If possible, I want to inculcate the habit of reading in my children.
We did it when they were young. J and K both love books.
However, with the daily grind of school works and activities, somehow the passion subsides and reading is not part of what they do anymore.
In comparison, K fares better than J as I mentioned in this article:
http://www.parentwonder.com/reading-mouserathon/
For some strange reason, what works on K doesn’t work on J.
J needed a little push as far as reading is concerned.
I wanted to sit down and relax and was hopeful that J would catch up with reading again. But after thinking for roughly ten minutes, I felt that I needed to do something instead of letting fate take its course.
I came up with this brilliant idea! I challenged J to a reading competition.
To be frank, at first, I was not sure how effective it was and where it would end.
Both of us picked a book we would like to read and see who finished the book first. J picked a Thea Stilton book and I chose mine.
The race had begun. She read the book whenever she was free.
I did the same.
After a few days, J finished her book before me! She was ecstatic because she didn’t expect to finish the book faster than I did.
(Let me tell you a secret but you promise not to tell J. I purposely slowed down my pace so that J could catch up and win the competition.)
Winning the contest is not my priority. Winning back the passion of reading for J is. I can see that after she won the prizeless competition, she felt more passionate about reading than before.
Though she got back her passion, I still wanted to reinforce the reading passion even more. I challenged J to a second contest. She accepted it gracefully and confidently.
And as you guessed it, she won again (within 2 days!) because I took my own sweet time to read.
I am glad that I helped J find her passion for reading again by using this simple method.
I don’t claim that this method works for your child but hey there’s no harm trying. Some kids are well motivated in a competitive environment.
Only now do I realize that J is in fact on my mailing list. She would be mad to find out that I let her win on purpose in those fake competitions. I am afraid it’s too late by now to retract this post.
For more tips on instilling reading habit in children, check out “The Nonconformist’s Guide to Parenting“.
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