Encouraging Reading
Comfort and habit-building is key!
Readers need a comfortable, quiet place that they return to at the same time each day to read.
If there is no quiet space available at home, instrumental music through headphones can help with focus and concentration. There are various "focus & study" playlists on Spotify or Apple music that can help.
Additionally, students can begin the college-tradition of reading and studying in the library.
Let's go through some key problems in getting your child to have a book they enjoy in their hands each and every day.
1.) My child claims to dislike almost every type of book we try.
2.) My child loves reading, but only the same type of thing.
In order to diagnose these issues, we need to figure out what kind of story your child enjoys. Often, people will enjoy the same type of story in novels as they do in television, movies, and videogames.
If I were to extremely oversimplify things, I would break readers down into two types: Sports kids, and Star Wars kids. This is extremely oversimplified and based purely on personal experience, not scientific research. That being said, I read this out loud to all of my classes and only a couple students said they did not fit into one of the groups.
Sports Kids want intense, realistic stories that could happen to them or someone like them. They like books with a character as close as possible to themselves dealing with a much more exciting experience than their own lives. For example, if they play sports, they will want to read about athletes. If they love horseback riding, they will want to read a novel that features horseback riding.
Sports kids will often try to read popular science-fiction or fantasy novels because their friends are reading it, but would be more at home with a realistic stories such as as a thriller, a mystery, or a romance. Often, these children are intellectually mature and may be ready for adult level books when parents find the content appropriate.
Sports kids often read to learn more about a topic they are already interested in, even when reading fiction. They are often attracted to disturbing or tragic topics like those involved in criminal cases or major historical tragedies. They might also have niche interests. A student saying they want a book on "Fortnite," a popular videogame, may actually be saying they want to learn more about what they find interesting-- being competitive and skilled in a videogame, or perhaps game design and technology itself. When one of these students has band of interests so narrow that no novel can ever interest them, new clubs and hobbies may be necessary as an area of personal growth.
Star Wars Kids want to be transported to a different world. From middle-Earth to a high school with vampires, these students want to read for wish fulfillment and escapism. They want to experience greater power, greater romance, and greater heroism than they can in their day to day lives.
These students will often read no problem, but it may only be one type of novel. You can go with the flow by finding and encouraging more advanced novels within their preferred genre. For example, a student who only reads fantasy might enjoy Harry Turtledoves Into The Darkness series (mature-content warning), which is a retelling of World War II in a fantasy world over seven books.
In order to read outside of their comfort zone, emphasize the exciting new world and new experience available to them. These types of readers may sometime resist reading assigned by their teachers, so they made need to learn that sometimes reading will be an educational experience that might feel a bit like work, even if we are used to reading fun.
And finally, these readers are sometimes less skilled than they believe they are. By choosing only from a familiar genre that often follows familiar formats and tropes, they may not ever be challenged to think deeply about what they are reading. These students benefit from reading the same novel with parents or friends so that they can have discussions about their favorite types of novels that may highlight parts of books that they routinely overlook.
3. My child says reading is boring, or admits it is too hard.
Often, students reporting books are boring really mean that they are too challenging. It can be difficult to find a book for a mature child who is reading at a fifth grade level, but who may be bored by a book written for fifth graders. Audibooks may help, but sometimes these students simply need to put in serious, hard work to bring their reading level up to par. Only through practice, reading each night for an extended period, will these students gain the strength and stamina to read for fun.
Graphic novels are often a great option to interest these students, as they can deal with content suitable to an older child while breaking the text up into smaller portions.
For students who are genuinely bored despite a high reading level, giving them freedom to try many books from a book store or library can often lead to a lucky discovery of a book they enjoy. From their, we have a foundation to make recommendations from.
4. My child only likes graphic novels and books with humor.
The growing popularity of graphic novels and manga is excellent news for ELA teachers, as these have been shown to boost reading level and increase a student's vocabulary. It is not a problem for your child to have this preference as long as they explore a wide variety of authors, genres, and series.
One potential issue is students choosing to re-read the same series over and over. This is beneficial to a point, as younger readers will find something new on each read more frequently than an adult would. But after a year of Dog Man or Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a similar book in a different series would offer greater benefits. For example, young boys often choose not to read Dork Diaries, which is basically Diary of a Wimpy Kid with a young girl as the main character. This book would actually provide more educational experiences in friendship building while offering the same humor.