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

Go go to the library or book shop and they choose and we read it together at bedtime in bed or in a den we have made.

Reading isn't a chore....normal part of life way before school so not associated...being brought up with books and the joy of them needs no encouragement...and now with kindle they've entered the technological world too.

Read to them from a very early age., read every night and once they are able to read read and let them re a d a page. We borrow books from library every week and read two to three books per night along with their own school book which they read. Make sure that they still read during holidays.

Have lots of books around the home, and accessible. Go to the library regularly and point out books on, and related to, children's particular interests. Encourage bedtime reading as part of nightly routine. Show example by reading a lot and expressing interest in books.

I kept books in every single room, the car and my handbag. If ever there was a quiet or boring time, I would whip out a book and start reading it to them, even if it was a story for an adult or an older child, there wa something about being read to which my kids loved, like a song or a poem.....

We have lots of books available that I will happily read when asked. I also read to them every bedtime and make sure they see me reading my own books - positive rolemodel!

How do you encourage a love of reading?

Story time with books with lots of pictures, making time to sit with them, no distractions like phones and tv - so they have your full attention.

Do you have tips for building reading into your child's daily routine?

Let them pick a book to read before bed, the same time each day, so they know that reading is just part of the day, and in time, they will be reading independently.

How do you ignite your child's imagination while reading with them?

I wear my story hat (usually a crown or jester hat) make the story interesting by giving lots of eye contact at the end of a sentence, and of course silly high/low/accents/woofs and growls when reading.

I've taken my kids to the library since they were big enough to flip through a board book and we go all the time still now. I let them choose 2 books each. Also since a few weeks old I have read to them both. They are 5 and 2 and every night before bed I read them 2 books each and they get to choose it.

We read every day - both to our daughter and ensure there is always time for her to read for a bit before she goes to sleep.

We love our summer reading journeys at our library, and she was one of the youngest to complete the 50 book challenge. It’s about finding books that interest her.

My son is obsessed with books. Going to the library is a great way of making it fun. He loves to pick them himself

I read all the time, we have tons of books in the house, I used to read to them every night when they were smaller and yet neither of them like to read.

Although talking to dd last night, she blamed having to read all through primary school, quite often books she didn't enjoy, and being kept in at break if she hadn't read the night before for whatever reason. So perhaps that sucked all the joy out of it for her.

as well as reading books together, we like to make up our own stories to tell each other or even write/draw our own books. we keep everything to do with books lighthearted and fun and never too seriously about 'learning' so that way the kids always love it.

I love reading & always have done - going to the library was an absolute joy for me & I wanted my son to feel that same sense of excitement! We have a great wriggly readers group at our local library & I've always made the most of our library card!
My son is 5 now & really enjoys books - success! He's still in the early days of reading - but still loves being read to & also enjoys audiobooks.
We've also replenished his bookshelves through charity shops, jumble sales & car boots.
Top tips would be;

• Have books available around the house, in the car, by the bedside - everywhere!
• Join the library early & get into the habit of going weekly.
• Make bedtime stories part of the bedtime routine from an early age.
• When they start reading as 'homework' - make it clear they can choose their own books, it doesn't have to be the books sent home by school - reading is reading & they're going to embrace it all the more if the content interests them! Happy reading! :)

We always have loads of books in the house. When the DC were small we had regular trips to the library which were treated as big outings. Now they are older, a book is always a part of their Christmas present.

Have read most nights to my son’s all their lives. We also visit the library once a week, they are currently half way through the summer challenge. They also see myself and dh enjoy and read books.

We have absolutely loads of books and spend around 1 hour before bedtime reading stories. I love books and have tried to instill a love of reading and books with my DD and I believe it's worked.

Having books in the house and always reading every night to DD she know loves reading and has to be stopped.so she goes to sleep. It makes me laugh as i was the same as a child but had a torch to read under the covers with and DD hasn't thought of that yet.

I always read to my DC even when they were very tiny. It was the last activity we did every day once they were in their Pygammas and ready for bed. Once they were old enough we would go to the library and they got to choose the books they wanted. By the time they were 4-5 years old and starting to read themselves I started reading them books with chapters. I found this was a great way of building up anticipation from 1 night to the next and it was completely different to the school books they were bringing home so it never felt like homework to them. I found that after a while they would start reading the next chapter by themselves as they wanted to know what was going to happen next and didn't want to wait for me to read it the next night! Reading chapter books also enabled me to talk to them about unusual words or phrases that came up and to ask if they understood what it meant or did they need me to explain it. Once they started reading very freely at night on their own I admit I was a bit sad! I found it to be a lovely bonding time with both of my DC. One DC has now turned 20 and the other is 14 but both still read a lot (considering all the other distractions around them) and both have great vocabularies so I like to think reading all those books in the early days paid off a little.

We often make trips to the local library and they get to pick out books from there. Currently they are doing the 'Summer Reading challenge' at the library and it motivates them to read a wide range of books. Also if there is any sales in any any bookshops, then they could buy books from there.

DD loves reading so I encourage this by buying sets of books like Enid Blyton, Harry Potter. We buy a lot from charity shops and if she finds some she likes I buy the rest of the set from eBay.

Bookshelves in every room, at their level so they can pick them up anytime just as easily as toys.
Sit down and read yourself sometimes so they can see you reading as well.
Use the library.
Act out stories they have read.

My 13yo daughter loves to read. I think there are a number of reasons for this.

Firstly, we have a house full of books, and she has seen me reading for pleasure throughout her life. (Her dad is not a reader, sadly.)

Secondly, I loved reading as a child and was able to share lots of my favourite stories/books with her. I think good quality books that you don't want to put down are the key.

I read to her lots from when she was a tiny baby. Books were her favourite thing by the time she was six months old. As she got older, she wanted to read for herself, but we still talk about books a lot and sometimes we listen to audio books together.

We see reading as a treat, not a chore. It's a lovely thing to do to relax in the evenings or on holidays. DD will often choose a book over and above a screen because she has positive associations with this.

The local library and getting them to choose the books they want to read. Let's face it, endless Biff, Chip and Kipper could send us all over the edge. Also getting them to think about other endings and asking questions about different endings.

Stories every night even if it was the same book again and again!
We used to visit the library every week between school and swimming lessons and she joined their bookrack scheme where you talked about books with a librarian and aimed to read 100 books.
Always do the Summer reading challenge at the library too.
She likes to read in the car which I encourage.
Her birthday list this year consisted of 10 books and not much else.

Reading together on sunloungers on holiday.