I strongly believe that one of the most important things a parent can do to support their child at school is helping them find a love of reading and support them with learning to read. These activities to encourage reading can really help if your child is reluctant to want to read. Our school constantly stress that a love of reading is the best foundation for education you can give a child. Find the The best children’s books for all ages here.
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Reading is such an important skill that supports all other areas of education. Both my kids were reluctant readers. They’ve always loved listening to books and looking at the pictures in them but getting them to actually read the words themselves is a different story.
My eldest is now nine and adores reading chapter books to herself so although she was reluctant to start reading, her love of books and stories lead her to start reading eventually.
I thought I’d share my own experience and ideas for how you can support your child with reading and the fun reading activities that we have done over the years. Perhaps you are wondering how to help a child struggling with reading or perhaps you are wondering what the best learn-to-read apps are. Hopefully, this post will help.
Activities to encourage reading for children of all ages
It’s never too early to start reading to your baby.
I really believe this and we have been reading to both our girls since they were babies. I shared lots of book recommendations for introducing books at a young age in my post Best books for babies and toddlers.
Bedtime is a great time to fit reading into your day with children of all ages. If you are just starting to read to your baby, it doesn’t need to be a long story. Here are our favourite Short bedtime stories for babies. I promise you it doesn’t need to be long and it is a great way to bond with your baby too.
Make reading fun as your baby gets older
As your baby gets older, make the books your read more and more fun and interactive. Lift-the-flap books, musical books and other interactive books are great for this age. Books make a great birthday gift to help grow your collection of books. Continue to make children’s books and reading everyday activities.
Make books accessible
We have books all over our house. Both girls have bookcases in their bedrooms, both the traditional type and ones that make the book covers more visually appealing to children. These are cheap and easy to put up picture rails from IKEA.
We also have children’s picture books downstairs with their toys. This means they don’t just associate books with bedtime stories. I want them to love books and know that we can read them whenever they want to. It really helps to have children’s reading books around for them to pick up whenever they want to.
Get tips for choosing appropriate books for kids here.
Make reading to your child a priority
We very rarely miss bedtime stories. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about the Importance of reading. The only time we miss is if we are home late and the girls have fallen asleep in the car. There are plenty of other times you could find time to fit in a short story. I wrote a guest post for The Book Trust last year about finding time to read which is full of ideas that you can try.
Visit the library
Although we have a big collection of our own books and are fortunate to work with some amazing publishers who keep adding to our collection we still visit the library. They love picking out different books for themselves.
We are fortunate our local library has a fantastic children section with a book train that the girls love. Libraries also often run rhyme time sessions for young children which we loved attending during my maternity leave. Have you signed up for a library card for your little one yet? It’s completely free to get one.
For older children, is there a school library they can visit and choose new age appropriate books?
Listen to audiobooks
My girls love listening to stories but sometimes it’s not possible for me to read to them all the time, such as when we are in the car. This is where audio books can be really helpful. * Audible has 100s of children’s stories. From Julia Donaldson to David Walliams and the complete Harry Potter series.
Our library also offers a free audio book service which has loads of children’s stories.
For young children, you can also get devices that read aloud audio books to children like * Yoto and Tonies. These are great for younger children and such a fun way to get them to listen to stories.
Make a bookmark with them
Let your child make their own special bookmark. Find some bookmark coloring pages here.
Play board games
Find the best educational board games here. Board games are a fun way to support your child’s learning at home.
Follow their interests
When choosing books follow your child’s interests. Perhaps they will love to read comic books or graphic novels. These might not be the books that you want them to read but they’ll still develop literacy skills and new words while reading books they enjoy. Another idea is to see if there are any books based on their favourite tv shows.
Don’t just read fiction
As much as we love stories some children may prefer nonfiction books. This could be atlases, books about animals or dinosaurs. Whatever their interests you can find an information book that they will love. Magazine subscriptions might be another idea for following their interests and reading non-fiction texts. We love, The week junior and Aquila for children aged 8 and upwards.
Learn through play
Learning through play is always fun. My kids love play dough so we use it a lot in educational activities. Try this sight word playdough mats.
These sight word coloring pages are another fun way to encourage young children to learn sight words.
Make stories fun
Reading is about more than just reading the words. Comprehension is important too. Talk about the story and the pictures, perhaps try story stones or make story sacks or baskets for your child’s favourite stories. We love * Rory’s story cubes too and have the classic set but there are loads more different options available.
Find more ideas in a post I wrote at Christmas, gifts to encourage a love of reading.
Be a role model
As parents, we are role models to our children. Let your child see you reading too. Have your books around for them to see. Let them see that you enjoy reading. If your children are already independent readers you could set aside family reading time each week to all read independently but in the same room.
Support them with learning phonics
Schools are teaching children phonics as the first step in teaching a child to read. Phonics are the building block of reading. I had to learn phonics myself first as it is not how I learnt to read. You can easily learn phonics online nowadays. It’s worth trying to find out which scheme is used in your school.
For preschool children, CBeebies has a great show called alphablocks.
You can buy lots of resources to help support you child like Read Write Inc. My reading and writing kit that I reviewed.
A set of * magnetic letters is also helpful. You can use these on a baking tray or the fridge freezer.
These * flash cards are a great resource to have around.
For school age children, I like * this series of books for supporting phonics and reading skills development at home.
Use technology to make learning fun. Our favourite is called Teach your monster to read. It was recommended to us by our school.
There are lots of fun ways to learn sight words and phonics at home. I love this * book for setting up quick and engaging hands-on activities like word games.
These little tins are perfect for supporting literacy development in fun ways. This * tricky words tin looks fun and educational too.
I hope I have given you lots of fun ideas for encouraging reading at home whatever age your child is. Supporting kids to read can feel like hard work but hopefully I have shown you that there are fun activities to encourage reading that you can try.
Do you have any tips for supporting your child with reading? I’d love to hear them in the comments.
If all of this doesn’t work, here are some ideas to sneak reading into your child’s day
Where to next?
Fancy some new board games to play together? These Nature themed games are fantastic fun and educational. There are ideas for all ages too.
Find more ideas, this time for Encouraging creativity in school children
There are lots of apps to support learning too. Find some ideas here 7 Educational Apps To Support Learning At Home
Great ideas- your bookcases for kids look so inviting
Thank you. I love these shelves.
My boys love reading. We’ve got those Read It Yourself books at home and they both often pick those above other stories. I love listening my 5-year-old read and how happy he is when he can do it. My 3 year old would sit there all day and listen to stories! He loves trying to read them back to me too. x
I couldn’t agree more with these tips – my number one focus for my daughter’s education is to ensure that she loves reading, so that she can learn independently when the time comes. Also it’s so good for the imagination!
I have used apps to help my her to learn phonics, flash cards and she had a library card when she was a baby to join in with reading session in the mornings.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with this.
We took my eldest son to the library today (he’s 7) he absolutely loved it. I fear libraries will close soon if we don’t support them enough. And it’s free!
I couldn’t agree more that reading to our children is so important. My little one is 3 and totally book mad. Our house feels like a library sometimes, there are books everywhere! Your tip about reading in front of our children is one I need to practice more, I listen to a lot of audio books when I’m driving, but don’t read that many books at home and generally when I do, it’s when I’m in bed just before going to sleep.
I’ve always loved reading and would devour books as a child. Sadly my son hasn’t inherited that love, but I’m working hard to develop it. We’ve just got him a library card which he thinks is the most exciting thing ever, so I really recommend that for reluctant readers.
That sounds like a good start. My two love visiting the library.
Lots of great tips. Definitely agree with the being a role model tip too, children are great mimics aren’t they, and they love to copy what you are doing! Happy Reading!
I just wish I could find the time or energy to read novels!
We love our bedtime stories in the Roversi house. My son can be found reading to “Baby Bob” too sometimes. He has a box in his room that’s the bit over the stairs. We used Ikea spice racks to make book shelves and I put all his smaller, picture or interactive books on there for him. It’s his own little reading spot. I’m going to look into the Read Write Inc stuff as that’s what he is doing at pre School #KCACOLS
The ikea spice racks make great book shelves.
Reading is very important and fun too in a way since it can be a source of adventures for the imagination. You can also get ebooks for their tablets so they know that they can read there too. I have one free on Amazon today if interested. ? #kcacols
My three kids love reading books and the pick books up themselves, which I really like. I need to read more to them at night time. It’s such an important thing to do. We have 100s of books but they do need sorting now .#KCACOLS
Great post! It’s so important to support our children with their reading. We have always made books a huge part of our lives, even when they were babies, and now we practice our phonics all the time even in ways they aren’t realising!
I agree you can never start too young – reading to babies is so good for them and you do find that they start to pick up simple words as a young age and then gradually learn their phonics at school.
Something that I know can help reluctant readers is to encourage them to tell stories of their own — fictionalized or real… and as a parent, teacher or tutor, to ask them lots of questions to flesh out the details.
I haven’t got any other tips and would use all of yours! I’d definitely, without a doubt say to read to them from newborn. I’m convinced that doing so has given our 8 yo the best literary start in life! She still loves to read and we still have a couple of pages of her latest chapter book as a bedtime ‘story’. I could go on and on, I’m so passionate about our children reading. It gives them so much confidence too and their vocab grows and grows. #kcacols
We absolutely love reading in our house! Agree with all of these tips. I recognise most of the books in your pictures too! My toddler absolutely adores reading, sadly I don’t read to her as much as I used to since her little sister came along but we still try to every chance we get. Thanks so much for linking up at #KCACOLS. Hope you come back again next time
These are some great tips! We read bedtime stories every night and even while travelling we make sure it is part of our bedtime routine. We find that activity books and flashcards help with phonics and early writing (pen control), but we don’t push it. I’m a firm believer in encouragement but by not forcing learning onto children. It should be fun for them. We also make books accessible, it’s so cute when the boys pick out a book and ask me to read it.
Great tips shared Claire.
We also use a car book basket which has proved super useful not only for long and short journeys but also for those times when I’ve forgotten to take activities to friends/meals out with my girls. #KLTR
My eldest is nearly 5 and has struggled a bit getting to grips with word blending and phonics but is getting there. She loves nothing more than storytime though and my youngest (18 months) would happily sit and look at picture / board books for hours. I just need to teach her that the flaps in books aren’t for ripping!! ? I have very fond memories of The Book People coming to my school and workplace and I couldn’t help but buy something every single time!! ?
Henry loves to read and it’s so important to encourage it especially in this day and age where technology is a huge part of life.
I agree with reading lots of different things. My boys are so different that I have to change methods of teaching for both of them.
Mainy
#KCACOLS
We are really lucky that my 3 have inherited my love of reading too, it’s such a wonderful pastime
Some fab tips and I totally agree. We’ve read to our son from being days old and he had a library membership before he could walk. Books are such an amazing thing to have.
Amazing tips! My girls love reading books like their mother. 🙂 x
This has served as a great reminder for me as this is a priority for mine. Aaron is meant to read 4 times a week for school and doesn’t at all now and we’ve given up bedtime stories and really MUST re-introduce them. Thanks for this post it’s been a much needed nudge xx
My daughter’s both love books and we are always looking for new ones, we visit the library regularly, but I also love to buy the bundles of books from The Book People as they are such great value
Great ideas and those Peppa Pig books look great, we got some similar Thomas The Tank engine Ones from the library that were the same band as her reading books and were great 🙂
We read every night and have done for the past few months. My son is 19 months old and it was hard to get into the routine at first but now he asks for stories during the day too so it’s paid off. #kcacols
I love this, I have always been so lucky with Freddie as he absolutely loves to read. In fact its one of the only times hes quiet!!!
Love this! My one year old adores her books! I can’t wait until she begins understanding them a bit more. We have them mixed in with her toys and she pulls them out just as much as any other toy.
These are great tips!
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Great ideas, all of them. We are pretty good at using the library, but I am lacking at being a good reading role model at the moment- something to work on there! #bloggerpinparty
Great tips about encouraging a love of reading. We have books all over our house too, my kids love to listen to stories and I always say yes when they ask for a story.
#KCACOLS
This is a fantastic skill to have. Like you we have a range of books all over the house and letters in the bath as well as on the fridge. #Bloggerpinparty
I’m glad I’m not the only one with books and letters everywhere!
I agree it is good to not just read fiction but to read a whole mix of books. Thanks for sharing this lovely post with KLTR. I love your photos too and the bookshelf!
I love this post and I absolutely agree with all of your points. We do all of this in our house and it really works. The non fiction books is a great point too, when I see my children getting interesting in a part of nature or an event getting a non fiction book to increase the idea really engages them #KLTR