How to Get Your Screen-Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure by Kaye Newton
How to Get Your Screen Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure
by Kaye Newton
Reading improves kids' abilities to concentrate, empathise, and do well in school. The author spent over a year researching expert advice about promoting reading. She then tested it on her three screen-loving children. Get practical tips on finding books that hook kids, leveraging screen time to increase reading, and ways to make the required reading for school enjoyable.
Reading reduces stress. It improves your concentration, general knowledge, memory and writing. It helps you develop empathy and it gives you a better night's sleep. It can connect people - it can even make you live longer! But most of all, it's a way of experiencing friendship, adventure, love, grief, happiness and escapism - and IMHO, it's the best way to while away a few minutes, hours or days!
But what happens when your children don't inherit this interest in books, or are too distracted by their screens to want to put them down and pick up the latest page turner?!
In a previous life I was an English Teacher at a secondary school, now I have three children of my own and so I've frequently found myself in the position of having to gently (and often not so gently) encourage children to pick up a book, or help them try to find an author, series or newspaper article that will help them discover the thrill and enjoyment that a great book can bring. My biggest challenge is that I love books, I love reading, it's something I've always found easy and never struggled with, so sometimes it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is at the opposite end of that experience.
I'm always eager to hear more ideas about how to get children reading more and how to help them to find the same pleasure I get from reading, particularly as they get older and the demands on their time, academic and socially, leave them with little time or energy to pick up a book and squeeze 'reading for pleasure' into their hectic life. Kaye Newton's book is the perfect handbook for this problem.
How to Get Your Screen Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure is very clearly laid out, neatly divided into bitesize sections with sub headings and bullet points making it incredibly accessible and easy to find the sections relevant to you.
Newton's advice is to the point, focused, practical and realistic. Her lists of authors, titles, apps, websites and audio books is current and extensive. This is a really useful guide book for the modern parent and even if some of the reading suggestions may be soon superseded by other new books, the titles provide a very good starting point with books that will always hold their appeal.
Some of the chapters use questions to raise universal concerns held by parents - questions I'm always hearing parents ask- and her advice is clear, succinct, without judgement and down to earth.
'I'm all for reading bad books because I consider them a gateway drug. People who read bad books now may or may not read better books in the future. People who read nothing now will read nothing in the future.' author Ann Patchett
'Your preteen doesn't care if you were swept away by Heathcliffe and Cathy running wild through the misty English moors; she wants to read what appeals to her.'
'If your child reads graphic novel, tell him or her that you want to check out a graphic novel. Ask your child for a recommendation, and then read what he or she suggests. The more kids read and recommend books to each other...the more likely it is they will continue to read for pleasure.'
Perhaps one misconception about reading is what constitutes reading for pleasure. Do you need to be sat on a chaise lounge in an oak panelled room surrounded by silence and calm or can it be at the dinner table flicking though the sports section and sharing comments and observations from the journalist's write up? Each of us is different; the texts we engage with and the way in which we engage with these texts will always be different. There shouldn't be a set form or a judgement, just a child flicking through the pages of something that they have chosen to look at in their own time.
At the end, there's a short section about working with your child's school to promote a reading culture. In my experience, schools are usually brilliant at promoting reading with challenges, competitions, author visits and well stocked libraries but it's great to see a few other ideas listed by Newton if this is the sort of project you want to get more involved with.
Newton's final message is about staring a conversation about reading with your children. This book is the perfect tool to help you start that conversation. Whether your child used to read a lot, still does, has suddenly stopped or has never read, this book has some helpful tips and there is something for every parent to take away with them.
Have my children replaced their iPods for Dickens? Not yet. I'm not expecting that they ever will. But this book has given me a few ideas about how to engage with them and their choices of reading material. And in the mean time, I shall continue to 'model reading for pleasure'!
Author Kaye Newton loves to share valuable tips on how to get kids to put down their smartphones and pick up a book. Kaye spent over a year researching expert advice about promoting reading, and road testing it on her three screen-loving children. Find out more about the result, How to Get Your Screen-Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure, and her other award-winning book at kayenewt
I'm always eager to hear more ideas about how to get children reading more and how to help them to find the same pleasure I get from reading, particularly as they get older and the demands on their time, academic and socially, leave them with little time or energy to pick up a book and squeeze 'reading for pleasure' into their hectic life. Kaye Newton's book is the perfect handbook for this problem.
How to Get Your Screen Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure is very clearly laid out, neatly divided into bitesize sections with sub headings and bullet points making it incredibly accessible and easy to find the sections relevant to you.
Newton's advice is to the point, focused, practical and realistic. Her lists of authors, titles, apps, websites and audio books is current and extensive. This is a really useful guide book for the modern parent and even if some of the reading suggestions may be soon superseded by other new books, the titles provide a very good starting point with books that will always hold their appeal.
Some of the chapters use questions to raise universal concerns held by parents - questions I'm always hearing parents ask- and her advice is clear, succinct, without judgement and down to earth.
'I'm all for reading bad books because I consider them a gateway drug. People who read bad books now may or may not read better books in the future. People who read nothing now will read nothing in the future.' author Ann Patchett
'Your preteen doesn't care if you were swept away by Heathcliffe and Cathy running wild through the misty English moors; she wants to read what appeals to her.'
'If your child reads graphic novel, tell him or her that you want to check out a graphic novel. Ask your child for a recommendation, and then read what he or she suggests. The more kids read and recommend books to each other...the more likely it is they will continue to read for pleasure.'
Perhaps one misconception about reading is what constitutes reading for pleasure. Do you need to be sat on a chaise lounge in an oak panelled room surrounded by silence and calm or can it be at the dinner table flicking though the sports section and sharing comments and observations from the journalist's write up? Each of us is different; the texts we engage with and the way in which we engage with these texts will always be different. There shouldn't be a set form or a judgement, just a child flicking through the pages of something that they have chosen to look at in their own time.
At the end, there's a short section about working with your child's school to promote a reading culture. In my experience, schools are usually brilliant at promoting reading with challenges, competitions, author visits and well stocked libraries but it's great to see a few other ideas listed by Newton if this is the sort of project you want to get more involved with.
Newton's final message is about staring a conversation about reading with your children. This book is the perfect tool to help you start that conversation. Whether your child used to read a lot, still does, has suddenly stopped or has never read, this book has some helpful tips and there is something for every parent to take away with them.
Have my children replaced their iPods for Dickens? Not yet. I'm not expecting that they ever will. But this book has given me a few ideas about how to engage with them and their choices of reading material. And in the mean time, I shall continue to 'model reading for pleasure'!
Comments
Post a Comment