How to raise a reader (for life)

[Aabbaas]

Of course it’s not possible to predict what she’ll do in the future but I’d love if DD could be an avid reader growing up.
She is about to start year 1 and can read books with us but hasn’t yet reached the stage where she picks a book to read by herself.

Things we have done to help:

• started reading books when she was basically a new born
• her room is filled with many books and we read to her 2-3 books every single night before bed
• weekly trips to the local library where she is free to choose whatever she wants
• read her school books at least 3-4 times a week to practice

Is there anything else we can do? We are trying to gentlw encourage her to be a bit more independant in her reading but I appreciate she isn’t even 6 yet so she has time.
How much of what we do at home can influence whether she’ll grow up loving reading or not?

I think lack of knowledge of books and authors only holds you back in a social conversation if the conversation turns to books. Some people have bookish friends but most of us don’t. It’s never a need at work unless you review books! It’s a luxury in many ways but is also a hobby that is not more valid than other hobbies.

I'm a Reception teacher and I'm absolutely fine with children in my class only reading the scheme books 3-4 times a week. We change them twice a week, so reading each book twice at home is the ratio I'd aim for. They also read it once in school, so should ideally be reading each book 3 times. Any more than that is overkill. Scheme books help to eventually develop strong, fluent sight readers. That's the ultimate aim with them. They absolutely do not help develop 'avid readers', as they are dull as dishwasher. Reading for pleasure is what does that, so reading to your child daily is the single most important thing parents can do to help develop keen readers.

We always ask that our parents aim for at least one reading experience per day with their child at home, as a minimum. That absolutely doesn't have to be reading the scheme book every day though. It could simply be listening to a bedtime story on days they are tired. It could be sharing their school library book (or their own library books/books from home) and hunting for any words or sounds they know, and discussing the story. It could be going through their high-frequency words, either through flash cards or by playing a game with them such as bingo or a treasure hunt. It could be playing a phonics game (either an oral or practical game, or one on a app). We give the parents lots of ideas to support with this. The key is to mix it up. Ideally you'd do two or three of these things with your child each day, as most of the activities are quick 5 minute ones (and can be fun rather than a chore). If there are odd days where their home reading experience is simply a bedtime story that day though, that's fine by me. As a teacher, I'd much rather they have days like that rather than slog the scheme book every day but never enjoy listening to stories for pleasure at home. I know which one is more beneficial, long term.

It's definitely important to read the scheme books, but 3-4 times a week is plenty. There are many ways to experience and practise reading at home, and scheme books and flash cards are the only ones which feel more like a chore rather than a fun, pleasurable experience (in my opinion). If children are mixing their reading up at home with games, apps and, most importantly, listening to stories, that's absolutely fine by me.

'avid readers' I find, are the most sanctimonious bores I've ever had the misfortune to converse with. They're always trying to prove they're the smartest in the room when all they are doing is regurgitating other's opinions.

Ne'er a critical thinker among them. Pseudo intellectuals who have lost touch with reality. Pretentious beyond belief and really difficult to be around.

they say things like "the book was better".

"Was it Carol? I don't think so, the book was boring, just like you."

Feel free to point out any punctuation or spelling errors that I made. I know you're dying to.

I think that's true.
My own experience is that as children, my brother and I were read to frequently, had parents who read themselves, had plenty of books available, library visits etc, but nothing could change the fact that DB is dyslexic, and despite good input from school ( unusual in the 60s, but he had proper interventions to get him to age related standards) he has always found reading a chore. On the other hand, I learned to read early, can remember the moment reading "clicked", and was reading chapter books like Enid Blyton by myself by my 5th birthday. As a child I often read 4 or 5 books a day, and still read much faster than most other people I know.
As a teacher, I notice that most of the dyslexic children do not find reading pleasurable and will try to find other activities if there is quiet reading time. We do try to provide a range of books including graphic novels, but reading is just not a relaxing activity for those children.

What a strange post.

'avid readers' I find, are the most sanctimonious bores I've ever had the misfortune to converse with. They're always trying to prove they're the smartest in the room when all they are doing is regurgitating other's opinions.

I think adult avid readers who do talk about it a lot are mainly focued on literary fiction - which is more a modern genre and I'm not sure it will last as it's more booker prizes than best seller list. Harry Potter and Agatha Christie will be classics that hold on as many people read them.

I think avid reader usage here just means someone who reads a lot or reads widely.

Also as a dsylexic person who is an avid reader - though limited amount of booker prizes books - I do get fed up being told I can't be dsylexic - despite full diagnosis- as I do read for pleasure. I know that's not true of all dsylexics but it is true of me and it is of my kids who really struggled with reading and phonics at times it just came later to us all than most peers and with a lot more work to get there.

I taught all my 3 DC to read by 3-4 years. Lots of trips to library. I read to them everyday until 6 or 7 by which time they had Reading ages of 11-12 years. I recall teacher being surprised DD was reading Heidi when she started school. All 3 DC, 1 DD and 2 DS's both still read a lot.

@PinkKimonos Actually there is a point to that post. I have found certain people like to assume superiority by name dropping books they have read. Or discussing them to oblivion. They might do it with someone else who reads a lot but this then leaves other people in the room or around the table not joining in with their conversation.

It’s a bit like dc reading Heidi at 4. It’s one upmanship. They are clearly ultra bright dc with amazing parents. The rest of us are just, well you know, off the money.

I often think conversations when people are in a group should try and accommodate the group and would everyone like it if the engineers talked about their stress tests at dinner? Probably not. Literary people can bore for England and everyone thinks they are so clever.

We were on holiday once with a family who brought a suitcase of books. The parents read them. They took themselves off to a quiet space and read. They then expected my dc to keep theirs (ages 5,8 and 10) occupied! It can be that people are not aware of rudeness if they are literary types?

Why would you think contemporary literary fiction won't last, or that sales guarantee lastingness? I work on popular fiction of the late 19th and early 20thc, and I guarantee that you will never have heard of any of the writers, who sold enormous amounts of books in their day!

I've just been trying to find the grave of a writer who dominated the UK and US bestseller lists in the first decade of the 20thc, whose novels were filmed by early Hollywood, and who was an enormous celebrity, her divorce covered in salacious detail in the London papers. Her name would be totally unfamiliar to you, and I've been through the relevant section of the cemetery several times, looking at every single grave, and have to conclude it's one of the three which are so overgrown with ivy and weeds they're completely indecipherable. Yet the intensely literary James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, of whom she was a contemporary, are still read and feted and taught on university syllabi.

@PinkKimonosYou are desperate to find a grave? Why? Many books are not that great! I bought books for dc that I had when I was a child. Universality dreadful.

Theres no guarantee and its easy for them to start hating it if they sense pressure.
Let them see you read.
Let them choose joyfully from the library/ book shop/ charity shop not just books that you approve of but the awful ones that they all love about pants and bums and poo. Let reading be something fun and happy.
Have times where you put out the books and relax as a family together with them xx

This isn't helpful. My brother and i both have dyslexia and we are both readers. Dyslexia sufferers may struggle more than others when learning but they can learn.
OP, I think you are doing all the right things for now but when she is older and finding out the kind of books she likes, try not to pressure her with what you like. My mother had nasty habit of buying books that she liked and thought i ought to read rather than what what i like. Most were never touched. Now i will not have a Jane 'fucking' Austen book in my house.

I think bigger sales and wider appeal gives a greater chance of books being read and thus more widley know in later decades and centuries - not a guarantee but more likely as it has wider appeal and a boarder base to recommend them to next generation.

I was not claiming that larger sales means automatic longivity - I mean for a start very few books ever get considered to be classics.

Literacy fiction is generally less popular in sales and mass readership compared to major commercial genres meaning it is at a disadvantage - plus it can tend towards elitistism so often lacks wider appeal so has fewer people to recommend it to others and less chance to carry it forward so often losses interest faster.

Harry Potter more likely to make it to be a classic because it so widley known world wide and huge numbers find it appealing story/set of books and there are so many copies around.

Literacy fiction IMO tends to think it's better than it actually often is - there an occasional decent one - often down to the people it's sold to.

According to whom, though? Ulysses, despite its ‘elitism’, is still being read and taught and celebrated and written about, but the book that dominated the bestseller lists in the year of its publication, If Winter Comes by ASM Hutchinson, has sunk without trace. It’s comparatively rare for huge, popular best-sellers to ‘last’ — Dickens’ work is one obvious exception. The numbers of copies circulating make no difference. No one seriously thinks Dan Brown will be read in 100 years. Whereas if you glance back through the history of the Booker Prize, many of those authors have lasted.

And yes, absolutely it’s difficult to tell what will last or be considered lastingly good. George Orwell thought in 1945 that Uncle Tom’s Cabin would outlast all of Virginia Woolf’s work. Zane Grey was the first millionaire author, and stratospherically famous and prolific, but he’s remembered now only as someone whose pulp westerns were adapted into lots of films. The Great Gatsby was a flop during Fitzgerald’s lifetime, and the big seller in the year of its publication was the forgotten Soundings by A Hamilton Gibbs.

IMO = In my opinion.

IME - (In my experience) people who act superior about being avid readers a pervious poster mentioned are people who are reading literacy fiction rather than actual classics - and do act like it's a superior genera rather than a marketing ploy.

They also tend to dimsiss and look down on popular books that sell well being very dimssive when they are more likely to last. Such people tend to confuse literary fiction with being a classic book.

I not sure why you are so offended - it's not really an out their view at all.

Try to focus more on stories and being curious about new and different things, rather than the act of reading. This is why I have always picked up books, to find new stories and characters and learn about different people and places. Reading just happens to allow me to do this. It can be hard to get this across to kids, but doing some free creative writing with them helps and just making up stories. Then they might just reach for books to read other stories.

Both my daughters love books and pick them up without being asked; the older one has always been obsessed with reading; often reading more than enough entire book a day in the holidays but she could read as a toddler; the younger one is much more average. Things we have done is they read to us every day from age 4 till they are free readers at school. We read to them everyday even the senior school age one; we read more advanced books/historical texts that she could read but benefits from our knowledge to help understanding. They see us read lots. Simetimes I read books they read if they have very good reviews so we can chat about them. We have lots of books but we have a small house so some are in the loft and we have to limit what we we keep and what we pass on. We do the Summer Reading Challenge every summer (they read many time the six books necessary but we borrow six book on that year's theme from the library to complete the Challenge and it broadens what they read. We go to literary events and book signings. We go to bookshops and get coffee. There is book in their Christmas Eve Box and their stocking at Christmas and they get larger reference books from us or relatives wrapped under the tree (as well as toys!). They both get a marine subscription and love receiving a new one. Both my husband and I loved books and read a lot as children.