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Encourage our children to read more!

Submitted by bayard on Tue, 12/15/2009 - 10:42

I think as we parents need to tackle the issue that the majority of children are consuming their time watching television or playing computer games, now, I'm not saying never to allow these past times, but I think that time should be allocated every day for a 'reading' period. I am a mother of four and everyday after picking up my children I make sure that we have at least an hour or two - everyone has a book suited to their age range (full of facts, activities and stories) and I encourage discussion, help with reading and try to have short time where we are all together. Does anyone else do the same? It's certainly a subject I feel strongly about - would love a discussion going!

Categories: 
Activities For Children

Comments

Submitted by Gerard on Tue, 12/15/2009 - 22:47

Actually, I've been thinking about how we can wean our youngest off video games. Of all our children, he seems to have been the one to quietly disappear with a DS Lite and get forgotten about.

The problem is, he seems to have suffered in terms of social skills and has big focus problems. I think we need to make some time for him during the day for reading - both to help his learning and his conversational skills. However, I think I'd prefer to go to the local library - plenty of books on hand, plus they're very welcoming of parents reading to children.

I remember when our daughter was learning to read - couple of things we did were

  1. See how good her memory is - ask her about colours and details of objects on the previous page.
  2. After she'd read a page, I'd point at random words on the page and see if she could identify them out of context of the sentence. You can also name a word and ask her to find it. If it's a game, it's great fun, and it really built her confidence.

Although, I don't know how you manage to squeeze in two hours just for reading!

Submitted by bayard on Mon, 01/04/2010 - 12:36

I work part time and mostly from home, I tend to do it straight after dinner because that's when we're all together, but I also enjoy reading to my children individually when they're tucked up in bed. (I wasn't joking when I said I was an avid reader!!)

Submitted by bayard on Mon, 01/04/2010 - 12:30

Gerard, I couldn't agree more with your points, great reading tips! It is strange that the youth generation is obessed with technology and games, maybe it's because as a child my parents didn't let me watch tv so maybe I'm not accustomed to the tv/games lifestyle.

Although, with my two boys (two boys/two girls) they love their DS and Xbox, but I haven't given in to Xbox live yet - my eldest keeps nagging me but I think making it live will fuel a greater addiction!

I think participating in family activities as a whole will encourage them to put down the control and spend time with everyone - but making it super fun so that they don't get tempted!

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