P.S. I agree about the vomit. It shouldn’t be allowed, especially not in children. Ack.

I’m an English teacher. And a writer. And a reader. And a mother.

So yeah. Reading is about as important to me as it can be for any person. You can’t get more invested in time, money, energy and emotion than I am. I don’t think. (not without vomiting, I’m pretty sure.)

And what I’ve seen is that you can’t MAKE a kid love reading (damn I wish you could. I’d pay big money or spend a lot of time and do anything to make them LOVE it).

What you can do is model a love of reading; and make reading as comfortable and enjoyable and rewarding as possible; and never associate it with punishment – ie: you watched too much TV now you HAVE to read for 30 minutes (in my humble opinion this is not productive).

I have birthed two children from this same book-loving body only 24 months apart. I read all the same books and had similar environments for both their early childhoods. My son LOVES to read and my daughter….doesn’t. (shoot me now.)

So I let her pick the spot and the book and the duration of the session and I tickle her back or rub her legs and offer all kinds of awesome (indirect) bribes to make it as wonderful as possible. She’s twelve so she reads on her own but we did the “i read to her” stage and the “she reads to me” stage and the “i read a page she reads a page” stage; but now, she is on her own. Pretty much has to be.

She reads the bare minimum I set aside and I joke about it and keep it light and say, “YAYAYAYAY it’s time to READ your favorite time of DAY where are we doing to read TODAY??? and what part of your legs or arms or back am I tickling while we do it???”

I try to stay so positive and make it fun and I want her to love it. But she still doesn’t. Sadly.

My sister hated reading. My husband hated reading. They grew up in book-loving families and now they love to read.

So they both say Karly will come around and will eventually love reading. She knows how. She’s good at it. She just doesn’t want to be told she has to enjoy it.

But it’s so important. Okay. So now. My question is this:
Are you sorry you asked? Or that I answered? Or both?
My apologies in advance. I feel strongly about this. Obviously.

Pssshhh, I act like I don’t have a library already or something.

Okay, reading! My boys love it! Have they read as much as they should this summer, probably not. But we’ve been busy. However, whenever the older boys have quiet time in their rooms they are reading books.

I think teaching them the love of reading is more important than teaching them to actually read. That comes with time and schooling. Of course you have to help them work on what they’ve learned at school on the homefront. But fostering a love of reading, once its ingrained, its hard to lose!

The BOB book set was one of the best investments I ever made in starting them out reading.

We’ve been reading with the kids since the twins were newborns, and they’ve been big readers ever since, as in they would let me read to them for a good 45 minutes when I was pregnant and on the couch with Zoe. But with Zoe came chaos and less reading, so we’re trying to get back into it. And it’s apparent that Zoe’s not as accustomed to it as her sisters were at the same age. Honestly sometimes I avoid trying because I fear the resistance that may come, even though they almost always get interested once I start.