30 ways to help your child become a serious book lover

8/4/2019 30 Ways to Help Your Child Become a Serious Book Lover

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A Free E-Book For Parents Everywhere


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Share it with anyone else whose children may benefit from these ideas, as

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If youve been around my blogHeartfire At Homefor any amount of time

you know how crazy I am about books. And, particularly how crazy I am

about books as part of the tapestry of a true home and as a grounding for

any child.

For me, if a house is to be a home for a child. It MUST have books in it

(and not just for decoration purposes!), plus a comfy place to become

immersed in those books.

As you know, Im mad about interior design and how we can make it more

holistic and connected to our lives. Iblog joyfully about this concept, and

spend many, many hours helping those in my real offline world to do just

that in many ways.

What you may not know however, is Ive also been a practicing primary

school teacher as well for over 24 years (four days a week still), and Im

specifically trained (an extra year on top of my 4 year Bachelor Degree) in

the area of reading.

So, I know a tad about it.

Here then, are 30 ideas (plus a few more, and then one big one), to help

your child become a true lover of books. Most of these can be used with

picture story books for younger school age children, or longer chapter books.

Read on..
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30 WAYS TO HELP YOUR CHILD BECOME

A SERIOUS BOOK LOVER and A GREAT READER!

1. Read TO them, particularly books that are too hard for them at the

moment. The only way theyllget to hear amazing literature thats a

little bit hard for them is if someone (YOU) reads it to them.

2. Read WITH them. If you read along together, they can model their

expression and phrasing on yours. Great practice for them!

3. Listen to them read. And then, talk to them about what theyve

read.

4. Praise them when they read well or figure out an unknown word.

5. Pause dont jump in immediately if they get stuck - give them a

chance to figure it out (around 10 to 20 seconds).

6. Prompt if theyre still stuck after youve paused appropriately,give them a prompt (a clue), or just tell them the word. You dont

want to lose the flow of the story or else theyll forget what theyre

reading about and enjoyment will fade.

7. Take turns reading parts of a page, or a page each.

8. Read your own books sitting next to each other, and then share

your fave bits.

9.Read your own books sitting back to back human touch is a

bonding experience

10.Have poetry reading sessions find some funny poems and stand

up and read them aloud to each other!

11.Find some books with childrens plays in them and have a go at

practicing and performing them!


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12. Get them to write their own scripts for a play and then perform

them.

13. Ask interesting questions about the characters in the story -

Whats the worst thing thats happened to your favorite character in

the book? The best thing? Why do they think that? How do they feel

about..? What would you do if you were in their place?

14. At the end of a page or chapter ask them to predict what will

happen next in the story. High five if you were right!

15. Keep a chart with a gold sticker or star for every book read. When

you get to a pre-determined limit (5, 10, 20), go for a trip to the

bookstore and buy a favorite book.

16. Get out your scrapbooking materials and make up a scrapbookpage representing a character, a place, an object or an emotion from a

favorite story.

17. Draw a map of all the places in the story. Look at maps from The

Hobbit and Narnia for inspiration.


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18. Get out paints, textas, pens, charcoal, all sorts of drawing

materials and make a picture about the story/book. Collage is great

too!

19. Use sticky notes (kids LOVE them) to mark up favorite pages in a

story or book. Use these to refer to when looking for ideas to

draw/write/scrapbook about.

20. Use sticky notes to stick on pages with unknown words that you

could look up later together.

21. Use sticky notes to stick on pages in non-fiction books that

provoke questions they would like answered, then Google more info

later on.

22. Use the interest generated in the last idea to create a mini project

or book on their topic of interest.

23. Use a program likeaudiobooto get the children reading aloud on

to the computer and creating podcasts of their reading to hear what

they sound like!
http://audioboo.fm/?utm_source=www.audioboo.com&utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=landing_redirecthttp://audioboo.fm/?utm_source=www.audioboo.com&utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=landing_redirecthttp://audioboo.fm/?utm_source=www.audioboo.com&utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=landing_redirecthttp://audioboo.fm/?utm_source=www.audioboo.com&utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=landing_redirect


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29. Let them have a torch to read for a few minutes (10? 20?) in bed

at night and make it a little secretive, special, just for them

experience. They will never forget this!

And finally.

30. Let them read to their younger/older siblings. This makes themfeel special and like an expert especially if theyre reading a book

thats really easy for them to a younger brother or sister and talking

about the book with them, explaining the pictures to them etc.

NOW, keep reading for some extra tips

and one BIG idea at the very end!


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Some Entertaining Extras:

1.Whatever you do. Make it fun! Go for picnics and take a bookeach and have a picnic read-a-thon.

2.Sit under a shady tree on a hot day, or (horror), climb one togetherand read a book up there (a-m-a-z-i-n-g).

3.Make a tree-house with shelves for special books.4.Pitch a tent out in the back yard and read by torchlight.5.Take a family photo with everyone peeking over their favorite

opened book and blow it up and put it on the wall near your special

reading corner or place. (LOVE it!)

6.Make trips to the library together stop and have afternoon teasomewhere... make it as special as possible.

7.Read a book and then go to see the movie or borrow a DVD of thesame book and compare them.

8.Get creative in any way you can think of! Making books a part ofspecial memories will create a love for books and reading that will

be life-long.


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And, one more thing for those children who already love

their books and for whom youd like to take things a little

further!

You know how some grown-ups get together for abook club where theyeach read the same book and then get together on a regular basis to discuss

the book?

Well. If your child is up to reading reasonably lengthy chapter books (like

Harry Potter, The Narnia series, The Hobbit, The Secret Garden etc), theres

no reason you cant do the same with a bunch of interested children!

This could be 3 to 5 kids all with the same book, and each week (or

whenever they meet) they could be assigned 3 or 4 chapters (or whateversuits), and could meet up at a parent's house to read out their favourite bits,

talk about any words/parts they may not have understood, discuss what the

characters are thinking or doing, and to guess/predict what they think is

going to happen in the next few chapters.

It could only take 30 mins or so, they could have a yummy afternoon snack,

and then they could have a quick play together and be picked up by their

parents.

If it was your own child plus 3 more, you could fit them all in one car, and

the parents could take turns picking them up from school on the designated

day each week. So, you'd only have to go and pick them up from whereverthey were. Good way to meet the other parents (or chat more with them),and also a good way for parents to get involved in a different way as the

parent whose home it was at would have to 'lead' the discussion somewhat.

You could even have your own adult book group for half an hour after theirswhile they played if you were all feeling really industrious! Then they'd get tosee parents discussing books too (even though they'd be playing, they'd

notice). They may even choose to sit in! Although you'd have to pick childfriendly books - lol.

So in short.....

1. 3 to 5 kids with same book.

2. Get together once a week (or fortnight etc) for 30 mins of book time.3. See if what they predicted the week before came true (see part 7 below).

4. Share their favourite part.


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5. Share unknown words, bits they weren't sure of, or interesting thoughts

they may have about a happening or character (get them to make a note of

these while they're reading during the week, or use little post it notes tostick in the books).

6. Ask if there's anything they'd like to know more about and research. For

instance, they might be reading a fairytale that has dragons in it, and mightlike to 'research' dragons and do a little project on them to bring and sharethe next week. Different kids would be interested in different things.

7. Ask them to predict what they think will happen next (write these down in

a little 'book club journal').

The steps above are based very loosely on the targeted group reading model

we shift to in the grade 3/4 areas in our schools in Australia, and are

fabulous for those children who are really up to getting more deeply involved

in what theyre reading.

Thanks so much for taking the time to get serious about helping yourchildren LOVE books.

I hope my suggestions have given you something new to try or to think

about including in your family time!

And remember


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Linda. xox

Heartfire At Home Blog
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30 ways to help your child become a serious book lover

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