Mumsnet users share their tips for encouraging their children to love reading with McDonald's

[JustineBMumsnet]

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Reading with your child can be a fun, educational and rewarding experience, but reading may be an activity your child comes to associate with schoolwork rather than fun. With their fifth Happy Readers campaign coming up soon, McDonald's would like to hear about how you encourage your children to love reading.

Here's what McDonald's has to say: "We're committed to helping families enjoy time reading together and believe in the power of stories to ignite children’s amazing imaginations. However it’s not always easy to fit regular reading into busy lives. As we prepare for our 5th Happy Readers campaign, giving away a free book with every Happy Meal, we're keen to get advice from Mumsnetters. Your tips and advice for building a love of reading with your children, inventive ways you manage to build regular story time and reading into your busy lives, and, with the school holidays in full swing, all the ways you encourage, nurture and ignite your children’s imagination. Through reading and beyond."

How do you encourage a love of reading? Do you have tips for building reading into your child's daily routine? How do you ignite your child's imagination while reading with them?

However you encourage a love of reading with your child and using their imagination, share this with McDonald's below to be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

i am lucky my daughters love to read from an early age. i used to read to them but now they will fully engross themselves in books and sit quiet for hours

we read as much as possible, go to the library a couple of times a week and read stories at bedtime. doing all this from a very young age helps to develop a love of books and reading.

I START OFF WITH LOTS OF COLOURFUL BOOKS WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG AND I START TO READ TO THEM AND ENCOURAGE THEM THAT WAY

when my son askes me a question about a particular subject such as planets I will take him to the library to get a book on planets so we can read together.

My husband and I love reading - we've always got books on the go and I think my daughter takes after us as she sees us reading so much, she wants to be the same! She has loved the Harry Potter series.

Every summer our library holds a reading competition. My kids love collecting the stamps for every book read and if they read enough they're thrilled to get a medal/certificate.

Definately taking them to the library regulary to chose books and having a reading session before bed

we don't have a tv in the house

Bedtime stories, we have a huge collection of books they like to choose and enjoy. They then pick another to read to themselves afterwards. It's lovely

Our dd loves reading, we have a family reading time together which helps!

Encouragement form a young age

I think reading is so important to foster imagination in children and encourage them to be independent thinkers so I encourage them to read everyday and make sure I set a good example and they see me reading too.

lots of visits to the library, reading them a bedtime story, having lots an lots of book in our house, visiting waterstones regularly and have bought them all a kindle each.

we visited he local library when they were very young and still do

My daughter enjoys reading but given the choice she'd prefer her i.pad!! I however limit ipad time and have really encouraged her love of reading over the school summer break. She's signed up for a reading scheme and once she's read 6 in total she gets a certificate and medal which is a great incentive! The local library also provide a story and craft activity every week so we've been attending these too.

I'm lucky my 10 year old has inherited mine and her father's love of reading and doesn't need any encouragement. She loves going to the library and choosing books or visiting a bookstore.

Read to them, then when they're a bit older read together. Talk about books you enjoyed reading as a child to them too.

Reading to them from an early age gets them interested, then reading with them. The right choice of books is important - the book people have proved invaluable for us!

When my eldest son was smaller we had problems with him enjoying reading so a friend said to me, doesn't he love football I mean 'Really' love football? Give him the newspaper back page and let him read something he loves, no one wants to read a book they aren't interested in do they? So each day I did what she suggested, asked him to read it out loud to me and I could hear the excitement in his voice as he was so passionate about football, he was actually reading stuff he loved and since then he hasn't looked back, he went on to books and we had a huge collection of lovely books for the rest of the family.

letting decide what books they find interesting

Here are a few techniques I use:
-we play guess the story. So when they have a new book I let them take a look at the picture then discuss the title of the story we then try to guess what the story might be about and try to guess the ending

• we play let's be silly- we dress up and use quick handmade props we like to try to use different voices and noises which are used within the story and try to create the story ourselves.

-also we like to buy two copies of the story for my two kids and see who can read it first and no cheating because there will be a fun quiz at the end to check! We love story time it's a huge part of our lives it's great to get their imagination grow!

Join your local library to get access to loads of books.

Weve read stories to our children from being tiny and allowed them to look and feel the pages , helping to turn them over . I think it really helps little ones to be interested in reading if they can hold and look at the pictures while you read to them

my children have loads of books in their bedroom they can choose from. they like me to read them a bedtime story. we now take it in turns to read, putting on different voices for the characters, it makes it fun.

I read with/to my baby every day, and try to make sure she often sees me reading rather than just scrolling through my phone