How do I get my children to be readers?

[imamearcat]

I'm not a reader myself, probably read a dozen books in my life. DH better in his youth but never reads now - just watches telly or gaming in his chill time (We are educated but maths/science degrees).

DC are 3 and 5. I want them to be better than us! DD5 is just learning to read but she's not that keen, she always wants 'easy ones', but we read together at bed time daily. DS3 shows more interest in books but obviously can't read yet. But we read together every night and he finishes the sentences etc.

Is there anything else we should do? Should we be reading in our free time to set a good example?

I think the most important thing is to keep reading as part of the routine throughout life. Could be you reading bedtime stories, weekly/monthly library visits, getting them into Audible as teenagers. Doesn't matter as long as books are accessible and normal.
One of the saddest things I was told by a friend in our twenties was that she wouldn't be able to read a whole book.
This woman was a professional with a degree, of course she could read a book if she wanted to.
If she had said she didn't like reading fine, but to genuinely believe she couldn't!
The only novel reading she had done was for school exams and there were no books in her home so she had built it into this difficult studious art.
I soon taught her the joy of a story with no need to be concerned with a thesaurus or themes.
I'm a bookworm but avoid literary prize winners like the plague, I want to be entertained not improved.

Look for some original or funny, easily readable books as bedtime books. Off the top of my head, really memorable in the primary years have been 'There are No Cats In This Book' and its sequel; 'Please Mr. Panda' and 'The Day The Crayons Quit' (and its sequel), and the rhyming Julia Donaldsons. All for slightly different reasons, but they've stayed on the bookshelf over quite a few years. Also keep in mind comics or graphic fiction.

If we are let back into libraries, I also play a game (to kill some time on wet days waiting for buses really) where in the children's library you can take a book from the shelf and child chooses a random page number, line number from page, word number and lastly letter in a word which narrows it down to one letter. You could do this for each DC if old enough. With that letter, they have to find a book in that section they might like - L for example. Or if you can see the section and see some titles, ask them to find a book from L about a certain subject, or with the same author's name as a friend, or whatever. My DD loves a few rounds of this. You don't have to borrow anything but somewhere along the line she usually finds one she does fancy that she may not have found without the random game.

@Sk1nnyB1tch

I think the most important thing is to keep reading as part of the routine throughout life. Could be you reading bedtime stories, weekly/monthly library visits, getting them into Audible as teenagers. Doesn't matter as long as books are accessible and normal. One of the saddest things I was told by a friend in our twenties was that she wouldn't be able to read a whole book. This woman was a professional with a degree, of course she could read a book if she wanted to. If she had said she didn't like reading fine, but to genuinely believe she couldn't! The only novel reading she had done was for school exams and there were no books in her home so she had built it into this difficult studious art. I soon taught her the joy of a story with no need to be concerned with a thesaurus or themes. I'm a bookworm but avoid literary prize winners like the plague, I want to be entertained not improved.

One of my favourite genres is teen fantasy. It's light and escapist.

So much adult stuff is dry, heavy and tedious. I don't want realism. I don't want clever for the sake of it.
I'm a big kid wanting an escape into imagination away from grown-upping all day.

Never, ever push it.
Have lots of story cds put as as they go to sleep, read to them.

Have lots of good books around for them to pick up. Never turn it into a chore and when they get into something, be it flowers faires or, how to train your dragon.... Let them read it.
Don't police it at all.

Let them pick out any books that catches their imagination and let them discard/chop and change when they want. At that age you don't want them to start feeling like reading is a "chore".

If one child wants to read "easy" books let her. Perhaps she needs them right now and trying to make her read harder books than she's ready to might turn her off them.

I love books, when I was a kid I was allowed to read whatever I wanted in the library. My favourite were the imaginative colourful books with big pictures and I think from them I just gained a love of reading because it inspired my imagination and as a child I associated reading with fun and daydreams. Because of that it never felt like a chore to me. (One of the few things my parents did right.)