How to Get Your Child Excited About Reading

How can you get your child excited about reading? That’s a tough question for a lot of parents. Your want your kids to read but they just don’t seem interested. Or maybe they will read – but only the back of the cereal box or the instructions on how to build a pyramid on MineCraft.

Maybe it’s your expectations at fault. Just because you read King Solomon’s Mines, the Hobbit and Lord of the Flies by the time you were nine, doesn’t mean your kids will.

So how can you get your child excited about reading? Keep reading (duh) and I’ll tell you.

Most Kids Don’t Want to Read as a Default Setting

You know what is fun and exciting? NOT READING. Well for most kids. If you gave your child a choice between an hour on the iPad playing games or watching a movie and a book, what would they choose? If you said ‘book’ then this article isn’t for you. Seriously – what are you even doing here?

For the rest of us, it’s a constant struggle. Asking your kids to read a book is like telling the tide not to come in. Pointless and at the end of it all you get wet.

This is normal though so don’t get hung up on it. Thankfully there are things you can do to get your kids reading more.

1. Offer Cash Incentives

Do you want to get your kids excited about reading? Offer them money.

No I’m serious. When I was younger, my parents gave me 20p for every book I finished. I had to answer a few simple questions about the book and then the money was mine. And it worked. I love reading and do it when ever I can. Oh and I wrote a couple of books too.

Now I offer my kids a whole £1 for every book – and I mean a decent novel – they finish. It’s a nice little reward and gives them a warm fuzzy of positive reinforcement. It’s not just a good idea, it’s science, baby!

It works too. Try it and see how many books your kids can get through.

2. Get your kids excited about the bookshop

You know what I love? Just going to a book shop. I don’t mean going with the intention of buying something. But just going to have a look at the books, flicking through the pages, the smells, the other book loving people. That’s a good place to be.

And getting your kids feeling those good book vibes early on is key if you want them to love books as much as you do.

There are different ways to do this. You can make going to the bookshop a fun event by ‘bookending’ it with other fun stuff like a trip to the toy shop or an ice cream.

In our village there is a kick-ass second hand bookshop. When we go in, I limit the kids to one book each. That scarcity and need to find ‘the right book’ just adds to the excitement.

3. Limit Screentime

If you give your kid the choice of 1) – iPad or 2) Read a book – which do you think they will choose?

(If you said ‘2’ – what are you even doing reading this article, seriously?)

They’ll choose the iPad every time. Which is why you need to limit screentime. This won’t force them to read or enjoy reading. Buy you are at least giving yourself a sporting chance.

Here’s how you can do it – limit iPad time to a maximum of 1x 0.5 hour slot per day and the TV only goes on between 5pm and 6pm on school days.

If your kids don’t have their own devices, then great. That’s much easier to control. Keep it that way for as long as possible and if you start to bug you for a device, tell them they have to save up their own money for it. That should buy you some time to….

4. Promote Reading at Bedtime

Bedtime is my favourite time to read. And so it should be – you switch your phone onto ‘Airplane’ mode (you should do this if you don’t already) and relax into a good book.

And that’s a great habit to develop for your kids.

There are a few ways to encourage this – put a stack of books by their bed and make sure there are books for them to read in bed. You can also let them stay up past their bed time if they want to read (I do this).

Good light is important so make sure they have their own reading light (I bought this one for my daughter and she loves it).

Getting Kids Reading Doesn’t Have to be Difficult

That’s my experience at least – if you create the right conditions and incentivise your kids to read, they’ll grow to love books just as much as you.

And if you like reading articles like this, you’ll love the book I wrote on fatherhood. It’s for sale on Amazon here.