Beyond Bribery: Real Ways to Get Kids Excited About Reading

When a child says they “hate” reading, parents and teachers naturally push against that frustration. Although the fight is well-intentioned, forcing them into it via conflict can unfortunately worsen that resistance. To make matters worse, parents facing this challenge are far from alone, as the percentage of children who read for fun continues to drop and is now at its lowest since the 80s.

Rebuilding a positive attitude toward reading for a child with negative associations is both challenging and essential. It can also be particularly tricky, as encouraging reading differs from other forms of behavioral change. For example, incentivizing reading can have the opposite of its desired impact. Despite an initial increase in frequency, it is associated with a reduction over time and even decreased reading comprehension.

Reading improves cognitive development, critical thinking, emotional well-being, and academic success, so its loss is deeply felt in the classroom and at home. Instead of falling into the power struggle trap, here are some effective but subtle strategies that can re-introduce a love of reading without pressure or bribery. 

ADDRESS THE ROOTS OF RESISTANCE

Firstly, what is it about reading that children seem to ‘hate?’ Knowing and responding effectively to your child’s unique reasons can make a world of difference. Common answers often include boredom, difficulty understanding, pressure to read what they don’t enjoy, lack of interest, struggles with focus and attention, and a general sense of frustration rather than enjoyment. Once the ‘why’ is clearer, so are the next steps.

For example, if a child feels that reading is too difficult, they may have had to work with content too far above their reading level. Repeated experiences with this may have unintentionally ‘taught’ them that reading is ‘too difficult’ and inaccessible, so they have chosen to avoid it instead. A reading assessment to determine their current level can make it easier to identify material appropriate for their unique needs. Generally speaking, content should be at or just above the current level to promote skill growth; however, if the goal is to reverse the damage of negative emotions and limiting beliefs, it can help to start at or just below until they demonstrate a renewed sense of confidence and optimism.

If they struggle with focus or attention during reading, this could indicate a different learning style or executive functioning skills deficit. Understanding what these are can help inform the most accessible and supported ways for a child to engage with a text. For instance, some children do better with audiobooks (and don’t worry - audiobooks aren’t “cheating,” they produce nearly identical benefits to reading visually). On the other hand, children who struggle with executive functions and attention may prefer to own physical copies so they can annotate and engage more interactively with what they’re reading. 

MAKE READING PART OF THE ENVIRONMENT

The more unobtrusive and natural reading feels, the better. Fortunately, there are some very easy ways to make this a natural extension of their everyday lives:

• Make weekly trips to the library, giving them the freedom to browse independently 

• Visit multiple bookstores and choose a favorite (thrift stores often have robust book sections with books for $1-3)

• Bring books for long lines, car trips, plane rides, and vacations 

• Keep books everywhere: in the car, around the house, and always within reach

• Model reading for pleasure as often as possible

• Create a dedicated reading space with favorite blankets, special lights, and extra pillows

• Establish specific times, such as the drive home from school, the last hour before bed, or Saturday mornings (this should ideally apply to the whole family!)

• Read together as a bonding experience - taking turns reading aloud or snuggling with separate books (here are some additional tips to also improve comprehension)

• Encourage rereading of favorite books, which helps strengthen speed and accuracy while also building more confidence 

WHAT COMES NEXT: GAINING MOMENTUM

Once the reasons have been thoughtfully addressed and reading has become a more positive experience, here are a few ways to foster even greater levels of engagement:

• Make connections between things you’ve read and your child’s unique ideas, passions, and experiences

• Explore genres to discover their favorites: nonfiction, fantasy, sci-fi, graphic novels, etc.

• Find a series that captures their interest, which can promote a sense of comfort and familiarity, enthusiasm to read more, and opportunities to buy more as gifts

• While at the bookstore, collaborate to find a few books to give as gifts for someone else (ie. a recipe book for Dad to use with the new grill, or a book themed around an upcoming holiday to share with a younger sibling)

In conclusion, by addressing the reasons behind a child’s resistance and cultivating an environment where reading feels like a natural extension of their day, parents and educators can help them rediscover the joy of books. It is critical to approach the journey with empathy, acknowledging that every child is unique and will require different strategies. While it can be challenging and require a great deal of patience, the ultimate goal is for our children to hopefully embrace reading as a lifelong passion.

Written by Brandi R.

Foundations of Reading Success: Phonological Working Memory

Working memory is an executive function used to complete daily tasks. Strong working memory skills help students recall and apply information over shorter periods of time. Many of these skills are applied in daily routines such as following 2-3 step directions and responding to questions. And while these skills help children perform day-to-day activities, they can also support children’s reading proficiency. One key component of a working memory model is the phonological loop, also referred to as the phonological working memory. This component helps the brain understand, retain, and reproduce sounds spoken, or written. With a strong phonological working memory, children can increase their vocabulary, process information, and develop reading skills. 

There are many different ways to practice phonological working memory by focusing on phonological awareness skills, like rhyming, blending, segmenting, and deleting/changing sounds in a spoken word.

Nonsense Words

Nonsense words are often called pretend words, or fake words, such as fep or tig. These words are often used to test students’ working memory and reading skills. Children can practice these at home with nonsense word lists. Nonsense words may follow a specific pattern like CVC, CVCe, vowel teams, and more! Your child can practice nonsense words by reading them aloud, repeating them, blending sounds, or segmenting all of the individual sounds. 

Blending

Blending and segmenting different word parts can be tricky tasks for beginning readers, second language learners, and students who are struggling with phonological awareness skills. Blending can sound different for each child based on their abilities. You can practice blending with your child by saying individual sounds in a word (like /b/ /a/ /t/) and asking students to blend the word to make (bat). This same skill can be practiced with syllables (/cup/ + /cake/= cupcake). 

Rhyming

Rhyming words can be practiced through repetition, selecting, and producing. Students can simply repeat rhymes back to you, decide if two words rhyme, say a word that rhymes with a given word, choose the rhyming words in a sentence, or even find the odd word in a group of rhyming words. There are plenty of different ways to practice, such as family packs or games like Bingo!

Sound Manipulation

Adding, deleting, and substituting are all types of sound manipulation children can practice to work on their phonological awareness. Adding refers to the ability to add new sounds or syllables (add cake to cup= cupcake), deleting is when children are able to remove sounds from a word (say stuck without s), and substituting refers to changing sounds in a word (say chip, then change ch to sh). This skill is considered to be more advanced and may take extra practice! Playing games that support these skills will help children succeed in their classroom, at home, and while reading independently.

Phonological awareness and working memory are skills that can be developed simultaneously, but are both important for your child’s reading success and overall development. These skills are often assessed during report cards and on reading assessments in school. The more children practice at home, the more advanced their reading may become.

Written by Ami Z.

Simple Strategies to Teach and Enhance Annotation Skills

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to help students connect better with a text that was both simple and enjoyable for them? Well, learning to annotate a text can be just that! Annotation does not have to be complicated or intimidating. This blog explores some simple, yet effective, strategies for middle and high school students to learn how to annotate a text in order to better comprehend and retain the information they are analyzing.

Why Annotate?

Simply put, the annotation of a text is, “any action that deliberately interacts with a text to enhance the reader’s understanding of, recall of, and reaction to the text.” So, why is this important for students to effectively learn how to do? Middle and high school students are busy with extracurriculars, family events, school and then homework each night. Oftentimes, it can be easy for them to go on auto-pilot when reading an assigned text and “check it off” of their to-do list, while not actively engaging with the text. When revisiting that same text on a quiz, test or paper they might have very little memory of what they previously read. When a student actively annotates a text, they will better connect with it, develop a deeper understanding, and retain more of the information presented within the text.

Strategy 1: Model the Basics

One of the most effective strategies for teaching a student how to annotate is to first model the process. Basic annotation concepts to teach might include: highlighting a phrase or sentence and writing a small note about it, circling words that need to be defined, putting a star next to important ideas or themes, and writing a short summary after each key section of the story or text.

Strategy 2: Practice, Practice, Practice

Students should practice annotating texts outside of their regular reading material to gain confidence in their annotation skills. Practice passages should be short in length. It can be beneficial to share examples of different types of notes to make beforehand. It is also very helpful to provide opportunities to openly discuss and go through notes that were made after a practice session.

Strategy 3: Use an Anchor Chart

Making, or buying, an annotation anchor chart can be a useful visual tool for readers. There are often pre-made annotation charts on platforms like Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Or, they can be tailor-made to suit a specific type of text annotation based on the subject or type of literature. Making an annotation bookmark, with a list of all the associated symbols and what they stand for, serves as a great cue while reading.

Strategy 4: Color-Code

Color-coding is another visual tool that is an alternative to an anchor chart. Sticky notes, or colored circle stickers can be used with this method. Assign each color a specific task. For example, red might mean “character development”, blue might be “themes or symbols” and yellow might be “questions”.

Strategy 5: Make it Fun

Especially for those students just starting to annotate, playing annotation games can make the learning process enjoyable. Each number on a die can be assigned something to look for while reading. Students can take turns rolling a die and practicing what to annotate based on the number rolled.

Strategy 6: Don’t Forget about Digital Platforms

Most digital reading platforms nowadays offer fabulous annotation tools within them. Many have highlighters, underlines, circle or drawing tools, sticky notes, and fun symbols. Students should explore and take advantage of this function on all reading platforms they use when they read digitally.

Text annotation does not have to be incredibly complicated. By using some of these simple strategies, students can begin to gain confidence in annotating and comfort with interacting with texts.

Written by Laine J.

How to Make Summer Reading Enjoyable for Your Child

“I have to read?!?! But it’s summer!!” Can’t you just hear kids all over the country saying this when they find out that reading is still a part of summer break? Sure, some kids LOVE to read but for others, especially beginning readers, it can be hard to motivate them to want to sit down and pick up a book. Summer can be a great time to introduce some fun and engaging ways to make reading more enjoyable for your emerging reader! 

Create a Fun Reading Environment

After spending the year in a classroom reading at a desk each day, it’s time to change things up a little bit. Try to make reading a “special” event by creating a new reading environment. This might include building a pillow and blanket fort or putting up a tent, grabbing some flashlights and getting cozy with a book. Another idea is getting some fresh air. Head to the park with a picnic and a few new books and spend the afternoon snacking and reading. Changing up the environment might be just the thing your reader needs to kick start their summer reading! 

Take a Trip to the Library 

Throughout the summer, take a few trips to the library to refresh reading material. Ask your child what kinds of things they might like to read about and help them find this at the library. Some kids enjoy more non-fiction magazines and research books, while others enjoy fiction or picture books. The library will have all sorts of new books they have never seen before and will entice them to pick up a new book and get reading.  

Think Outside of the Box

Reading doesn’t just have to be in a book! Your child can practice reading in a lot of other ways too. Find new items your child might able to read like street signs, menus, magazines or fun reading apps. Practice is still practice, and as an added bonus your child will be so proud when they find out they can read things out in the real world that they might not have ever tried or been able to before. 

Build it into the Routine 

Sure, summer is all about having unstructured time, vacations, relaxing and getting a break. But, children still thrive with some routine and structure. Try to build in some reading time at the same time each day. Perhaps after lunch, during quiet time you can have your child sit and read for 10- 30 minutes a day. By making it part of the daily routine, there may be fewer battles to get the reading done. 

Read to Someone New 

Have your child try reading to someone new like grandma or grandpa, siblings, the family pet or even their stuffed animals. This takes some of the pressure off and allows them to be more relaxed with their reading. If you are reading with your child, try taking turns and having them read a page and you read a page so that they also get practice hearing fluency. 

Use a Simple Incentives System 

If your little one is really opposed to summer reading, it can be helpful to introduce some incentives, or rewards, for getting their reading done. Come up with a goal for either how many minutes per day or how many books in a week that they must read. Maybe they get a small weekly reward like a trip to the ice cream shop or little toy every time they hit their reading goal. For older kiddos, it might be helpful to have a larger monthly goal for the summer with a bigger reward to look forward to if they reach their goal like a day trip or a shopping spree before the new school year!

Written by: Laine J.

Five Strategies to Help Boost Reading Comprehension

One of the most fundamental academic skills all children must learn is that of reading comprehension. In its most basic sense, reading comprehension involves understanding and interpreting what is read. Reading comprehension is a vital skill which can be used across all subjects, not just language arts. Improving reading comprehension unlocks a better understanding of word problems, research and non-fiction texts. So, let’s dive into five strategies to help boost a student’s reading comprehension that can be implemented every day! 

1. Preview the text: Often, young readers will dive into a text without thinking much about what they are about to read. It can be extremely beneficial to preview a text before reading it and answer a few key questions. Firstly, identify what type of text is about to be read. Is it fiction or non-fiction? Was it written to teach us about something or to be entertaining? Knowing the category a certain text falls into can be helpful to understand before reading the text and lead to better comprehension of the passage. Secondly, identify any unknown words or text features and discuss them prior to reading the passage.

2. Gain New Vocabulary: One thing that holds many young readers back from fully understanding and being able to interpret a passage is their lack of knowledge about new vocabulary. Even if a child can literally read each word, if they cannot understand key vocabulary they will also struggle to understand the passage. A helpful strategy to help with vocabulary would be to go through the entire passage and ask your child to tell you each word that they don’t already know the meaning of. They can make a list of these new words and then you can work together to find definitions. You could then make flashcards or a matching game with the vocabulary words to help your child learn them.

3. Generate Questions: If you are reading aloud with your child, which is highly recommended for all new readers especially, be sure to stop every few minutes and ask questions directly related to what you just read. Some examples might be, “what do you think is going to happen next,” or “wait, on the last page where did Jimmy go again?”. Often times, young readers will be so focused on just reading the words correctly and with fluency that they don’t slow down to internalize what just happened in the story. Stopping every once and awhile and briefly discussing key characters and events will help consolidate the information being read.

4. Summarize: After each chapter or section of a text, practice summarizing. This could be done aloud or written down. What were the most important things that happened in this passage? Who were the key characters? Work on helping your child to summarize only the most important events and to do so in the sequence in which they occurred in the story.

5. Find Evidence: Students need to not only be able to answer more simple questions regarding a text (i.e. setting, characters, sequence of events), but they also need to be able to answer more higher level questions and use evidence directly from the text to back up their answers. Some questions you might be able to ask would be “In the last chapter, Jimmy was feeling nervous. Find me a sentence that shows that Jimmy was feeling nervous.” Underlining, highlighting or pointing out the specific sentence that shows the answer from the text is another key skill to improve upon reading comprehension especially in the context of test taking skills.

Written by: Laine J.