Getting Kids to Read

First of all, I think the most damaging thing about getting kids to read is that parents encourage it. We read since our families discouraged it—I remember an aunt complaining vociferously to my mum that I was reading romantic novels at age ten—and kids like to do what families disapprove of. So if parents and teachers stop talking about how essential it is to read, more kids might want to pick up a book.

Of course the thing about picking up a book is that kids need to pick it up themselves. Maybe I am just an inept parent, but I find that my son will read the books he wants to read (found in bookshops, recommended by friends) and not usually what I recommend. (There are a few exceptions to this!) So if you want your kids to read, let them pick what they are reading—comics, fiction, motorcycle magazines. 

What is important is that they realize that pleasure can be found between the pages of a book, or that the iBooks app is as cool as the other apps on the iPad.

If you want to persuade your child to read, you suggest books to him or her which might fit in with what he or she is interested in. Do not attempt to foist books that you might have read as a child, or—even worse—books that attempt to teach things (unless of course your child likes non-fiction!). In the best books, the message or lesson, if any, is so deeply woven into the fabric of the book that it is hard to articulate. But messages do not need to be articulated—they are absorbed any way! And children have far more subtlety of comprehension than we tend to give them credit for.

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Image Source : Pratham Books (from the book ‘Going to Buy a Book’, Illustrated by Santosh Pujari)