While technology is helpful in most domains of life, it can also serve as a hinderance in many. Whereas it is easier for parents to encourage books in younger children and toddlers, however, the entire game changes when children get hold of the digital devices.
They then want to watch their cartoons or play many of the video games. These are designed in a way that they are extremely attractive for the children; from the colors to the characters, to the music, everything is designed to appeal to the children.
Hence, many then give precedence to these digital devices instead of reading books. You or the school may make reading mandatory, but they then do the reading grudgingly, instead of enjoying it.
However, it is important to know that alone is the reason for your child’s lack of interest in reading. Some children might not be able to read due to learning difficulties and problems like dyslexia. If you suspect that to be the case, you must enlist the help of your Child specialist in Lahore.
Encouraging reading
There are steps that parents can take to encourage the habit of reading in their child. Timely investing in the child helps in shaping their habits better. You should then work on able to making a positive association between your child and reading.
Here are some things you can do to encourage the habit of reading in your child:
Read out to them
You cannot just give your child a book and expect them to read. You first need to make them like book reading, and the most important way to do that is by reading out aloud to them.
However, don’t limit the reading time to the younger kids. You should also ready aloud to your junior school kids too. Its right about the time when they get reading for homework, which may make reading tedious to them. Reading aloud allows them to listen with luxury, as self-reading might seem like a chore otherwise.
Make reading quality family time
Another way to inculcate the habit of reading is by making it a family affair. Pick a book and gather the entire family. This way, your child gets the attention they need, which will help them form a positive association with books.
Reading book alone will not seem attractive enough to the children. When you make it a social activity, you make book reading seem more appealing.
Make it fun
Be silly, be animated, do anything to make this time fun, so that your child looks forward to the reading time. Remember, your competition are the colorful games with catchy music, so you cannot lure children into picking up reading with monotoned voice and boring text.
Don’t make it about learning
Do not turn reading with family into a school activity whereby you make it more about learning –hence make it seem like a lesson — than having a quality time. Not everything must be academic in nature.
Let this time be a fun activity that you do with your child. Don’t worry, they will pick up on literary devices on their own. On the contrary, when parents read out aloud, they tend to pick books that are slightly more complex than what a young child can read. So, you are already widening their vocabulary and facilitating with their comprehension. Therefore, do not push it further.
Book-chatting session
Talking about books also encourages the love for reading in the child, as it makes it more engaging for them. For younger children, you can discuss the illustrations with them, so they are able to understand the content better.
For slightly older ones, you can ask them to predict what comes next. This session also helps you ascertain if your child is having reading difficulties, so you can timely consult an expert via oladoc.com.