Some Tips to Get Kids Reading

In this digital age of unrelenting screen time, social media and diminishing attention spans, getting a child to sit down and decompress with a book can be a challenge-- especially if that child doesn't like to read.  

So, how can a parent inspire a kid to read? Here are a few tips that might help nudge your reluctant reader in the right direcion...

Zero in on your child’s interests

What's your child into? What grabs their attention? What floats their boat? If it's video games or animals or magic tricks or Star Wars, guaranteed there will be reading material out there that dovetails with those interests. Check in with the library or local bookstore to see what titles are available that will match your child's interest.

Let your kids choose 

Even if you think they’re above or below their reading level (within reason, of course!). If your 6-year old daughter wants to read the car manual, or your 3-year old son wants to read the 6-year old's chapter book, let them. Include differents kinds of reading  like comics, baseball cards, newspapers, the Guinness World Book of Records, cook books, joke collections, even the car manual… everything counts.

Shared reading

Get a few people together to read a story aloud in turns. You can even include the family pet. When your beagle, or hairless cat, or goldfish (or whatever the family critter happens to be) is lying still, get your child to read them a story out loud.   

Set aside a regular reading time 

For even just 15 minutes a day while dinner’s in the oven, get as many family members as possible to sit down with a book or a magazine or the car manual, and establish this time as a screen-free, music-free zone.

Set up a rewards-program 

For every hour spent reading, your child earns an hour of screen time. 

Start a book club 

Ask a few friends or family members to read the same book and plan a time to discuss it.

The movie-book connection

Choose a book that a movie’s been based on and reward your reader by watching the film.  For example, Madeleine L'Engles' A Wrinkle in Time will be coming out soon as a major motion picture. Or choose a movie that's already out that's based on a book, such as William Steig's Shrek! (1990).

Pair reading with activities 

When you're baking cookies, get your child to read the recipe aloud. If you're fixing stuff around the house, get your child to help by having them check out  the instructions and see if they can sound out words.

When you're out at a restaurant, get your child to read the menu to the table. Speaking of restaurants, some night at home, pretend you’re at restaurant, and have your child take everyone's order at the table with a pad and pencil. Then, get them to leave a bill for you. Taking it up a notch,  get your kids to design and write up a menu for the evening meal.

Play word games

There are the classic word games you can play as a family...  Scrabble, Quiddler, Boggle and Banagrams, to name a few. When you're in the car driving between karate class and the tap dance studio, play the license plate game-- can you spot a car with a J in the plate number.  And while they're at it, can you think of a word that starts with the letter J? There's also the city game – think of the name of a city, e.g., Calgary. Then the next person has to think of a city that starts with the last letter of that city, e.g., Yellowknife, possibly followed by Edmonton, New York, Kindersley... (you get the idea).

And, of course, the two most important tips are...

1. Read aloud to your kids at bedtime for as long as they'll let you, AND

2. Leave books / magazines / reading material lying around the house – let your kids catch YOU reading…

Next post : Book suggestions of good kids' books for those less inclined to read!

A Brief History of Kids’ Lit – the 21st Century

Only 16 years into the new millenium, the direction of kids’ literature has yet to be clearly charted but so far are a few things are clear. There are few topics that kids’ literature doesn’t dare to tackle. In the past decade, topics have covered such controversial subjects as suicide, gender identify, bullying, self-harm, dysfunctional family life, and – most notably – dystopian themes.

It’s this genre that’s gained the rapt attention of pre-teen and teenage audiences. There are some books in this theme aimed at younger kids (e.g., Dr Seuss’ The Lorax, The Flower by John Light). But dystopian lit has especially captured the attention of slightly older readers, addressing futuristic topics like genetic engineering (e.g., cloning in Replica, 2015), bioethics, environmental degradation, life in totalitarian states (e.g., The Hunger Games triology).

The Rise in Dystopian Lit

Dystopian lit bubbled to the surface in the mid-20^th century with a few titles, like George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), Williams Golding’s The Lord of the Flies (1954), and Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, Harrison Bergeron (1961). Orwell’s 1984 remains on the best-seller list of books in this genre to this day. But in the libraries of today’s young readers, dystopian lit takes up the majority of shelf space.

What is meant by “dystopian lit”? A dystopia is an imagined place in which everything is unpleasant, the story typically set in an environmentally degraded state and/or under the influence of a corrupt, totalitarian government that oppresses the masses. Realistic yet fictional, with direct comparisons to real world events, the relativity of the real world from a teenage perspective was first introduced by Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993). Many 21^st centure titles in this genre have a female as the strong, masculine-like protagonist, in an effort to make the story relatable to both genders (Hunger Games series, Divergent series, Revealing Eden, Across the Universe).

Reading Gecko, V. Lawton

A Brief History of Kids Lit -- the 20th Century

The ground work laid in the 19th century paved the way for new and innovative genres of kids lit in the 20th century, which didn't rely on traditional folklore. With the dawning of the new century, fantasy stories with novel settings and characters appeared on both sides of the Atlantic, as was perfectly timed by L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. A.A. Milne wrote his first Winnie-the-Pooh (delightfully illustrated by Ernest Shepard) in 1927, and the first Mary Poppins (P. L. Travers) came out in 1934. J. R. R. Tolkien's works established what's become known as epic fantasy with The Lord of the Rings beginning in 1937.

A Brief History of Kids' Lit

Tales and stories have entertained and educated kids for hundreds of years, but books written and published especially for kids is relatively new in the western world. Up until the Georgian period, kids were just given such riveting reading material as ballads, religious catechism and books about how to behave. While the advent of the printing press widen the selection of books for adults, kids were left looking over their adults' shoulders.


Then, in 1691, English philosopher John Locke came up with the great idea that children learning to read should start with some easy books with pictures... like Aesop's Fables. While these are still fun to read today, Locke didn't have any other recommendations for good reads for kids of that era.



Reading Owl (Canadian Animals series), V. Lawton