Developing Interest in Reading

This series is designed to provide families the vocabulary, tools, suggestions, and activities to help their little ones open the door and discover the magic of reading. Often times teachers get so held up on letter names, letter sounds, and sight words that families become overwhelmed and children grow frustrated with the constant drill of these skills. Learning to Read is so much more than specific skills and thus we need to help our little readers to put all these skills together. The magic of reading begins by developing interest.

The best practices in reading research show that children need a systematic approach to teaching the early literacy skills needed to become a reader. These skills focus on the phonemic awareness and phonics skills necessary for early readers. However, children also need to develop an interest in learning to read to make the best use of the systematic instruction they receive in early literacy skills.

As a parent, you might think, my child loves books. That’s awesome! It’s the first step in garnering a life long reader. But what about those children who don’t particularly like reading or have fallen out of love with reading? Let’s dive in a little more.

Falling in Love with Books

The first steps in becoming a reader is falling in love with books and enjoying listening to stories. If you have been reading to your children since they were babies, they most likely love stories. As your children grow, they may begin to ask you to read the same stories again and again. This is all part of the journey to reading. And yes, it is perfectly acceptable, actually encouraged, to read your child the same book day to day if your little one asks for it.

Many of your preschoolers favorite books are those they loved as a toddler. After listening to the books many times, your preschooler may begin to read the story from memory. This is one way to read a book. That is to say, they are reading to you! Don’t worry so much if your little one changes the words as they read the story so long as the retelling follows closely to the original story. For instance, they may read some books verbatim from memory and others they may read by describing the pictures. To clarify, both of these are two steps on the journey to reading books independently.

Hand over the Control when Developing Interest

Now is the time to turn the book over to your little one. Let them hold the book, turn the pages, and even describe the pictures as you read the words (or let them read the words). Encourage them to enjoy their old favorites but also to find new favorites.

Each night, we would let our child pick out two books, one new book (or one we haven’t read in awhile) and one old favorite. The new books allowed us to introduce our preschoolers to new stories, new words, new sentence structures and language as well as illustrations. The old favorites allowed our little one to take more ownership in reading by allowing them to read the story to us through memory, pictures, or words.

We all want our children to learn to read and love reading too! The best way to do this is to put the book in your child’s hand. Yes, your child might tear a page, yes, it may take longer, and yes, your child might even turn the book upside down or turn pages backwards. But how else are they supposed to learn. Just like you need to encourage your little one to dress themselves, even when the shirt goes on backwards and inside out, you need to encourage them to hold books too.

The more we encourage our children to do when reading, the sooner they to will become a reader!

Let Your Child Pick the Story

We all love to have choices. Not only does providing a choice let your little one take ownership of their reading, but it also teaches them how to make bigger decisions. We all need to practice decision making at a young age so we can make bigger decisions when we are older. Additionally, you allow your child to have some control, which they desperately crave. Turning over control for little things like what to wear and what to read, help you in the bigger moments when you need your child to do something you desire, like get in the car to pick up their sibling or eat dinner at the table.

This doesn’t mean that you child gets free reign of all books in your house. It also doesn’t mean that you can’t take the control back with certain books. We keep a small bookshelf in our children’s rooms. On this shelf, we keep the books that we want our children to read. They can pick any book from the shelf for us to read to them or to read independently. Moreover, we keep a basket on the shelf for books from the library so these don’t get lost.

Let’s talk about those special books your child loves. We have a few beautiful pop up books, slide out books, and even baby scrapbooks that we want to keep in good condition. If you are anything like us, you will want to keep these books out of your child’s reach. So, try placing the books on a high shelf that your child can still see. If your child requests one of these books, explain the special rules.

Rules for Special Books

1. We read these books together, when not reading they stay on their shelf
2. An adult needs to hold the book
3. Ask to help turn the pages or let the adult turn the pages
4. Parts of the page move, ask before touching so they continue to work
5. Be gentle when moving parts of the book

Get “New” Books Often when Developing Interest

While we would all love to buy our children new books from the book store every week, you definitely do not need to do this. There are so many different ways you can get “new” books for your child and most of these ways are free or very inexpensive.

Free Ways to Add New Books for Developing Interest in Reading

First, plan trips to the library every week or at least twice a month. If you can’t get to your local library, try a free little library. These are popping up everywhere. You little one can pick out 2 – 3 new books to read from the library. Parents, feel free to grab a favorite too! Now your child will have a few new books every week to read and change up the books they love.

Second, rotate your current books. We love to change the books our children have available. Therefore, a few times a year we take the books off their bookshelf and replace with other books we own. Now your child has time to find some new favorites. One caution is to carefully choose a few books to keep that your child absolutely loves. We want to avoid book related temper tantrums as much as possible.

Cheap Ways to Add New Books

Three, used books stores, library sales, and thrift shops. You can often find books for less than $1 in these types of stores. These are awesome because your child can pick out a book they love and own that book, plus it doesn’t break the bank.

Fourth, scholastic $1 books. We love to always check the scholastic book catalogs our children’s teachers send home. But don’t forget to check online too! You can order from all catalogs, not just the one your child’s teacher chooses. And you can even search by price, locating the $1 books easily. These make great gifts for birthdays, holidays, and potty training.

Must Have Books for Developing Interest

Single Books

Not a Box: such a creative little book to encourage the use of imagination. My children loved the images, use of the imagination, and the silly rabbit. With such few words, your family can really make this book their own. And maybe you’ll even discover a few new ways to play with a box.

You’re Finally Here: such a fun story to show that even the characters in the books like the kids who read books. First, know this story is written in second person meaning the main character speaks to you, the reader. Then enjoy his contracts and demands as they get quite outrageous. Rabbit has a personality all his own and it will draw your child in until the very end.

The Book with No Pictures is an absolute delight to read aloud with your child. Our children love how the book is written in second person, speaking right to the child with adult interjected text woven throughout. The writing makes you believe your adult reader is actually saying their thoughts aloud, even though it is the author’s words. We always have so many giggles when the author writes silly words, songs, and even phrases for us to read.

Short Series

Knuffle Bunny: this is a wonderful story that many preschool children can relate too and the pictures clearly tell the story. Children with a favorite snuggle toy will become engrossed in the story while sharing in the sadness and joys throughout. Most children can relate to the feeling on loss one feels when losing their favorite snuggle toy.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: this is a great alphabet book where the pictures and letters do a great job of telling the story with some repetition. In addition, it’s a great introduction to both lowercase and uppercase letters. Moreover, there is a little humor along the way. My children always loved skinned knee d, loose tooth t, and black-eyed p.

Penguins Love Colors: this book uses question and answer to engage your little one and has many color words that they can begin to read. This book comes in just an English version too, but I shared the bilingual version in both English and Spanish. This is such a nice introduction to learning a new language, I just couldn’t resist.

Anything by Todd Parr: these are such great books to teach about differences and being yourself. If you have a unique situation, he probably has a book about it. For instance, you can learn about all different kids of people, families, and the world by delighting in these books. Great for teaching empathy, appreciation, and cultural differences.

Many Book Series

If you Give a Mouse series: these are fabulously repetitive books where the pictures can tell the story. Using the pictures, your little one can begin to tell the story from memory. Mine always enjoyed the antics of the animals. Moreover, they will delight at some of the silly cause and effect. And each book is a new adventure to embark on with your little one.

The Llama Llama series: always a favorite in our house for the fabulous rhyming phrases. Not only does this series teach about different real life experiences of children, but it overexaggerates the dramatics. The over the top drama help your child realize just how silly they act sometimes and hopefully changing their behavior too.

The Bear and Friends series: my children have always loved Bear Snores on and other books in the series. Bear explores so many common childhood experiences and the feelings associated. Through Bear children learn how to be friends, handle feelings, and about special holidays. Additionally, these are great books for teaching new words to your child.

Splat the Cat series: great books to introduce new words with your child. Not only do these books have amazing vocabulary, but they also help my daughter with anxiety visualize new situations to ease your worries. Moreover, we just can’t help but laugh along with Splat and Seymour as he tries different things.

Looking for books for your infants or toddlers, be sure to check out my posts on reading with your baby. Need some more titles for your preschool child, we’ve got your back. Leave us a comment to let us know your favorite books to read with your preschool child.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.