Last year I wrote about the "summer slide", the phenomenon of students sliding backwards (academically) due to a lack of reading over the summer. Research shows that children who do not read over the summer will lose two or more months of reading gains. But the good news is research also shows that students who read at least six developmentally appropriate books over the summer will stop that regression.
A big part of developing life-long readers is motivating kids. As a father of eight, I have found the most effective way to motivate my children to read is to read aloud to them. I even do this for my littlest one, as even he can look at the pictures, listen to my voice and try to turn the pages. Now that half of my kids are in elementary school, they really enjoy reading to me. They even try to compete with the funny voices that dad makes for each character.
One of the questions I get about motivating kids to read is whether or not to use extrinsic motivators. I will admit that I have often used this "trick" in my schools to get children to read. Often what I found was that strategy only worked for a while. It does not help to produce lovers of reading and life-long learners. I suggest to parents and educators to try Todd Nesloney's approach. Todd is a principal in Texas and stopped using a reward program to motivate students to read. You can read more about what he and his students did here.
Below are some additional tips I previously shared to help your child/students start off the new school year off on the right foot. Happy reading!
- Be a reading role-model! Children are quicker to do what their parents do rather than what they say. Set aside time where your child sees you reading. If it's important for mom or dad then it will be important to them.
- Read! Read! Read! Have your child read a developmentally appropriate book for twenty minutes per day.
- Visit your local library! Need I say more?
- Word of the week! Post a new word on the fridge every week. Challenge your kids to use it as much as possible!
- Audio books! Driving to your vacation destination? Listen to a book in the car. Visit audible.com for books. Better yet local libraries have wonderful selections of audio books for free!
- Book or Device? Who cares as long as they are reading!
