Suggested by Barbara H:
How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teen-ager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books? If you do offer incentives and suggestions and that doesn’t work, would you then require a certain amount of reading? At what point do you just accept that your child is a non-reader?
In the book Gifted Hands by brilliant surgeon Ben Carson, one of the things that turned his life around was his mother’s requirement that he and his brother read books and write book reports for her. That approach worked with him, but I have been afraid to try it. My children don’t need to “turn their lives around,” but they would gain so much from reading and I think they would enjoy it so much if they would just stop telling themselves, “I just don’t like to read.”
I think it is always good to cultivate good reading habits from young, so that is why I started reading books to my eldest daughter when she was one (she's turning six this March). Not only does this encourage her into reading but it also creates a closer bond between us.
I also believe there is a book for everyone, and I think it is good start to bring any non-reading children (or teenagers) to a bookstore or a library and get them to choose a book they like and hopefully this will begin their passion for reading.
What about you? Do you have any other suggestions/recommendations that you could share?
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