Hands up, I’ll admit it. I was a reluctant reader as a child.
From the age of five the football bug took a massive bite out of me and refused to let go.
It was the Panini sticker album that first drew my attention to football, and when I dug a little further into the sport I couldn’t stop. Some…erm, thirty to forty years later it still serves up its usual dose of misery, infuriation and sometimes, if I’ve been a very good boy, utter delight.
The problem was that football was so all encompassing, I had little interest in reading ‘proper books with joined up writing’, as my Dad would say. I stuck to the Beano, and then as I got older I really branched out to Roy of the Rovers. Which was the most footbally comicy thing I could get my hands on.
Football, comics, sweets. Route-one stereotype eight-year-old boy in the 1980s. I was a reluctant reader.
Nowadays the distractions of technology make it even harder for reluctant readers to grab a book and enjoy the story and characters inside. Reading a book can sometimes feel like a lot of effort to children, especially when they can just watch a film, scroll through YouTube clips or simply boot a ball around the garden.
So how can we get your children to pick up a book? Here are some ideas that might help turn your reluctant reader into a bookworm.
Don’t force big chunky books on reluctant readers
In the 80s, reading a comic was punishable by death. Or it certainly felt like it. Shakespeare, books about women looking for a husband in the 19th-century or some miserable poems were what we should have read apparently. Thankfully Roald Dahl gave children a small escape route, but sadly they weren’t school approved books.
Spin forward to this century and it’s all change. Schools and some superb teachers are doing a great job of encouraging children to read all kinds of books. Not just the serious ones. All hail to them.
Simply put, you don’t have to read Jane Austen, Hamlet or Great Expectations to feel intelligent and superior. I’d argue the back catalogue of Dennis the Menace is just as valuable. Especially if you need to escape the clutches of an angry park warden.
Let children read anything
Comics, graphic novels, magazines, websites, cereal boxes, recipe books, Pokemon cards.
Reading is reading, and a little bit, however small, always helps. There’s so many great stories floating around that aren’t in book form.
Make reading a treat and not a punishment
Swapping an iPad for a book on a long car journey, will just make you super unpopular. Pick the right moments to suggest reading and make it a treat.
Don’t use bribery to encourage reluctant readers
‘If you read ten pages of that book you can have some chocolate’. Using bribes to complete ‘tasks’ does no good and just creates lots of entitled little monsters further down the line.
Find the right place to read
I’m an huge advocate of reading in the bathroom. On the toilet or in the bath are the perfect places to read, I will also accept just before bed too.
Pick a topic that reluctant readers enjoy
If your children love dinosaurs or trains, go for that. Better still dinosaurs driving trains. Football is another good one…oh look I wrote one of those for reluctant readers. It’s really good.
Embrace technology
If there’s a book about the film, then let them watch it. Then you can compare the two, books are usually much better than the films.
Also use audiobooks, many children like to follow along reading the book while listening to it.
Try to encourage reading in short bursts
Children have very short attention spans, so reading for just 5-10 minutes a day is an achievable target. If you hear the phrase ‘awwwww, but I want to read more’ you are winning.
Read aloud together
This is probably something you did a lot when they were babies, but as they get older that glass of wine calls you a little bit louder at the end of the day.
As above, read with them for 5-10 mins, while you let the opened bottle breathe.
Do you have an top tips that can help reluctant readers pick up a book? Post a comment and I’ll add the good ones to the list