Hands-on ways to encourage reading, Part One

There are many ways to discourage reading, but are there any hands-on ways to encourage reading? Happily, yes!  While reading skills themselves can be developed using manipulatives, sometimes a reluctant reader knows how to read but just can't seem to connect with a book.  Or maybe reading is just difficult enough that it doesn't seem worth the trouble, let alone fun.  It is generally better to supply the reluctant reader with books he is comfortable reading-- not too difficult-- although a challenging book that the child is very interested in is better than an easy one that bores him.  The key is to decrease the frustration level by raising familiarity with, and interest in, the reading material.

Here are a few hands-on ways to help your children connect with their books:

1.  Hands-on books:  The youngest pre-readers, toddlers, enjoy books like Pat the Bunny that motivate them to interact with the text.  In their preschool years, my children enjoyed the humor of Pat the Beastie, in which Paul and Judy poke the poor monster's boogers and pull his fur.  Lift-the-flap books, and chapter books with interactive elements, such as the Captain Underpants series, all encourage children to associate books with fun.

2. Tie-ins to videogames.  What???  Yes, my daughter read her first Nancy Drew book after a friend introduced her to the Nancy Drew computer games.  She loved the games, then she read the whole series of books.    My son became interested in reading about history after playing Civilization on the computer.  How did this work? Because of the games, they had some knowledge of the characters and/or events before they even picked up the books, so it made the reading less of a struggle.  The same idea worked for me when I was studying Spanish in college-- the first novel I read completely in Spanish was a translation of The Empire Strikes Back.  Because I knew who I was reading about and the basic plot line, the vocabulary and grammar were less of a struggle.

3. Field Trips and gimmicks.  Find opportunities to tie in real experiences with the books your children are reading.  When we read Red Sails to Capri, we celebrated by drinking Capri Sun (as we looked at the Blue Grotto online).  When we read The Secret of the Andes-- what else?  Andes candies  (while we found the real Andes in the atlas and looked at pictures online, of course).  Capyboppy, Mr Popper's Penguins, Dr. Doolittle-- these animal tales could inspire a trip to the zoo. Whether silly or serious, a tie-in can add fun to reading.

4. Creative projects: Sometimes it's exciting to do the things the characters in your books are doing.  The popular craft and recipe books that go along with the American Girl and Little House books are testimony to this.  When your child is reading a Magic Treehouse book about Ancient Greece, maybe he would like to stage an Olympics.  Perhaps he could build a chariot or a temple out of Legos.   Planting something green indoors or out, or even planning a garden on paper, could help a child connect to The Secret Garden or Princess Chamomile's Garden.  Let your child come up with her own idea of a project based on what she's reading.

5. Detective work: Finding background information on a character can add interest to the story.  If the location and time period are important to the story, the student can find them on a map and timeline. What other things were happening at the same time in history?  What clothes would they have worn, and how would they travel?  What technology did the character have access to?  Could Henry Huggins search for Ribsy on the internet?  How would life be different for the characters if their story was set in today's time?  Would Sarah Plain and Tall have found her husband on match.com?  A child might be challenged to collect things in his own house that would (or would not) be a part of the character's daily life, using clues from the story, or live "a day in the life" by dressing, eating, or in other ways doing what the character would have done on a typical day.

6.  How-to books.  There are tons of non-fiction books out there that can teach your child something he or she would like to learn.  My daughter enjoyed recipe books and craft books.  One pre-teen summer, we went through a book on making homemade beauty products, and we made several of them.  Yes, the internet has videos and websites for this sort of thing, but instead of spending hours browsing Pinterest, sometimes just the right book can be less overwhelming.

It's not easy to motivate reluctant readers, when there is much easier entertainment that competes for their time.  And every child is different, of course; what works wonders for one may fall flat for another.  What didn't work for my children was the very popular Accelerated Reader (AR) program at their school, in which students took tests on the books they read to earn points and win prizes.  They hated the tests, and the whole points-and-prizes system felt manipulative, as if reading was so terrible that the students had to be bribed to do it.  Perhaps none of these ideas I have listed will spark an interest in reading for your child.  However, I hope I may have sparked an idea in your head that you can use to encourage your reluctant reader.