Family Fridays – Gifts to Encourage Children to Read (Part 1 of 2)

Posted by on Aug 23, 2013

Even before my son was born, I put a lot of thought into this question: “how can I encourage him to be a reader?”  I only have one child, and he is (as of press time) not yet eight months old. Since he is currently more interested in trying to eat his books than read them, I certainly can’t claim to be an expert, but since we’re in the birthday season (September and August seem to have a higher number of birthdays than other months – all those Christmas babies) I thought I’d share my thoughts with you and get feedback from you, my awesome readers. So without further ado, here are my thoughts on gifts to encourage reading in children.

Your time. Parents, this goes especially for you (and me!). Take the time to read to your children, and as they get older, let them see/know that you choose to spend some of your free time reading for pleasure. Let them read to you. Ask them to read to their younger siblings.  And I know how hard it is to find the time to read to your kids and for yourself. But what we spend our time on is what shows our true priorities, so if cultivating a love of reading in your children is important to you, then the laundry can wait. Facebook can wait. Reading to your children cannot wait, and modeling to them your own love of reading is just as important.

Extended family and friends, you can have a huge impact here as well. You can read to them, too. You can also talk to them about what they’re reading. What are their favorite books? Who are their favorite characters? What do they like about them? One of my special memories from my childhood was when my grandparents recorded themselves (on a cassette tape, so this was back in the dark ages) reading stories out loud. Since we lived on the other side of the world, this was especially meaningful. With the technology that exists nowadays, this would be extremely easy to do and share.

Books. Well, duh. You knew this was coming. I’m actually not going to give any specific recommendations here, because I think the best book for a child is one that is age appropriate, and on a subject/theme that he or she is excited about. I don’t know what will make your kids’ hearts sing, but you probably do. You can also browse some of my past recommendations by going to the sidebar on the right and clicking on the Family Fridays category, or narrowing down by age group. You could also give gift cards to bookstores, or take the recipient out for ice cream and a trip to a local store to pick out their own book.

Stay tuned for another exciting installment next week – I’ll be covering experiences and tangible tie-ins.

Update: See part two here.

5 Comments

  1. Beth Hennings
    August 23, 2013

    Great reminders and ideas to be INTENTIONAL about reading to even the very young!

  2. Stori
    August 25, 2013

    I have so much that I could say on this subject! But I am only going to share two things – reading out loud FOR PLEASURE to your child at all ages from 0/1 to 18 is the number one thing that you can do help them succeed academically. Not phonics drills or flash cards. And the second is that we have a rule in our house – anytime Isla asks me to read to her, I stop what I am doing and I read to her for (almost) as long as she wants. I don’t always stop what I am doing to play with her, but I will always take the time to read her a book if she asks me to. My husband knows this rule and if he comes home and there are a lot of chores left undone, we just shrug our shoulders and don’t fret because we know that we are giving our girl exactly what she needs to help her form a wholesome mind and heart – way more important than anything else we can give her.

    And because I can’t help myself here is a third thing – I could never get my squirmy baby to sit and listen to me read. I mean from birth when they aren’t even supposed to be able to lift their heads Isla would squirm and wiggle and fuss! I would get so jealous of other moms of newborns and small babies who would have bible/story times and I would think to myself “I will never have a reader!” “She will never be good at school.” “What am I doing wrong?” “The books say to start reading to them in the womb!!!! And she is a year old… we will never catch up!!! I have failed her; she is RUINED!!!” Hehe. Yet another area to experience new mommy guilt. Isla didn’t really start to enjoy being read to until she was about 20 months, but she did catch on and now its her favorite thing! Just keep trying new mommies. They will get to a point where they love the attention and physical closeness of being read to even if its takes them a while to develop the attention span to be able to sit still that long!

    • lectorsbooks
      August 28, 2013

      I LOVE your rule of “drop everything and read!” What a way to emphasize to your children that reading is a huge priority for you. We can say it’s important, but they know when we put other things first.

      And I laughed out loud at your third thing. My baby has gotten to the very squirmy stage and I had some of those exact same thoughts running through my mind. “He’s never going to be a reader!” “I’m a terible Mom!” etc. It’s good to know that there’s still hope for us! 🙂

  3. Family Fridays – Gifts to Encourage Children to Read (Part 2 of 2) | Lector's Books
    August 30, 2013

    […] of gifts to encourage children to read, and this is the second part. Click here for the first part. Last week I talked about time and books, this week I’m going to round out with experiences and tangible […]

  4. Family Fridays – Bringing Literature to Life | Lector's Books
    September 20, 2013

    […] guest post comes from Debi Morton. She wrote and sent this to me before I had posted the gift giving guide, and I think it’s a perfect illustration of what I meant by the “experiences” […]