STRATEGIES THAT WORK FOR BUSY FAMILIES, NERVOUS KIDS, AND PARENTS WHO HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING.

STRATEGIES THAT WORK FOR BUSY FAMILIES, NERVOUS KIDS, AND PARENTS WHO HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING.

I have two kids. One s a reader. If I give him newspaper to line the bottom of the parakeet cage, I find him a half hour later, cage still not cleaned, reading the paper. He reads when he s brushing his teeth, snacking, walking to school. Sometimes I worry for his safety. My challenge with him is to keep him in books. How weird would it be if I called up Rick Riordan or Brandon Mull and asked them to please hurry up and write faster? Totally weird but I d be willing. My other child was a tough sell. She could read but didn t want to. It brought her no pleasure. She looked as if I was suggesting she stick pins in her eyes whenever I said hey, let s read something! So I did research. I asked teachers. I asked librarians. I asked the cats (no good advice there, I m afraid). And then I started trying everything. Eventually, I found a way in and the way in was baseball. She s obsessed and when I handed her a Tim Green novel, her little red head almost exploded. Sports books lead to mysteries to books about dogs and so on and now she s reading while brushing her teeth, too. We all want success for our kids and by all accounts reading is necessary to achieve it.

Reading for pleasure is strongly correlated to academic achievement. There is also a strong relationship between reading and mathematics achievement. And this success extends well beyond school. Pleasure reading is correlated to increased employment opportunities and civic engagement. Reading skills correspond directly to one s ability to - be an informed citizen - communicate effectively - earn a higher salary - succeed in one s chosen career, and - achieve personal fulfillment There s a lot riding on this, right? But don t panic. To prop up our efforts, I ve collected the advice I ve been given over the years with the hope you might find something that gets you and your child to the place where reading becomes a joy.

Have a lot of books. Make reading material easily accessible. I try and get to the library once a week and the kids can take out as many books as we can fit in our bag. They can also reserve books on our library s online app if they re super excited about something. Summer is great time to make library trips a part of your routine.

Read aloud or attend story hours. I still read to my kids every morning while they eat breakfast. We usually only manage twenty minutes because morning is insanely hectic (right?) but I found that if I get up about ten minutes early, I can make it happen. The kids eat and I read. I usually pick books they might not read to themselves. Right now we re reading Watership Down which is a great story but dense in parts (with lots of very detailed description of the flora of Hampshire England). We had a cool moment when my son realized the Warriors books he loved so well in third grade owe a significant debt to this novel. (The Harry Potter series is a good one for read aloud; also, The Wind in the Willows) A bonus: sometimes kids get so excited by the book being read, they take it and finish it themselves. Success!

Audio books are great for summer road trips. I m totally aging myself but remember the days when a road trip meant hours of I Spy or the License Plate Game? Kids today have so many entertainment options when traveling, its easy to let a five hour car trip turn into five hours of video games on a mini ipad. To make sure our collective brains don t turn to jelly, we set a schedule. For example, one hour of reading, one hour of audio book, one movie. If the trip is really long, repeat the sequence. My oldest gets carsick if he reads or plays on a tablet. Audio books are perfect for him. If the other kids are watching a movie or reading, I let him use headphones. A friend of mine uses audiobooks for her child who is a bit of an insomniac. If he can t sleep he can listen to a book until he does. A bonus: kids can get totally impatient with audio books and demand a physical book or ebook of the same title. Or the next in the series. Mission accomplished.

Don t be rigid in what counts as reading. I ll be honest. The first time I encountered Captain Underpants I cried and they weren t tears of joy. But both my kids were so absolutely tickled by the series that I stuffed a sock in my mouth and tapped it shut. Be open to comic books, graphic novels, the stats from yesterday s baseball game. Joke books, riddle books, sports trivia and the Guinness Book series are all great for getting kids reading. The Star Wars Encyclopedia was a big draw in our house way back when. The important thing is to let them choose and try not to make faces when they do. (This is hard. I know.)

Make sure your child is reading at a level comfortable for him so as not to get frustrated and quit. Kids have a harder time with the concept that a little effort now can pay off later. They prefer immediate gratification. It s a fine line between too easy and too hard and one you have to walk. As a child s confidence grows its important to find books that challenge him a little to improve vocabulary but nothing so hard that you re back at the beginning of the frustration cycle.

If you can hook a kid on a series, you are half way there. Percy Jackson lit up one of my kids in a way I still marvel at. I wanted to call Rick Riordan and shower him with worship. I m sure he gets that all the time. Percy Jackson led to Artemis Fowl led to Harry Potter led to Alex Rider. You get the picture. A good series does the work for you.

Work a movie-book tie in. If your child loves Star Wars more than you (never!), use this to your advantage. There are dozens of Star Wars chapter books and novels that fill in story details about beloved characters. Yes, some of them are cringe-worthy. But just like Captain Underpants, they do the trick.

Read the same book as your child and talk about it. When my children were younger, I d ask them to explain certain parts in a story to me. It might be a setting I didn t understand or why a character was behaving in a certain way. They believed poor old mom was confused and they were doing a great service setting me straight. They took this very seriously. After all, they didn t want me sitting around all clueless and things. A few pointed questions can lead to a great conversation.

If your child likes book talking with you, he ll enjoy it even more with his buddies. Start a mini neighborhood book club. Assign a title and give the kids a few weeks to complete the book. When you gather for discussion, have a few questions prepared to help lead the conversation. Take all input seriously. I m constantly amazed at the insights these kids bring to the table.

Play board games. We know board games are great for math skills but they also work well for reading. In addition to the instructions, think about the cards you read in Monopoly or Life. Games like Yatzhee and Clue require basic reading skills in order to play. And if you really want to go insane, try playing Risk. A bonus: my daughter was reading Mad Libs before anything else. The silly sentences cracked her up every time and she could plow through ten at a sitting. She didn t realize she was reading, she just knew it was fun.

Sometimes reading is the key to achieving something desirable. Does your daughter want to learn magic tricks? Get her a book of tricks. Does your son want to build a catapult out of Popsicle sticks? Give him step by step instructions. As a birthday present, my daughter got a loom for weaving bead bracelets. The instructions were as thick as a magazine but she really wanted to make matching bracelets for her BFF so she was determined. The motivation for reading can come from something other than enjoying a great story.

Appeal to a child s competitive spirit! Find a summer reading challenge at your local library or set up your own. Last summer we participated in one and the kids won all kinds of library swag. It was easy to do and a great way to find books we might not have stumbled upon otherwise.

Create a scavenger hunt where reading is crucial to success. My oldest recently did a scavenger hunt with his classmates in the arboretum of a nearby university. If they didn t read the clues carefully, there was no way they could find the necessary items. You could replicate this on a smaller scale in your yard or neighborhood and perhaps offer some kind of prize for whoever successfully completes the hunt.

Take turns reading a book aloud. Pass it back and forth every few pages. When we did this, I d have my son read one page and I d read four or five. It made things move faster and avoided some of the frustration that can come from reading aloud when you re a beginner.

Find characters that reflect your child s experience. Kids like to see themselves in the stories they read. That can mean finding characters that look like our kids or settings that are familiar. My daughter is a tomboy through and through and it was a challenge to find books with strong girl characters that weren t interested in princesses or playing dress up. But they re out there. And today we re in a much better place for diversity in children s books than we were a decade ago. Books reflecting the experiences of children of color, different religions, different sexual orientations, kids experiencing divorce or bullying or the wrath of the queen bees, if you are willing to look, you ll find something.

Bonus Tip! Kids love social media. Okay, let s be realistic. Kids love anything to do with screens. So why not use that to your advantage? I m thinking of the SharpSchu Book Club, run by Colby Sharp and John Schu, and the 2Jenns Book Club, with hosts Jennifer LaGarde and Jennifer Northrup. 5. Both of these virtual clubs provide a reading list, followed by a Twitter chat discussion at a specific time, using the hastags #sharpschu and #2jennsbookclub respectively. Sometimes the author swings by to answer questions directly, which is amazing of course. The SharpSchu Club trends more toward picture books and middle grade while the Jennifers love their YA. Something for everyone! And parents, as long as you re on Twitter, have a look at #titletalk. This is a great resource for new and amazing book recommendations from teachers and librarians.

I hear you. I swear I do. There are some days when I don t have time to take a shower let alone dig through thousands of book titles, desperately searching for the one that is going to turn my kid on. After a good bit of flailing, I ve developed a sort of system. Work this process with a glass of wine and you might actually enjoy yourself. 1. Join your local library. Buying books is great and this is how I make my living but belonging to your local library increases the books you have access to exponentially. It also eliminates buyers remorse when a book just doesn t cut it. Many libraries these days allow patrons to check out ebooks as well which is great if you use a Kindle or ereader or are traveling and don t want to lug around physical books. I for one appreciate the instant return. When your time is up, the book disappears. No chance of racking up those late fees (which I never ever do). Almost all libraries have online catalog access and allow you to reserve books that way. My library sends me an email when the book is available and I swing by and grab it. Easy.

2. Now we re armed with a library membership and the world is our oyster. Okay, not quite yet. To start this journey we need the title of the book your child loves most in the world. Let s keep our fingers crossed that it s not Captain Underpants! Just kidding. If it is, you re just entering into the wild world of graphic novels, some of which are outstanding. For our purposes here, let s use Percy Jackson, by Rick Riordan. 3. Visit Goodreads. From the home screen, select the Browse drop down menu. Click on Lists. In the Search Lists bar, type Percy Jackson. These are lists curated by users. You ll find Books to Read After Percy Jackson and Books About Greek Myths. These lists often turn up amazing new titles that kids into Percy Jackson will love; other times they are completely weird but that s kind of fun too. The great thing about this is the hard work is being done by the bibliophiles out there who are madly passionately in love with books and so very happy to share. We like that.

4. Common Sense Media. This is a fun resource for many types of kid related entertainment but for our purposes we will stick to books. Registering for an account lets you save things but is not necessary to use the site. From the home screen, click Books and Go. From here, you can define what you re looking for. I select Age 10 and Fantasy. This returns a list of titles with book cover images and one line descriptions. Click the title for an in depth look at what the book is about, any concerns with the content, questions for family discussion around the book and an at-a-glance chart providing a tidy snapshot of various elements you might want to consider before selecting the title. I love this resource and use it all the time. I lift the title from Common Sense, hop over to my library website and reserve the book. Boom! 5. 5. If you liked Percy Jackson, you will like lists. Most librarians are happy to give recommendations but usually I m digging around for books at 11PM and the librarians are asleep. Good for them! Fortunately, many libraries provide if you liked Percy Jackson, you will like lists on their websites. And this is not limited to your local library. You can plug books like Percy Jackson into Google and return lists from libraries all over the country as well as blog recommendations and even a list from Rick Riordan himself. Not bad.

6. Binge. Every few weeks, I go through this process. I recommend reserving a lot of titles because there is no reason not to and your child s next favorite book might just show up in the pile. Also, the more you have, the less frequently you have to do this. Of course, going to the library and letting the kids run wild (in a very orderly and quiet way of course), is great. This way they can take out whatever strikes their fancy. But I get this is not always practical. We re busy and sometimes a library visit just is not going to happen. Taking a little bit of time every few weeks and stocking up means you still have an amazing assortment of reading material at the ready for the kids despite a crazy schedule.

I ve found that a little effort, creativity and some planning can have a huge pay off in how kids read. My hope is that you ll find something in these pages to spark your imagination. I always love to hear great ideas so let me know what you come up with! bethmcmullenbooks.com