Reading with Kids
I love to read with my kids. I love reading to my kids to be exact. Now, to instill the habit of reading in kids is not an easy task. Some kids develop that fondness for books rather quickly, some develop a delayed taste.
With my elder one, reading became a part of our daily habit when he was very young, as in three or four months young. Maybe, having the books around him and playing with it as we did with any other toy was the key. Or maybe, he was inclined to books and the colorful pictures in it from the time he was born. Whatever be the reason, we had a huge collection of books – the first one which I bought for my baby when he was still cozying inside my tummy.
As Kanna grew up, gradually he lost interest in reading. This was when he started to read by himself. He still liked it when I read to him, but reading by himself was a different story. Interestingly enough, that phenomenon continues even today when he is an almost 10-year-old boy. Thankfully, he “gobbles up the book” if it was something that he loves to read. So we still have mommy reading to the kid sessions in our house every single day and I have no qualms about it as I love reading out loud and reading to my kids.
Now with my second one, things were different. We followed the same tactics with him too, but Akku never showed any interest to flip the pages. I remember, he used to admire the pictures and that was about it. Until he turned 2, there was no reading session that had happened, because he never wanted to listen to those beautiful pages.
When he turned two things took a drastic change. Akku became suddenly interested in books that lasted beyond flipping the pages and marveling at the pictures that those pages flashed. Perhaps it was the perseverance shown by his parents or the fact that I still continued to buy lots of book for him in the hope that he would show interest in reading one day and that hope being paid off – I don’t know, but suddenly I was reading Brown bear, brown what do you see, a hundred times a day. We are continuing to read together. He hasn’t reached the age where he could try to read by himself.
Our house is filled with books for kids from age 0 to 10 and up. Plus, the ones we borrow from our local library.
Maybe, my little one too will lose his interest in reading at some age just like his big brother did. But I will continue to read to my kids as long as I can. Because in my opinion, reading together establishes a bond that deepens as you flip through pages. And the fact that someone is taking out time from their chaotic schedule just to read out a few pages has a significance that my 3 and 10-year-olds wouldn’t understand yet, but they will realize how deeply blessed they were when they grow up and they will look back to these days with so much fondness and gratitude – I hope. Maybe, that’s why I read to them daily.
Do you read out to your kids? At what age did you stop reading to your kids?
I can sense a happy mumma here with the younger one starting to take interest in books. Read as much as you can to the boys. There always comes a time when the kids become capable of reading on their own and ironically that is precisely the time when they give up on reading. The good thing is your boys like to hear you reading to them.
At my place, reading took a drastic dip last year when life got filled with excitement by teeming up with Papa. Suddenly, D’s interest in reading vanished totally and new found interest in all kinds of screen time developed. With my work load of house chores increasing and struggles for keeping up with all of it and my anxiety, I couldn’t find adequate time for bedtime reading. I felt like shit watching my years of reading efforts going down the drain. Since then, I have added one more struggle to my struggling life which is to read books appropriate for D’s level on my own first and afterwards try to generate interest and curiosity in him about the plot of the story. Sometimes, he gives in to the curiosity. Other times, he just keeps on reading and re-reading Dogman and Captain Underpants.
Your post and my comment has given me the idea for a post on this topic.
I would love to read your post, Anamika. I know how much effort you had taken in making reading a habit in D. And you are successful too. I realize that kids will lose (more like their attention gets distributed into other activities) interest in reading as they grow up. I feel they will never forget the effect of reading, though they might prefer other more interesting activities. 🙂
So I have a confession. As much as I love reading, and I enjoy reading short books aloud to my son, I hate reading longer books to him. Or at-least I think I will hate it, because I have never tried.
That being said, he is almost 8, and I still read shorter books to him / with him. And encourage him to read longer books by himself, while I sit beside him and read my own books at night. He recently finished the Harry Potter series & I discussed the books, which is fine by me. It’s just the reading aloud together that I cannot do for longer books.
Inculcating the habit in children is very important.
Reading together and finding stuff they enjoy is probably the best way to instil that love for reading. There is a children’s author I follow who has two sons and on her blog, there are some good posts about how to encourage kids to read.
I love it how you’ve written about your reading experience Vinitha. I really wish I read out to my little one frequently. She showed interest as early as 4 -5 months, but she was keen on seeing pictures and now she is keen on learning words, but listening to a story is yet to happen. Though she always asks me if I am reading a book. I tell her yes I am. She says okay and goes to whatever she does. At times, she says she wants to join in. I only have a few books for her, though I used to choose books from the library every 2 weeks. Now I must begin that again. She loves variety. I’ve noticed that.
I would love to watch my little one read a book and I secretly wish it happens. You’ve done a great job with both at that. I wish I could spend some time too.
I think you are making a great investment in getting them interested in books and reading to them. I’m sure your persistence will pay off and someday they’ll be grateful that you kept at it.
My Mum read to us when we were young and some books I knew by heart before I could actually read. So she would fool people by telling them that I could read at age 2!
I love books so obviously my son, who is also 10.5 thinks books are not too great. His reading habits are a bit different, he likes comics and encyclopedias!
I still read to him sometimes especially a bedtime but mostly he reads on his own now.
Good post and sharing books with kids will eventually make then love books.