By Ruhaifa Adil
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
Readers will vouch for the fact that those who don’t love to read miss out on one of the greatest pleasures of life. Yet, there are many people who are reluctant readers and one wonders why? Reading follows a cycle; the more you read, the better you get at it; the better you get at it, the more you enjoy it and the more you want to read. Sadly, the reverse is also true. If you struggle to read, you avoid the task; the more you avoid it, the more you fall behind and the less you want to read.
The trick to make your children become avid readers is to get them excited about reading; it has to come from within! Once you do that, their reading skills will take off and, at one point, you may have to pry the books out of their hands to get them to do something else!
Here are some tips and tricks to help turn your reluctant reader into an avid one!
1. Choose the right material
Here are several things you need to consider:
First off, zone into your child’s interests. Do they like dinosaurs? Are they into sports? Do they love animals? Do they like to cook? Find books that cater to these interests.
Secondly, reading material is not only books. It could be comics, magazines, cookbooks, newspapers, joke books, almanacs, books of world records, online articles, and many more. Let your child choose. Let them enter the world of the written word before you help them choose more appropriate genres.
Thirdly, make sure the material is skill-appropriate rather than age-appropriate. If your child cannot read or guess more than 5 words on a page, the text is too difficult. Between 3-5 difficult words is a challenge and not knowing 0-2 words is a pleasurable read. Get material that your child can read easily and slowly build it up from there. Don’t worry if it is below what their peers are reading.
You can ask your children to rate each book they read, giving from 1 to 5 stars so that you know what kind of books to buy for them.
2. Make reading relevant
Take reading a step further: make the book come alive for your child! This could mean going on a trip to the museum after reading a book about dinosaurs, to the zoo after reading a book about birds and animals or even going kite flying after reading a book about kites. Supply props such as a torch if reading a book about exploration, or a magnifying glass when reading a detective story. You could act out a part of the story, and for your younger kids you could do a relevant art activity such as doing a whale craft after reading the story of Prophet Yunus (as).
3. Find reading opportunities
Try to allot half an hour every day for reading. If this time is too hard to find in your daily routine, try to create slots in your day, such as reading while in the car, while waiting at the doctors, right before sleeping, or maybe a half-hour slot on the weekends when the whole family reads. Good role models are essential to influence kids to pick up reading as a hobby, especially fathers.
4. Read Aloud
Don’t just have the books in the house—they don’t do any good sitting on the bookshelf. Sit with your kids and read aloud to them. Maybe show them a movie rendition of it or get them an audio CD of the book. It is possible that your reluctant reader may respond to such aids if he is a struggling reader.
5. Re-read favourites
Kids love to re-read their favourite books. Let them. Re-reading the same material has its merits as much as reading different books. A great idea would be to hook your children on to a book series; kids can’t wait to get the next book, and since they are already familiar with the characters, it is easy for them to get engrossed in the story, thus reading for longer periods of time.
6. Challenge your kids
Some children can’t resist a good challenge. Give incentives in the form of challenges for the number of books read with a pre-decided reward. Make a log and display it in their room. To get your children to try different books, set a number of books they have to read from fiction and non-fiction genres.
7. Make the library your special haunt!
Go to the library with your children often. Help them pick out books they like, speak to the librarian about the new books coming in, explore the different kinds of reading material available and so on. There is no better place to love books than in the company of book-lovers!
Ruhaifa Adil is a mother of four, a practising Muslimah, an avid reader, and a passionate writer. She works primarily as a trainer for mothers and teachers, advocating a multi sensorial, learner-centred approach, which she has learnt through her work as a remedial specialist for children with dyslexia. She is also an author of English textbooks, based on the teachings of the Qur’an (currently under editing), and creative director of a Tafseer app for kids (soon to be launched Insha’Allah).
© IIPH 2015