Reading is one of the most beneficial habits for the intellectual development of children. In addition to fostering imagination and creativity, it stimulates language development, allows you to gain vocabulary and stimulates expression oral. Also, books are a source of knowledge, enhance memory and help develop empathy and thinking. These are more than enough reasons to encourage reading from a very early age.

Six tips to stimulate children’s reading

Many parents complain about the fact that their children do not read but the problem is that, for one reason or another, they have not been able to lay the foundations for this habit and generate a taste for reading. However, the war is not lost, you still have time to make your child become a good reader. How to achieve it?

1. Read to him every night

Reading every night with your child is a good strategy to encourage the habit of reading. It doesn’t really matter much what story it is, the idea is that you both enjoy the moment and that the child establishes a positive association with reading. If you are constant, little by little the habit of reading will be established and when you least expect it you will find your child reading or asking you to finish that story that you have left halfway through.

two. Find the right place and time

Many parents ignore this advice and expect the child to read at the time of her favorite television program or when she returns from school. However, forcing the child to read will only serve to create a negative precedent. As a general rule, the best time to read is before bed, when your little one is most relaxed and receptive.

3. Organize a library at home

It has been shown that children’s access to books affects their reading habits. Therefore, a good way to get your child to read is to organize a library at home, you do not have to buy hundreds of books but you should have at least several dozen, which are on different topics. Make sure they are always available to them so they become a constant call to read.

4. Talk about books

Great readers really enjoy talking about the books that have just passed through their hands, so if you want to stimulate your child’s desire to read, it is important that you talk about the works. Do not ignore any book, ask him to comment on it, to express his criteria, to tell you what he would have liked to change. By the way, take the opportunity to recommend other reading.

5. Evaluate the level of difficulty of the book with the rule of five words

It is not always easy to find books suitable for the interests and level of understanding of children. However, if the little one does not understand the work, he will be discouraged and will not want to read more. A good strategy to prevent this from happening is to ask him to read the first page and count the words whose meaning he does not know. If there are more than five, it means that the child is not yet ready to read that work, it will be better to bet on a simpler one.

6. Give him freedom

Often parents want to guide their child’s literary tastes too much by imposing certain genres on them. However, when the child does not yet have the habit of reading, it is recommended that he read the children’s books that he likes. It doesn’t matter if they are comics, deeper readings will come later. In the same way, remember that children have the right not to finish a book if they don’t like it, don’t force them to go to the end when the story doesn’t interest them.