When does your child recreationally read?

[Corgi887]

When does your primary age child recreationally read? And for how long? DS likes reading (but doesn't love it) and I'd like to encourage it. He also prefers to read non fiction but school keeps talking about how much it aids creative writing to read fiction and he struggles with that.

Like pp said, if they have unlimited screen time, that is the death to reading. Mine read whenever they fancy through out the day, but we limit screen time. They will sometimes read the second they wake up or have book at the breakfast table (age 8 and 10). Heck, my 2.5 year old wakes and grabs books from her crib and "reads" she has been doing this probably since 18 months or so..maybe even younger. As soon as she learned to grab books from her crib when she woke up (She has a huge stack of books on her doll house next to the crib one one side and on the other a little shelf with books. It was not my intention for her to do this, just one day I walked in and saw she had managed to pull books in and was looking at them. I think some kids are more interested then others, but it requires encouragement. We have a zillion books in our house, so our kids always have many to choose from. I have a love of books and even saved some favourites from my childhood that i passed on to mine. I do not keep track of how long or when they read. They just read as they want any time of day. But one rule I have is no tv an hour before bed. So they def read a bit before bed...or draw, chat etc. But mostly, they read. We also have a busy schedule with sport or some activity every day. But reading always fits in.

Like pp said, if they have unlimited screen time, that is the death to reading. Mine read whenever they fancy through out the day, but we limit screen time. They will sometimes read the second they wake up or have book at the breakfast table (age 8 and 10). Heck, my 2.5 year old wakes and grabs books from her crib and "reads" she has been doing this probably since 18 months or so..maybe even younger. As soon as she learned to grab books from her crib when she woke up (She has a huge stack of books on her doll house next to the crib one one side and on the other a little shelf with books. It was not my intention for her to do this, just one day I walked in and saw she had managed to pull books in and was looking at them. I think some kids are more interested then others, but it requires encouragement. We have a zillion books in our house, so our kids always have many to choose from. I have a love of books and even saved some favourites from my childhood that i passed on to mine. I do not keep track of how long or when they read. They just read as they want any time of day. But one rule I have is no tv an hour before bed. So they def read a bit before bed...or draw, chat etc. But mostly, they read. We also have a busy schedule with sport or some activity every day. But reading always fits in.

DS7 is also a non-fiction fan - he likes kids’ encyclopaedias and fact books. DH is reading Harry Potter to him at bedtime - I’m reading him The Ickabog.

I used to like comics and things like Garfield and Peanuts - he’s just starting to nosey through things like that. DD5 absolutely loves school reading scheme books so I got her the Julia Donaldson stages 1-4 set of Oxford books from Amazon - they’re not my cup of tea but she absolutely adores them!

Our DD isn't reading on her own totally yet but we do a book every bedtime. Sometimes two.