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Have you ever read one of the books your child loves dearly? Darcy here with how we’re able to really encourage our children, in a different direction, to love to read!

We’re a big family of readers…well, almost all of us. Aiden is a great reader, he’s just not learned to love it, yet, unless you’re reading it to him. We’ve been reading aloud to the boys since before they were born, and continue even though they are technically older than the read aloud age. Currently, they’re working to finish up the second Olympians series by Rick Riordan (the man who brought us 39 Clues and Percy Jackson), and then Aiden is going to be introduced to Harry Potter.

Connor is our devourer of books, and has loved just about anything he’s gotten his hands on. He began reading Suzanne Collins’ Underland Chronicles (the Gregor Books) at the suggestion of his best friend. He was immediately hooked and could not read them quickly enough. When he was done, however, he came running into the room I was in, slammed the book down, and yelled, ” I HATE Suzanne Collins and I HATE this book!” and stomped off. I’d never seen him get so emotionally connected to a book. Sure, he cried when Gandalf died, cried when Aslan died, laughed at other things, but never had I seen him get so worked up. So we talked awhile about what he was feeling and allowed him to express his grief and displeasure at coming to the end of these books he’d loved so dearly.

Then it dawned on me…I need to read them. They’d effected him so greatly, I needed to find out what they were like. I began reading them on my own, and one day, Connor came into my room and saw me with it in my hand, already well into the story. His face lit up so bright, and he was so happy to see that I was taking an interest in a book he’d introduced me to, instead of it always being something that I’d assign him, or suggest for him to read. It gave him a sense of being more ‘grown up’, and we were able to discuss what I was experiencing in reading his books.

On the other hand, Aiden absolutely adores being read to, whether by us or using audio books. He’s still a lover of a good picture book, and I found a way to really entice him – by letting him read ME to sleep at night! He has a book series he loves called Anatole – it’s about a food loving mouse in Paris, two things he loves dearly (not the mouse). So, to encourage his reading, and to show him that I was really interested to be involved with something he loved, I let him read the Anatole books to me. He loves the juxtaposition of the even, and knowing that I’m really paying attention to something he loves so much.

Here are some other ways to encourage an older child to learn to love to read:

1. Family Reading Night – even if you only do it once a week (and I would HIGHLY encourage more than once a week), have a night where you turn off the television and phones and electronics and read together. Either read short stories or poetry or pictures books on subjects your family would love, or just have your own books and enjoy reading in the same room together.
2. Encourage a little extra stay up night – provide a flashlight and say that lights are off in 15 min, and encourage your child to stay up just a little extra late reading under the covers. You’d be surprised at how you can make it so much fun for them that they want to do it over and over.
3. Provide a reading corner – a simple $20 beanbag, and a basket of books in a quiet corner can turn a child’s world out with a place to explore and dream.
4. Make sure they have a library card and are taken to the library often! Growing up, I loved to read and couldn’t get enough, but didn’t have a lot of opportunities to get to the library, and my book choices tended to be those books I’d read so many times already (Hardy Boys and Misty of Chincoteague) or my Mom’s Harlequin romances I’d sneak off the shelf just to read, or the set of encyclopedias we had in the hallway for a time.
5. Rent a movie! Who would have thought I’d encourage that? But I do! Often, we’ll make sure to have a movie date after the boys have read a book that has a movie done of it. It helps encourage them to finish the book, and fosters some great times of thinking through what they’ve been reading when we talk about how the characters appeared on screen versus how we thought of them in our heads, or how the stories differed. Don’t ask us about the discussions that came after the Percy Jackson movie, though – NOT happy about how that turned out!
6. Audio books – while we’d always love to encourage our children to pick up a book first, for some, the task is daunting. All those words on big white pages can sometimes intimidate. But a way to foster the love of a story is audiobooks! We use them in the car for car trips or visits to places we know we’ll have long waits in. We use them for rest time on lazy summer afternoons when it’s just too hot to play. We use them for nights when they’re going to bed just a little early so Mom and Dad can have a date night, and then the boys get to stay up late, falling asleep to a wonderful story.
7. Read the books they love – and encourage them!

If you have any ideas of things your family does to encourage reading in your children, please share them with our readers here in the comments section.