How to Make Reading Fun for Kids

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Laura and today I'm going to talk to you about how to make reading fun for kids. The first thing you have to do in order to make reading fun for kids is you have to introduce them to it and then keep doing it with them. It's not something that they're just going to automatically do on their own. In fact, it doesn't seem as though we do anything automatically on our own; we're always, you know, given something we do and then we do it over and over again. So make sure that you make reading a part of your time with your kids either at night or in the morning or in the afternoon. Whenever you can have a time with them to read to them, make sure that you do; so making it a part of everyday life. Next, pick fun books that are appropriate to their age group. You don't want to start off a kid by reading something that's too advanced for them that they wouldn't understand and they'll not get into. So really research books and find which books are the most fun and also which books are the most fun for you to read to them; 'cause it has to be interesting for you too. So you're going to really do some research on finding your books. The best book that I've encountered when I was a kid was the Hank The Cowdog series which I don't; had ten or so books in the series and was all about Hank the, the risk security head who took care of his ranch and of course, he is a dog. So it appeals to me mainly because my dad read it to me and he read it with different inflictions in the voices of the characters. So for example; and I'm on one of the pages here; one characters speak with a stutter, "Im t-t-telling you Paul, he is du-du-du-dead. I picked up the s-s-signals, signals." So you can read along with your kid and actually have them sit down and look at this with you so you can sort of show them how to put infliction into the words; so that you're not just reading it at them 'cause you're acting it out with them. So that they actually become part of the, the story itself. So they become involve in it. It's so much today, is actually base on kids being able to see and do everything and everything's laid out for them. Whenever you're reading to them, you can create these things for them. So reading is actually probably one of the last things that we have left for kids to actually tap into with an imagination because everything else is so rendered and so well, you know, well wrote. They can really plug into it. So reading is something there is really important. And also of course we have really great illustrations in this book like Hank facing off this buzzards on this page right here. So read to them daily, pick out fun books and act it out and make it something that is routine and your kids should learn to love reading by the time they know how to do it on their own."