gaming gained in popularity.
But whatever you had access to, I can guarantee there is vastly more of it in your child’s world now. You would have had plenty of time where there was not much to do, when you were at a loose end and so would have picked up a book. I think many adults who love to read quite possibly came to it in the first place for want of anything else to do. This isn’t as odd as it might sound: reading is nothing more than a habit, and like all habits it needs time to establish itself.
EXPERT VIEW
Today, there is a reduction in reading print texts (books, magazines, etc.) and a significant increase in screen time. An argument can be made that children are reading lots on screen – instructions, social media messages – but it is the reading of extended texts that is diminishing, in other words books that take ideas and develop them over a sequence of episodes or sections. Children have to learn that not all reading can be done in bite-size pieces but that there is pleasure, purpose and deeper fulfilment in longer reading experiences.
David Reedy
Of course, time is the one thing our children don’t have a lot of and screen time is the handiest and quickest fix when boredom strikes. Our children have so little time when their minds can be still, the likelihood of them picking up a book for ten minutes or an hour is so much less than when we were growing up. Reading needs quiet time to take root and grow. Since lives today are very short of this we need to create that time for our children. So, don’t book activities after school every day, have a day or two when reading is the thing to look forward to.
Ensuring your child has plenty of reading choices is an important part of helping your child love reading. If there are new and exciting things to read, this should be a great encouragement. The trouble is, although there is a huge variety of books to choose from, many children don’t get to see them. Many retailers only stock the big names and high-profile newly published books. There is a vast choice
