Hi Home Edders, hope you're having a nice time out there, as for me I'm having a super fantastic day already. Greetings from @salvadornkpara.
Reading can be boring and uninteresting when there's no motivation and inspiration even for adults. This can be there exact fact in kids when there's no excitement and fun, a child can just abandon reading a book halfway because of lack of fun and the right environment. Instead of scolding the child, why not look for better means of presenting reading to the child? Good reading culture or skills are developed when reading is enjoyable, which means the process must be exciting leading to more interest and of course there will be that motivation to take on any reading task. It's my belief that after following the reading tips that'll be shared below, your kids will be encouraged to build a good reading culture and as well develop more love for reading.
Tips for Effective Reading Culture
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Make the reading environment colorful and captivating Children are naturally built to love aesthetics and they're attracted to any beautiful environment that's full of captivating photos. The reading or study environment must be surrounded with beautiful decorations including arts and craft work not necessarily bought, it could be DIY crafts prepared by the kids with your supervision. Most parents trash their homeschool DIY art works, which isn't proper. The nonperishable art works should be used as decorating materials for the reading/learning environment. Remember that decorating the study area with their previous art works will give them more confidence to do more. There should be inscriptions attached to every photos and art works to enable your kids identify them directly. Always give your kids the opportunity to ask questions (both relevant and irrelevant questions) about the inscriptions on the wall. The questions could range from, what's this and what does it stand for? When these questions are asked, it could become avenues or invitation for kids to be comfortable with the reading environment and in turn love to do any other activities in such an environment. They should also participate in the decoration proceeds to enable them have a fun filled time. Once this is achieved, goal one is already settled.
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Read and memorize with them The ability for parents to repeat a word more often is very crucial to the child's assimilation level of the words. Parents should be off the habit to encourage their kids to read a book more than twice in order for them to become more familiar with the stories or terms written in the book. The way an educator or parents attempt to pronounce words really matters in the ears of the kids. Words pronounced wrongly could affect the kids pronunciation in public, so parents should listen to the pronunciation of words and master it before teaching the kids. Since children can be fund of reading a particular book more often than others, please allow the child to do so, but just encourage the child to know that reading other books will expand his or her views about life.
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Create room for them to ask questions relating to pronouncing difficult words Most words that the kids will come across might be hard for them to pronounce, so it's the duty of the parents to guide the child in pronouncing difficult words. Most parents are of the habit of leaving the kids after introducing the reading process to the kids, they expect the kids to read on their own, not remembering that there are difficult words a child will encounter while reading. Create room for them to ask you to pronounce words that are difficult for them and don't restrict the number of times they should ask such questions. The more they're able to access you, the more comfortable they become with you.
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Connect reading to real life situations Make the kids believe that they're not wasting their time reading abstract things that aren't connected to real life situations. To make reading more realistic, the parents should relate the events in the text to real life experience that are visible around them. For instance, the child could be reading about a story relating to market scene. Its Important to relate it by taking the child to the market when you're shopping and explain to the child the reality of what he or she has read previously in the text about market. This will drive the passion of the child in reading and the child's awareness of the reality of what he has read will help further their love for reading.
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Always give the kids lovely books to read when they wait for you Most a times parents take their kids alongside to meetings and programs that are not beneficial to the kids and the kids will get bored in the process of waiting for them. This should be a time to encourage their reading skills. During this period, give them interesting books to keep them busy. When you're traveling with them as well, go along with books or magazines that'll keep their minds busy. It's important that books are made available with you and it must be interesting stories that can engage them effectively as long as they wait for you.
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Be part of the reading process through engaging them with the stories Allow the kids to read aloud to your hearing and engage them at intervals to make the reading process interesting. Engagement in this case means helping them flow deep into the stories. This could be achieved through asking questions about the characters in the stories and allowing them to respond freely to your questions. Questions ranging from the flow of thoughts in the story, actions and even feelings: "Do you agree with Gerald, why does he think that way? What was the reaction of people when they found out? The kids after answering you will also ask you what your thoughts are, then your real life experience as highlighted above can come into play to encourage the child.
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Reading should be done during your leisure time Children in general learn faster when they observe that their parents are practicing what they ask them to do. During your leisure time gather your children to read alongside with you. With that, the children will not want to do other things. Although it's not done always. A parent can just tell the children that it's time for reading and this time it'll be with me. The children will always see such times as fun filled time. It could be said that the best way to inculcate love for reading in a child is when they see you having fun with them at the leisure time, so you must act what you want them to do.
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Be patient with them Most times you don't get the desired result you want from your kids, it's not a time to get discouraged with them. Remember little drops of water makes a mighty ocean. Being constantly patient with them, gives the child the confidence that you still believe in them. Once that confidence is taken away from them, they'll start becoming afraid of you presence art home and automatically you've lost them. Little patience is needed to constantly get them achieve their reading goals at home. Allow them to make mistakes, because making mistakes is a sign of their willingness to try and master what you've taught them. Never see mistakes in them as failure, help them to see it as an opportunity for improvement. This usually occur when they're learning pronunciation of similar words, all you need to do is read it again with them until they achieve the correct pronunciation.
Finally, I'll say that the reading process is an admixture of every tip that has been highlighted above. Choose the one that works for your kids and keep the rest for me. Hope you had a nice time reading my post. Have a beautiful time ahead and remain blessed. Greeting from @salvadornkpara all the way from Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Thanks to my dear friends @missdonna and @ekotmordemy who's work on guided me in writing this work.
https://peakd.com/hive-199420/@ekotmordemy/building-trust-between-kids-and-helping-them-overcome-trauma