Top Tips to encourage READING

Top Tips To Encourage Reading

Encouraging reading is one way parents can help their children succeed academically and develop an enjoyable and positive habit.

Here are a few tips roughly broken down into age groups; you can adapt them to your own child's abilities:

Birth to age 3

· Even a 6-month-old baby can enjoy sitting on your lap and looking at picture books without words. Parents can describe the pictures as they turn the pages. Be sure books are tough enough to withstand tugging, pulling and throwing.

· Establish a time of day when you read to your children.

· Talking helps develop reading ability. Talk with your child all day using short, simple sentences. If your native language is not English, talk to your child in your native language anyway. Practicing their first language will help them practice English.

· Let your children see you read. Children love to imitate their parents.

Ages 3 to 5

· Introduce your child to books with poems and silly rhymes, which children love to repeat. Children have a great sense of the absurd, so rhyming books such as those by Shel Silverstein can improve their language ability and tickle their funny bone.

· Take your child to the library to get his or her own library card. Let her choose her own books within reason.

· Give your children books as gifts. Share your favorites from when you were their age.

· Set up a reading area in your home where children can easily reach their books.

· Restrict the time your children watch television and limit their viewing to educational programs that teach reading basics.

Ages 5 to 11

· As children get older, you can take turns reading a book with them.

· Ask them what part of the book they like best. If the child has read more than one book by an author, ask which one he likes best and why.

· Stay involved in your child's schoolwork. Research shows that when parents are involved in a child's learning, achievement increases.

· Use tools to help older children (grades 4 and 5) experience success. For example, reading and writing programs such as Knowledge Adventure Books by You help children to tap into their creativity while learning and applying reading and writing processes. The software product is designed to allow kids, ages 8 and up, to create, edit, illustrate and personalize books.

Award-winning author and actor John Lithgow motivates and guides children through the book-development process by asking thought-provoking questions. Kids' answers and details are woven into the story in unexpected ways that make reading the story a fun and involving experience. For more information, visit www.parentspace.com.

- www.HealthNewsDigest.com