Your Child Required To Read?

Your Child Required To Read?

Do you require your child to read? If so, how much time and how often do you require them to read?

Do you give them "rewards" for reading?

Our children had to read 60 minutes to earn 30 minutes of TV. What have you tried?
 
I was never really forced to read. I hated it, and I would resent my parents if they made me. I had ADD and reading was frustrating for me. I don't plan on making my kid read, but I will encourage it.
 
I was never forced either. Early on, they thought that I might have had dyslexia because I made my e backwards. But I told them that sometimes, I just wanted the e to smile in the other direction.:)

Today I love to read. Can't get me to stop. Mom used to give books as gifts sometimes. Once she ordered me "Highlights" for a present. I used to love that magazine.

I plan on buying Baby Jessie books as presents. I think that helps to establish that books are fun.
 
It was never an issue in our house. We read books to our daughter from the time she could pay attention. She learned her ABCs from Dr. Seuss by 11 months. She started reading on her own around 4 or thereabouts. Reading was bonding time and fun time, and maybe that's the key. I miss those days sometimes. Somehow helping her with her Physics homework isn't the same. :)
 
Since I homeschool the children, I do require them to read as part of their schoolwork. I don't require any extra reading in their spare time because I make sure to put enough into reading during school hours. They do still read on their own in their spare time, though. In school, we have the normal academic reading where they also learn vocabulary, phonics, reading comprehension, etc. And then we also have a time of quiet reading where they get to select their own books to just read. The little one doesn't read yet, so he selects books and looks at pictures. The older one reads chapter books, and has a reading log where she puts the title, author, summary, rates the book, and compares it to another book.
 
One thing to keep in mind is how important it is to read to your children, as well as encouraging them to read.

We always turn off the TV the last 1/2 hour before bedtime, and I read to the family. We've read through a number of classics including all the Narnia books, the Little House books, and naturally the bible stories of heros like Noah, Joseph, Moses and David. And, let's not forget Esther.

As for a reward, well, we let the kids hold of "Lights Out" for 20 minutes, IF they spend the time reading in bed. Both kids love to read, including my daughter to whom reading was a serious challenge as she is dyslexic.
 
One thing to keep in mind is how important it is to read to your children, as well as encouraging them to read.

We always turn off the TV the last 1/2 hour before bedtime, and I read to the family. We've read through a number of classics including all the Narnia books, the Little House books, and naturally the bible stories of heros like Noah, Joseph, Moses and David. And, let's not forget Esther.

As for a reward, well, we let the kids hold of "Lights Out" for 20 minutes, IF they spend the time reading in bed. Both kids love to read, including my daughter to whom reading was a serious challenge as she is dyslexic.

Yes, Handy! That's important! Show your children that reading is fun and spend time with them reading.

Some of my fondest memories are of Mom reading to me.:)

Also, I remember in grade school, second grade, if we took a book home and spent time reading it with our parents, we could get our book mark signed. The next day, we'd get M&Ms.

To this day, I crunch on a few M&Ms after I read.:D
 
i love reading. it was never a problem for my parents to make me read anything. as a kid i loved the baby sitters club series. i would read one book a day lol. the problem was my brothers, though..
 
The first book I ever read was called “The North Runner”. I believe I was in my 30’s.
I didn’t like reading when I was young, so I didn’t. if there was a book report for an assignment in class, I failed, because I didn’t read that book. They were always big enough to make me think about how long it will take to read the whole thing and never interesting enough to keep my attention past the first chapter. I never looked at it as one page at a time. I started a lot of books, but never finished. “The North Runner” was my kind of book. I loved it and couldn’t put it down. I think I read it about 6 different times. I know it helps if you like what you are reading. For the past 15 years or so, I’ve considered myself as an “autodidact“. I learned that word while I was reading a book called “The History of Knowledge”. I didn’t know I was one at the time, but I wanted to learn and started learning as much as I could on my own. The majority of my learning came from reading, but only after I learned to enjoy reading.

I just wish someone would have pointed me in the direction of books I was interested in when I was younger. It never worked to tell me I had to read a book. I was rebellious and if you told me I had to do something, I would prove you wrong by not doing it. I guess you have to take a different approach for different people.
 
I try to encourage mine to read, as books were always very important to me, they are much more image aware than word aware though, a sign of the times I think.
My kids school requires 30 mins reading a night though, so I get them to do that.
 
I was not a reader as I grew up, but in my adult life I have developed a love of reading. As I raised my 5 children, I made reading TO them a priority in my daily schedule. From the time they were lap babies, I read to them. I scheduled 3 reading times a day with the children. Morning: Devotional readings usually Bible stories. Mid Afternoon: Secular reading - depending on what their age was from little Golden books to chapter books. They loved picture books when little and then developed a love for "word" books. Evening: Just before bed, we had our family devotions. Then I would tuck them in and read a short story to them.

I never had a problem getting them to read as they grew older. I think another plus to making this work for us was the fact that we watched very little TV. When they were very small and in the early grades in school, we watched Mr. Rogers, The Friendly Giant, and some similar types of TV. But very limited. Then when they were a little older, our TV died and we DECIDED NOT TO REPLACE IT. This sometimes caused embarrassment for them when their friends talked about the TV programs they watched and my children had not seen the programs. But now that they are grown, they do value the fact that they were not exposed to so much TV and also to the fact that their time was freed up for reading.

So "How do you get your child to read - Is your child required to read????" Instill it early in life and you won't have the struggle later.

Exception: There are truly situations where a child has difficulty with reading and that does pose a problem. However, if the desire is instilled by the parent actually reading to the child in a loving way BEFORE the child is actually expected to learn to read, then the desire to do it will sometimes help in overcoming the actual problem.
 
We don't have a need to require reading...my son would live at Barnes & Noble or the library if they would let him...he's a total bookworm!

I was never forced to read either...rather when I was on restriction (which was sadly, a lot of the time) they would only allow me certain things...

School, Church, family functions, and my room. They would take everything else...I could read a book because this was part of school work, and church, but no telephone, radio, tapes, records, or TV...So since I could read I did...fell in love with it. Now it's the one earthly posession I have that makes me feel wealthy.
 
I wish that I would have been "forced" to read when I was younger. Unfortunately, we were somewhat of a tv family, so when we were done with school, the tv is usually where we went. I actually liked to read, too, but that tv was more appealing most of the time. I think as a parent you can do your child a great service by making them read during a certain chunk of the day or at least limiting their tv intake.
 
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