Setting aside a special spot for reading can help reading feel like a special activity. Work with your child to pick a spot in your home to be the designated Reading Nook. It should be:

• Comfortable: a bean bag chair, corner on a couch with a special blanket and pillow, outside on the porch (weather permitting), kitchen table with pillow on chair, corner of the house with pillow
• Well-lit: lamp, window, phone light with full battery
• Distraction-free: far from the TV, no phones nearby (unless that is how they are reading the book, of course)
• Quiet: if there is noise that you cannot prevent, research suggests classical music (no words) can act as a wall to decrease the distracting effect of other sounds. Also, consider using earbuds or headphones.

Again, the most important thing here is to help your child build buy-in by giving them as much input as possible. Let them make as many of these choices you can tolerate!

Children need a book to have two qualities if they’re going to start and keep reading it: to be about a topic that interests them and to be at their “just right” reading level. Let’s talk about interest-level first. I can’t stress this enough: under the current circumstances, let your children read whatever is of interest to them. Even if you work hard to “broaden their horizons” at other times, don’t feel badly if they read 15 Pokémon books in a row now. In this moment, the point is that they are reading. Letting them choose topics they are naturally interested in will keep them reading far longer.

But what if the books you have at home aren’t getting much interest from your children? Good news: there are dozens of free reading websites! Bad news: some are much better than others. I’ve sorted through the good and the bad to find the best ones to share with you:

Children respond well to structure and schedules. Having a sense of order during uncertain times helps children to feel safe, which, in turn, helps them to regulate their behavior. I guarantee – whatever time you spend creating and implementing a schedule will come back to you ten-fold!

A reading schedule could have:

• Clear start and end times (ask your child to create a goal of how much time to read each day)
• One clear cut time to read or several chunks of times throughout the day
• Clear expectations of behavior and location
• Total ownership from the child as much as possible (let them create it with your help)

One of my favorite literacy authors, Laura Robb, said: “Developing reading stamina is like training to run a mile in less than eight minutes. Both require regular practice to increase energy and concentration.” Click here for a free downloadable, editable schedule that you can start using tomorrow.