Once a friend said to me, “You have it easy; your child is a reader!”

It sounded a little sultry because, after a divorce and illness, she had let him watch so much TV that she lost the fight to bring his TV watching under control. 

I was honestly a little taken aback, but then I realized that it was her stress speaking and not herself. So I offered to help her child become a reader:

He was 7 years old by that time, so bad habits had already formed. I knew it would be difficult but not an impossible task. So here I will share with you how you can encourage your child to read more and, with some luck, even become an avid reader. Side notes, I have helped multiple girlfriends with this approach, and it works consistently.

Follow these steps and be consistent and patient. I can’t promise it works in 10 days, but I promise it will take hold!

Level of Reading: Determine your child’s level of reading and start him one or two levels BELOW where he is expected to be. This will make it so easy for him to reach his goals and be rewarded. He will also be encouraged with his upward progress. When my daughter was 6 years, I used the baby Bible she loved for me to read with her. I encouraged her to read it by herself. This was SO easy for her since she knew it from memory anyway, and I pretended not to notice when she was just telling me the story instead of reading it.

Spend time: Watch some TV with your child, talk with him, bond with him, and find out exactly what he likes the best in his TV shows. Some boys are easy to figure out, they like planes, trucks or boats. Others are more difficult. They might be attracted to the series because of the music, the little squirrel in the back, the humor, or the screen’s color. Try to narrow down as closely as possible what makes them tick. (Do you think he will like this? Leave a comment below and let me know.)

Choose the Topic: Find a couple of books in the public library with the same topic as his favorite TV shows, picture books about the tv shows, the same character as in the tv show, or anything related to the show. In one case, I had to suffer through weeks of reading Barbie books since that was my niece’s first love. Then we moved to Dora books…before we could dig into the real good stuff!

Alphabet: Make sure he knows the alphabet! In at least one situation with a child who struggled with reading, we realized that the child just did not understand the alphabet. Play lots of alphabet games. Get cheap cards at dollar stores or make your own and put them on the floor in the correct sequence. Sing alphabet songs. Double-check to see if the child understands that each letter has a sound and has to be sounded out. Be sure, don’t take this for granted. Look for a link below for an alphabet song my daughter liked.

FUN, not Frustration: Connect the reading time with “fun” time. For one of my foster sons, I would drive to a secluded place to watch airplanes fly over and read when there were no airplanes. Another child loved baking. We baked and ate the cake while reading for the first time together. Whatever you do, make sure it is TOGETHER. Children crave attention, and they will grab you, book and all.

Rewards: Use stickers to reward. For each day they read 10 min they get one sticker. For 7 stickers in a row, they can choose a fun place to go read a book. It might be a fast-food restaurant, or it can be the backyard. Let them choose.

Read to them: Make time daily to read a chapter of an exciting book for your child. Read it with dramatic effects. Make it about laughter and not about learning. Make it about spending time together. Stop at cliffhangers. (Very important! Keep them begging for more, and soon you can reward them with reading time!) 

Be Creative: Put up a tent in the sleeping room and leave it up for several days. Read a chapter each day in the tent. Comment below if you have other creative ways to read, I am very interested.

Tea Party: For some girls, organize a tea party in the tent. And read there while munching on tea and cupcakes. It will be fabulous if you find a tea party book. Or you can write it. Leave me a comment if you want help to publish!

Up the Game: After they have mastered the daily reading time, up the game! Let them get a sticker for each book they finish. And 7 stickers is a reward.

Chores: Reward chores times with reading time. 

Bookstores: In my area, all the bookstores have coffee shops and sell cookies. Go there, sit on the floor with them with a stack of books and “read” them all. Finish the visit with a cookie from the coffee shop and see how fast they want to return to that place.

Rewards: Rewards can be special food requests, more books, a toy, a visit to grandma, a trip to the zoo, a playground visit, or whatever works in your area and is relatively free or cheap. Leave a comment with cheap places in your area. In Chicago, the zoo is free, as is the planetarium.

Shout it from the Rooftops: Make sure to call the grandparents, aunties, and neighbors to tell them how well the child is reading and how proud you are of them. Shout it from the rooftops but do it casually. Make-believe he is not supposed to hear you brag. (As if that is possible right? They hear everything.)

Set the Example: Let your kids see you reading books. Believe it or not, you can casually take one of their books and read it by yourself. They will not question you. They will like it that you like the same things they like. Whatever your read, let them see you reading. Use words like “Mommy is reading now. This is very important. I have to know what is in this story. Please let me read.” I used to “trade books” with my daughter. I would ask if she finished a book already since I had to read it, and she soon started asking me the same. She is 17 and still brings me “good books.”

Dress up: I can vividly remember how we dressed up as characters in the book Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. We read the book and made chocolate from “scratch”. (Heating pure chocolate and adding nuts and raisins.)

Laughter: Find fun stuff you can laugh about and keep using that multiple times during the day. Something like, “remember how the squirrel only wanted to drive in a red car? Look here! A red car, I wonder if there is a squirrel in it…no? Let’s keep watching out for more red cars. Who knows?

Brag: Whisper with daddy how well Jimmy read that day. (Even if it was horrible) Make sure Jimmy can hear it!

Go Back: Find BIG books. Kids feel accomplished when they read a BIG BOOK, even if it has only had 2 sentences per page—comment below which huge books you found that your child liked.

Applaud, applaud, applaud! Give positive remarks. If a child is struggling, never get frustrated. Reading belongs in “FUN”, not in “suffering”. Just read the book for him if he can’t and keep it fun and “no big deal”. Find a book of a lower-level skill the next time. One way to assure you select a book on the child’s reading level is to have him read a page or two to you in the library or store. If he misses more than five words on a page of a chapter book, it is too hard. Picture books have fewer words per page, so they shouldn’t miss more than one or two. Review the alphabet with him. Make the individual sounds and help him spell. Comment below if you find out that your child does not know the alphabet as well as you thought he would do. It happens a lot!

And if you are wondering about my friends 7-year old boy? It was so easy! He reads!

Do you have to do all the 20 above? Well no! But I gave you 20, so you have plenty to work with. Readers are not born, they are taught, and you can do this, Momma. I wrote many children’s books you can use to read for your kiddos while sharing God’s love with them. I will put a link here from my website. www.luisettekraal.com Check them out, and I hope some of them help you. Make sure you order the correct language since many of them are written in 2 or 3 languages. Leave a comment for me.

Alphabet song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UR-l3QI2nE

www.luisettekraal.com for more fun children’s books!

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