Families & Friends
-
What to do if your kids HATE reading: Advice for parents of reluctant readers
As a children’s librarian, I spend a lot of time helping families find books– but what about when a kid doesn’t WANT any books? Every suggestion shot down, every title rejected with barely a glance, award winners and popular authors ignored like yesterday’s oatmeal. Yup, I meet a lot of reluctant readers, and their confused and unhappy parents. “My child used to LOVE to read books. They used to read every day and now they read…nothing.” Or: “My kid is more interested in video games than in books, but his teacher says he MUST get his reading score up or he’ll have to go to summer school.” Or sometimes it’s…
-
How busy families can read more
We just finished our Summer Reading Club (SRC) at my library and this year we simplified things by having adults, teens, and children sign up using the same gamesheet. Our goal is to get people reading over the summer (and come to our library programs!), so the gamesheet tracks how many books OR how many hours each participant reads over the 7 weeks of SRC. It was a VERY successful program, with 500+ more sign-ups this year compared to last year– but a major bummer was how so MANY adults kept saying they didn’t have time to read. Even worse? How many of their teens and tweens who said they…
-
5 ways to turn your reluctant reader into a total bookworm
It can be frustrating when your formerly bookworm kid suddenly stops reading. And it’s scary when your child’s teacher says they HAVE to read a certain amount of books (usually in a specific reading level) or they’ll be in danger of falling behind in their grade level. You’re stressed out, your kid is stressed out, and it’s very, very easy for this situation to turn into fights and arguments and unhappy families. I see quite a few families who’re in this same situation at my library. Usually they’ve gotten to the point where the the kid is completely uninterested in a) reading the book, b) picking their own book, c)…
