How to make your children love books

Reading the title, you must be wondering you cannot make someone like to read books; it’s something natural and comes automatically to a person. 

Well I believe, your habits can be inculcated and mostly when you work on blending them with your daily lifestyle, those habits can become a part of you.

If you like to read books, your half work is complete. It will be easy to build these habits in your children.

These are a few practices that I adopted for my children to give an environment full of knowledge. 

1. When my child was one and a half years old, I got a small pack of books. These had mini-stories, and one board book which was full of pictures for each alphabet etc.

People do buy such books for their children, but the catch is they buy when the child is 3 or 4 years. At 1.5 years, they feel the child is too young to have any idea of what he sees, and it’s not fruitful to get books for them at this age. From my experience, I would say within two months of going over the ABC board book; my child was able to point to the correct picture when I asked her where is an aeroplane. And not only with that one word, but with many other items in that book. So yes it works. If you expose them early to something, they will adapt to it.

2. I always had a different set of books to carry with me in the car whenever we used to go out. So that when we are shopping or walking, I would give her these books along with toys.

Also, I always kept a pocket-size mini diary along with a crayon (pens are dangerous to carry for a 2-year-old toddler!) in my daughter’s bag. So whenever she got bored sitting in the stroller, I used to hand over this diary and crayon to her and she would scribble on it. And I always made sure I had a stock of these diaries at home so that I could replace her diary after usage. It was like her personal diary she carried whenever she stepped out, and she felt proud to have owned it.

3. When we had travel plans, I used to work on a kit two weeks before my travel to carry along with me. Be it in the car, flight or airport, wherever I could sense that my child was about to come out of her quiet mode, I used to give items from that kit.

This kit had a new mini colour book to colour, small puzzle set, play dough, a new toy, and as age progressed, I included word search, little math puzzles, etc.

Creativity has no limit so you can add on things which you feel will interest your child. A kit filled with surprises, learning and play helps children stick to meaningful things in a time when they are free instead of getting inclined towards gadgets.

4. Once your child has progressed into watching cartoons, you can get his favourite cartoon character book which will interest him in reading it.
 
As I loved reading from my childhood, I had books, a lot of papers, blank notebooks, and pens at home. So when my child was born, she saw me writing a lot, reading and making post-it notes etc. I was always actively involved in reading and writing; thereby, it influenced her.

If you don’t like reading, there’s some homework you need to do if you want your child to think of books as wonder and not as a burden. Ensure you have age-appropriate books available at home, keep a stock of some notepads, sticky notes, papers, coloured papers and blank books at home. And you can give these to your child to scribble on at the beginning stage.

Applying these few tricks can help your child love to develop an interest in books and can be their companion for their entire life. Someone has rightly said that you are never alone when you are reading a book, and indeed it is your best friend!