A month of Easy Activiities For Raising A Reader

To raise a reader, you don’t need to schedule specific times. Reading skills are built moment by moment and day to day. Work reading into many easy daily activities.
1. Let your child see you read.
2. Share information from your own reading with your child.
3. Read aloud.
4. Read the newspaper as a family.
5. Encourage intergenerational reading—siblings, grandparents, other relatives.
6. Encourage intra-generational reading (let your child read to you).
7. As a family, act out favorite scenes from a book.
8. Take books with you wherever you go.
9. Offer books (or time to read) as a reward for achievement or chores.
10. Invent reading-related jobs, such as writing or reading the grocery list.
11. Subscribe to children’s magazines.
12. Tell your child stories aloud about your own life or your family.
13. Make library visits a family routine.
14. Watch for special bookstore presentations.
15. Tie movies or television into the books that they’re based on.
16. Use car trips as reading fun with games like finding licenses from different states.
17. Try books on tape.
18. Allow pre-readers to “tell the story” from pictures.
19. Have children retell favorite stories.
20. Have children evaluate stories—favorite character, plot.
21. Connect stories to children’s lives.
22. Create silly rhymes and poems together.
23. Make connections between books of similar topics.
24. Provide an inviting environment for reading.
25. Use TV sparingly and wisely.
26. Have children find what they need on a store directory.
27. Point out names of grocery items in the market, street signs on walks.
28. When cooking, ask your child to read the ingredients list or the recipe.
29. In a restaurant, have your child read the children’s menu aloud.
30. Use cereal or pasta letters to spell out words during meals.
31. Relax and have fun with your children and books!

Adapted from 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Raise a Child Who Loves to Read by
Kathy A. Zahler

Colorado Association of Libraries
12855 E Jamison Cir
Englewood, CO 80112
303/463-6400 Phone
executivedirector@cal-webs.org, www.cal-webs.org

From The Reader's Digest

I usually help my two young children select their library books, but one day I was in a rush and dropped the children at the library, did an errand and picked them up 15 minutes later. A quick glance assured me that the books they had chosen were well illustrated children's books.

Later I found my seven year old peering worriedly at one of his new books.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I suddenly can't read any more,", he replied tearfully.

When I looked at the book, I found a beautifully illustrated children's book - written in French.

-D.C.S.