Raising a Reader
- GET A LIBRARY CARD AND USE IT! Participate in children's library reading programs including author visits and summer reading challenges.
- Have daily reading time. The half hour before bedtime is usually easy to incorporate into your child's schedule.
- Designate "No Electronics" day. Pick the day of the week with your least favorite shows and "unplug" the entire family. Electronic readers are the exception, of course!
- Be a reader yourself. As a parent, the best way to raise a reader is to be one. Anyone in a child's life has the potential to influence what that child chooses to do with his or her spare time. Be a reading role model.
- Create a family book club. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins are welcome. Read and discuss (even via email or Zoom) a book with your family book buddies. For younger kids, this is a great chance to talk with Pap-Pap. For older kids, this is an opportunity to share literary opinions with peers and elders.
- Subscribe to local newspapers or national magazines. If your child is reluctant to read "long stuff," give them access to something less intimidating. Ask them if there is a picture in the newspaper that looks interesting to them, then discuss the story behind it. Let your child pick out a children's magazine to receive every month. How can they resist reading something they had a hand in choosing and which is addressed to them?
- Register your child for Imagination Library—FREE in your area. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provides children from birth up to age five, regardless of family income, with a new book each month at no cost to the parent or provider. This is a global program. Visit the website to see if it is provided in your area.
