Do you want to get your kids excited about reading? If so, get ready for the countdown: ten days of ideas that will get you and yours into reading! Here’s day two!
We all love dessert. Even if it’s “just” fruit, dessert is special because it is dessert. Call a bowl of brussels sprouts dessert and I might just be inclined to eat it, almost. Ok, maybe not brussels sprouts.
What if you made reading dessert too? Too often we have a tendency to make reading something that we have to do. Kids need to read for a certain number of hours to get the reading prize at school or at the library. We take those lovely Facebook quizzes and feel bad that we can’t cross more classics off our list of books that we’ve read.
But if reading is a treat, everything changes. It becomes something to look forward to, something that the kids are excited about.
How can you make reading into a treat?
For your child’s birthday, get a bookstore gift certificate. Better yet, go to the used bookstore on a birthday or any day and go on a treasure hunt through the stacks. That’s one of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon.
Or in this age of digital books, take a look at all of the freebies that the web has to offer. Project Gutenberg has placed a huge number of copyright-free titles onto apps for your phone or Ipad. Scroll through the virtual stacks and see what gems you can find.
Better yet, pair up reading with a real life adventure. You’re heading off into the desert? Go out looking for books that pair with your trip. Or make an adventure in your own town, a scavenger hunt or special adventure that centers around a story that you’ve read. How about a trip around the city to do activities that the characters did in your child’s favorite book? Bring the book along with you, then do the activity together!
The best part about viewing reading as dessert? With this dessert, you get to eat as much as you want, every day of the week. How cool is that?
Other articles in this series:
Go Public! with reading
Image Credit: jwarletta