Given choices, boys can learn to love reading
And now for something practical. I recently spoke to a group of women about children’s books and reading. With four boys, I’ve had to learn a few tricks to help them learn to love reading. Here are just three:
- Bring on the blood and gore. By the time he’s learning to read, your boy has probably shown you he’s wired to be violent—or at least aggressive. I don’t care who you are and how much you want world peace. Try as you might to nurture his sweet, cherubic nature, a boy will inevitably turn sticks into swords and apple slices into guns. It’s true: fighting and boys make natural reading partners. So, let him have at those gory stories full of decapitation and mutilation. Better in his imagination than in real life, I suppose.
- Count the comics and celebrate the sports section. Newspapers have lots of short, picture-filled pieces that draw boys in quickly and give them dumb jokes and other macho material for recess conversations. With breakfast, serve up the paper along with juicy facts you’ve already read. Before you know it, your boy will be taking the paper from you without realizing he’s starting his day out by reading.
- Get Dad’s endorsement. There’s nothing quite as persuasive as another boy telling your boy about an interesting or exciting book. This works even better when that other boy is Dad. To make reading really cool, have Dad read books aloud and then discuss them man-to-man. When your boy’s friends come over or when you’re carpooling, ask them about their favorite books. (One of my son's friends once reported his favorite reading material was instruction manuals for Wii games. Fascinating. But, hey, he was reading.) Soon your boy will have a must-read book list of his own.
What tricks have worked for you?
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