Reading bedtime stories every night creates a routine that your child can get used to. By creating this routine where you read every night, it will help your child learn what to expect. Reading to your child in bed before they go to sleep can also help calm them down after a busy day, and also help you bond together. Encouraging your child to read before bed can set them in a routine that they may follow on their own as they grow older.
Read WITH your child not just TO your child
While reading to your child is important, reading with them is as well. Rather than rushing through the words on the pages, take time to discuss what is happening on each page together, perhaps guessing what is going to come next. Teaching your child to understand what they are reading is just as important as the reading itself.
Read not just TO your kids, but WITH your kids together.
Let them skip the pages
Yes, it can be frustrating when you are reading a book to your young child and all they want to do is turn the page. When you can hardly get a few words in and they have skipped a few pages already. However it is important to keep reading time enjoyable, so it will teach your child to love reading.
By constantly stopping them from turning pages, and therefore forcing them to look at a page they don’t want to, it will just create problems and they may not want to continue reading at all. Talking about what is on each page can help them stay on one page for longer, but in general, if they want to skip pages, just let them.
One way of dealing with it is either read the book from memory (if you know it), or make up the words as you go along. You could also read aloud another book alongside them while they look at the pictures of the one they have.
Visit the Kids book club website to see how it works.
