Is this a good way to make kids to read?

[RWood]

My Father had the same taste in books as Dr Drib so my Mother did not encourage me to read them. She was happy with the Reader's Digest Condensed Books so after finishing the books that my uncle left with us when he finished college I read all I could at the local library (between my primary/elementary school and home.) Later, as we moved a bit, I would drive my parents nuts asking to go to the public library. For me, reading was a lot more fun than seeing the same cartoon on television over-and-over again.

DG is right, if the kid is introduced to material that they like it can go a long way toward developing a love of reading. I remember some nights when I was a kid of one parent complaining because my reading light interfered with their television watching. (No, I don't remember the television show, but the book was one of the Sherlock Holmes collections.)

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The best way to encourage (and I don't like the word "make" - trying to "make" someone read will inevitably turn them against it) is for books to be a part of their everyday life from infancy. I can't remember a time when I didn't read - by the time I was 10, I'd devoured the entire contents of my parents' bookshelves and was reading half a dozen books a week from the local library!

Here here! I totally agree.

[montsnmags]

A couple of years ago I bought Where's My Cow? (Terry Pratchett) for my nephew. He was only a couple of years old, but I figured he'd probably grow into it. Now, at his request, he gets it read to him by his father all the time (with all the requisite animal noises), and, since he "reads" it himself a lot, the people at his daycare have suggested to his parents that he not bring it to daycare every day as he has been, as it is distracting him from interraction with the other kids (which is part of the point of his attendance there, and is fair enough). Of course, when the daycare has a "Show-and-Tell" day, it's not hard to figure out what he takes with him.

Cheers,
Marc

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Patricia

It also helps if you can find a book that the boy wants to read.
I briefly had a summer job in literacy training, and I would occasionally find that young men who hated reading would like Terry Pratchett, J K Rowling, or Star Trek books.

I do remember a friend of my parents giving me a box of books that their son used to have. Inside it were All the Star trek books that James Blish had written and Hardy Boys and Alfred Hitchcock Mysteries. I do remember devouring all the books in the box. I read because I enjoyed to read. I enjoyed what I was reading. I was not forced or made to read.

I think the reason a lot of kids do not like to read is that parents did not instill a desire to read before the big bad schools tool the enjoyment of books away from them. The way a lot fo schools/teachers force books upon students and then the way they are forced to dissect them and write papers on them and such creates a strong dislike to reading if the desire to read is not already there. I got my desire before school was able to take take it away.