Raising readers | Imamother

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Raising readers

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amother

DarkYellow

Yesterday at 6:25 pm

The biggest thing you can do is take them to the library every week or every other week. Sooner or later the books they chose will get read. It might takes weeks or months to get into the habit, but they usually acquire it eventually. And that's how you set a family culture.

amother

Daisy

Yesterday at 6:30 pm

I never read as a kid. All my kids that know how to read can’t get enough of it. I think the biggest difference is we don’t do screens (aside from toveedo which gets boring for older kids). I grew up with a ton of tv and movies so why read?

I go to the library every two weeks and get about 50 books for all the different ages. They love it.

amother

Dahlia

Yesterday at 6:32 pm

Reading is a major part of our family culture. Yet one of my kids just isn’t a reader. There’s a limit to what you can do.

amother

Lily

Yesterday at 6:33 pm

I didn't read the other replies, but here is what we have done and all of my kids love reading.
#1 I read a lot. By myself my own books and read to my kids a lot. We read a chapter book a loud with kids before bed.
#2 we have access to a lot of books. As a treat I will take them to a library or a second hand book store. They get so excited getting new books.

Another thing is that we almost never have screen time.

↑ #BestBubby

Yesterday at 6:40 pm

Check their favorite books on Amazon.

You will see suggestions for similar books

And of course, other books by same autho

There are books that are book lists of excellent books for kids,

But you have to check if those books are appropriate for frum kids.

amother

Mocha ↓

Today at 9:24 am

We were all major readers. My parents did not appreciate it. Of course we all got it in our genes with our mothers milk. She was annoyed that we ignored life and just enjoyed reading instead. We wouldn't do our chores because we were busy reading. She had to hide our books... Well well.

↑ hodeez

Today at 9:28 am

I wouldn't take kids to the library in this political climate. The books I've seen there are absolutely nutso. Get a few from a secondhand shop or eBay, also the site thrift books is cheap.

amother

Catmint

Today at 9:42 am

Put in a filter on the Brooklyn public library catalogue and enter the years 1965-2005/2010 all the amazing kids books will show up

amother

Gold ↓

Today at 9:55 am

Those whose kids don't love to read...When they were little, did you read them a book before bedtime every night? I found that that was where it started.

With babies, I read them a board book every night before shema. With toddlers, picture books that started getting more advanced as they grew. My four year old is now "reading" easy chapter books with lots of pictures before she goes to sleep. My nine year old who can read chapter books likes to listen to more challenging books with me, like Little House books, with lots of paragraphs of description, that she'd never have the patience to read herself. My twelve year old (yes, he still enjoys when I read books to him before he goes to sleep!) and I are reading Five Little Peppers, which would be very challenging for him to read himself, but he enjoys hearing it out loud. My teens don't read with me before bedtime anymore, but one of them went through a stage where he wouldn't read most novels anymore...I took out lots of books on wars and similar historical events, and he devoured them. We also keep all our old Circle magazines and they read them over and over again.

The downside? My house is always covered in books. They're on the floor, on the couches, magazines falling off the bookcase. I have sort of given up on the battle of getting them to put them away, and I just straighten up every day and put them all away. (Don't worry, there are plenty of other battles I do choose--cleaning off the table when they're done eating, doing chores like mopping and cleaning the bathrooms and doing laundry--this is just one that I've consciously decided I can't take on right now.) I also have boxes of books in storage that I cycle through, so I'm constantly sorting and shlepping boxes of books up and down the stairs. And I spend way too much time at the library. And reading their books before they read them, because yes, the books that were in the library when the oldest was little (say, 15 years ago) are nothing compared to the garbage on the shelves today. The number of books where a character has two daddies or goes by the pronoun "they" or breaks gedarim and is celebrated for it...

amother

↑ Moonstone ↓

Today at 10:04 am

Also, I barely ever took them to the library. We did occasionally go to Barnes and Nobles back in the day, maybe a few times a year. Yet they are all bookworms.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Today at 10:05 am

No,
I didnt read to them growing up and I feel a lot of guilt. Is it too late to start?
I do have a 2 year old I can start reading to. He is really only one who has shown interest in books.

amother

↑ Mocha

Today at 10:06 am

amother OP wrote:

No,
I didnt read to them growing up and I feel a lot of guilt. Is it too late to start?
I do have a 2 year old I can start reading to. He is really only one who has shown interest in books.

It's not too late to start. It's a myth about building a love for reading if you read to them when they are young. It's either you're a reader or you're not. It does build your vocabulary though and probably boosts your writing skills as well.
More important to build a love for learning Torah.

amother

↑ OP

Today at 10:10 am

amother Mocha wrote:

Bh my husband is always in a sefer on shabbos and my son has taken after him.

amother

↑ Gold ↓

Today at 10:12 am

You may be surprised. Even with older kids, can you find a time that they'll view as "special time" and take out a book that you think they'll really enjoy reading piece by piece?

Maybe it's reading a short story about the parsha every week after candlelighting (if you have girls). Or reading a book about the niflaos haborei on Shabbos afternoon while your two year old is napping. It doesn't need to be a novel, and it doesnt' need to take a long time. It's a great tradition to start with your children, whether they're natural readers or not, and it doesn't need to start when they're toddlers...

amother

↑ Gold

Today at 10:15 am

amother OP wrote:

Bh my husband is always in a sefer on shabbos and my son has taken after him.

One of my mesivta boys is also like this, BH. BUT every Friday night, I keep myself awake (most weeks) until he comes back from learning after the seuda, and we spend 10-20 minutes learning Derech Hashem together. It would be too challenging for us to get through and really understand and discuss if we were doing it all in Hebrew, but each Hebrew phrase is translated into challenging English (think like the format of an Artscroll gemara), so we learn and discuss it together. It's amazing, and I really think it's an extension of our "reading before bedtime" sessions. It was always about what he was interested in, and now B"H this is what he's most interested in--understanding the hashkafas hatorah Smile

amother

↑ Cyan

Today at 10:34 am

amother Gold wrote:

I'm the one who said half my kids are readers and half aren't. I do/did all this. All of what people have been suggesting are great things to do, but none of it guarantees anything. It's really mostly nature at the end of the day.

amother

Yellow

Today at 11:01 am

amother Cyan wrote:

Agreed. I have the same. Half readers, half not.

No screens here! Theres still plenty to do other than read!

And yeah, even my nonreaders read magazines. But sorry, that does not count as "reading".

wiki

Today at 11:13 am

So far, all of my kids are big readers. Although for some this started in Pre1A and in others it took until 2nd grade to develop.

Factors that contributed:
--Each kid got a quality reading lamp attached to their bed at the start of first grade, and permission to stay up past bedtime only if they were reading a book.
--For the oldest, who learned to read during the pandemic, I spent about an hour a day on reading sessions until she was devouring chapter books herself. For each kid, we'd bribed them to finish their first few chapter books, hoping to get them hooked.
--We are library addicts, and have been since they were babies. We get the kids a variety of books, fiction but also plenty of other types (books about animals, geography, airplanes, gems, history, biography, poetry books, puzzle books, whatever), and they've all found their own particular interests.
--DH and I are constantly reading, dozens of books a year. So, part of this is nurture, and part of this is surely genetics.

But I think the reading lamp was the small thing that made the biggest difference!

amother

Slateblue

Today at 11:19 am

amother OP wrote:

No,
I didnt read to them growing up and I feel a lot of guilt. Is it too late to start?
I do have a 2 year old I can start reading to. He is really only one who has shown interest in books.

I never read to my kids and they're all major bookworms, to the point where I have to take their books away at bedtime because otherwise they'll read through the night! I think what worked for me is that I encourage independant reading, so they can discover the joy on their own terms. I also am a huge bookworm, so I feel like my kids naturally gravitate towards books because they see me read.

Like someone mentioned upthread, taking kids to the library in this day and age is maybe not the best idea. Instead, I go and vet the books myself, and make sure to bring home several books for each age range so everyone has a variety of reading material.

amother

Brickred ↓

Today at 11:23 am

We're all avid readers. I read less than I used to because I'm distracted by stuff on my phone, but I make up for it on Shabbos.

We read books to our kids from when they're babies. We have a huge collection of kids books. I take the kids to the library weekly so they can explore various interests. The librarians in the children's room know my kids by name and are extremely helpful in finding new books. We also get monthly books from PJ Library and PJ Our Way. We literally travel with extra luggage when we go away so we can bring plenty of books and sefarim along. Reading is just a big part of our life.

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