How to help your children read more and to pick up a love of reading www.fridayschildmontessori.com
Children learn by observing, which is one of the basic tenets of Montessori learning
so one of the first things you can do is to do some reading yourself. If your children never see you reading anything (apart from your Facebook page) then they might get the idea that reading is work and isn’t really relevant.
It doesn’t really matter what you read – glossy magazines, newspapers, cookbooks, instruction manuals and Mills & Boon romances might not be great literature
but if you read these for fun in your leisure time, you’re showing children that reading is something that adults do for fun – which means that they are more likely to have a go themselves.
The next thing that you should do to help your children learn to love reading and books is to read to them.
Don’t just limit yourself to alphabet books where you point out letters and make the sounds and the more obviously educational books.
These are certainly helpful for children learning to read but you need to read more than these books so that children get an idea of the end goal of reading: having fun and gaining new information.
Bedtime stories are great tradition but there are other times that you can read with your children.
Having a child sitting beside you or on your knee while you share a picture book is great “snuggle time� and can be a good way for you to unwind.
After a day of serious business meetings, sales talks and the like, being silly with a picture book can be a good way to put the heavyduty stuff behind you.
Go for something that requires sound effects from the parent –
there’s nothing like providing the right noises for “Hairy Maclary’s Caterwaul Caper” or “Walter the Farting Dog” to push that difficult meeting with the assistant manager into the back of your mind.
Some parents wonder about favourite books and whether it is really extending a child if they want the same book over and over again.
If your child recites the words of a favourite story with you or fills in a missing sentence, is this an example of rote learning and will it be detrimental to their ability to learn to read using phonics?
Don’t worry. A little rote learning, especially if it’s fun, never hurt anybody and learning most or all of “The Wonky Donkey” by heart helps your child to improve their memory skills (and their vocabulary).
If you’re in the mood for it, try changing a word or two to provoke a reaction from your children as they correct you in half-hilarious outrage.
To promote a love of reading, you should have books available in the house. In best Montessori principle, you should have a designated spot for these books.
Bookshelves can be a bit hard for smaller hands to cope with, especially if the books are wedged in fairly tightly – this is a recipe for ripping a soft-cover picture book.
solution could be a book chest or a cupboard that is easier to get things into and out of. You don’t have to spend a fortune to collect a good selection of good books.
It’s amazing what turns up in the bargain bins at K-Mart, at school fairs and similar, at garage sales and even at the library.
And you should also become members at the local library as soon as possible, if you aren’t signed up already.
first card a child should own is a library card, although you’ll have to be the one to keep it until they get a bit more responsible and are less likely to lose it (which is probably until they are old enough to go to t he library solo).
library visits a regular fun outing. They are a great way to try out new titles – if something turns out to be not quite your cup of tea, then back it goes to the library.
Have a separate place for library books as opposed to your books so you don’t lose a library book in your book collection or return that copy of Winnie The Pooh that Grandma gave your child for Christmas to the library by mistake.
Also keep the printout of what you’ve taken out on the fridge or stapled into your diary or on the calendar so you know exactly what you’ve taken out – there’s always one book under the bed that runs the risk of being overlooked.
More Montessori Education topics at www.fridayschildmontessori.com