Literacy is defined as a lack of the reading habit.  It turns out, many folks that can read, don’t want to read.  The lessons that follow help children find a love of reading.  Creating readers that want to read is a matter of giving kids choices, Kids need a wide variety of appropriately leveled books to choose from.  Kid’s also needed to move along at their own pace.

Read to your child

Reading to your kid makes you bond with him, and this gives your child a sense of intimacy and well-being.  This feeling of intimacy will not only make your child feel close to you, the feeling of being loved and getting attention also helps him to grow smart. The intimacy of reading to your kid is such a pleasurable experience to him that he will have a positive attitude towards reading as he grows up. It calms your child, especially when he is fretful and restless. It promotes increased communication between you and your child.

Tell Stories

Storytelling is as simple as reading a story from a book. If you don’t have that much time, you can always share a story from memory, talk about your own childhood, or even read out loud from your phone. There are innumerable advantages of storytelling for kids, especially for preschoolers, kindergarten and young children.

Telling your children stories from your childhood and about various activities and celebrations from your past will make them more familiar about the different customs and traditions prevalent in your family. Sharing stories about various family members will help them learn about their lineage better.

Sing the alphabet song with them

Teaching the alphabet is foundation for reading and writing. Around the age of 2, children begin showing interest in learning alphabet letters. While some kids learn letters very quickly, others need more repetition and time to learn letters

Singing the alphabet song to your child introduces the letters to them in a fun way. Start singing to them as a baby and as they get older, have them start singing along (which they probably will do naturally!).

Make reading play time

Kids need to be active, and they need to read with their parents. So why not mix the two together?

• A selection of books that is pretty quick to read. The reason you want quick reads is that if your kids are anything like mine, they will want to get back to the hunt as soon as possible. Depending on how much time you have and the ages and attention levels of your kids, you will want 5-10 books. Have a back-up pile in case this is such a hit that they beg for more.

What you do:

• Hide the books.
• Explain the rules to your book hunters. If you find a book, sit down on the spot and yell out Book Found! all the other players and parents stop their hunt and go to the book. The finder or parent will read the book to everyone.
• The hunt continues until every book has been found and read.
• Don’t forget to clear any books you might have laying around. Books are everywhere in our house, so we did the hunt only in two rooms that I cleared out before hiding the books on the list. You could also print out a list of titles or pictures of the covers if you want to hide them among other books.
• If you are really adventurous, you can even pop some books in Ziploc bags and hide them in your yard. There is nothing like reading outside.

No matter how you choose to play, your kids will get moving and reading!