One day your child’s school will open again. Imagine if when that day comes, he or she loves to read more than he or she does today.
We are all sorting out what our children’s education will look like in the coming weeks and months. As we hammer out the details, let me suggest a worthy goal: help them learn to love to read.
Tips for helping your child develop a love for reading
Find books on topics that interest them
When I was eight, I hated to read but loved baseball cards. My parents subscribed me to Beckett, a baseball card magazine. By the time I was nine, I loved to read.
If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book. – J.K. Rowling
If your kids are young, read aloud
If by reading aloud you teach a love of reading, the skills of reading can easily follow.
You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child. – Dr. Seuss
If your kids are older, read aloud
Regardless of your children’s ages, sharing the experience of a good book can bring a family together.
A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest. – C.S. Lewis
Set the example
All of our kids have seen us looking at our phones. Have they seen us looking at a book?
Every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend. – Charlotte Mason
Quarantine Recommend Reading List
For Parenting in COVID-19
- The Bible (See plan from Elliot for getting started)
- Read Aloud Handbook –Trelease
- The Last Child in the Woods – Louv
- Shepherding a Child’s Heart – Tripp
- Parenting: Is There an App for that? – Bullock
For Perspective on “Shelter-in-place”
- Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
- The Hiding Place – Corrie Ten Boom
- Little House in the Big Woods (series) – Laura Ingles Wilder
Chapter Books for Independent Readers or Read Aloud
- The Bible (try starting with a chapter or less in Mark)
- Lord of the Rings Trilogy/The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Journals of Lewis and Clark
- The Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
- Call of the Wild & White Fang – Jack London
- Little Women – Alcott
- Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
- Hatchet – Paulsen
- Treasure Island – Robert Lewis Stevenson
- Peter Pan – Barrie
- Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
- Trumpet of the Swan – E.B. White
- Understood Betsy – Fisher
- Christian Heroes, Then & Now (series) – Benge
- American Girl Collection (series)
- Hank the Cow Dog (series) – Erickson
- Anne of Green Gables (series) – L.M. Montgomery
Picture Books for New Readers or Read Aloud
- The Little Engine That Could – Piper
- The Adventures of Frog and Toad – Lobel
- Oh Say, Can You Say? – Dr. Seuss (tongue twisters – great for a family laugh)
- Little Bear (series) – Minarik
- The World of Peter Rabbit (series) – Beatrix Potter
- Winnie the Pooh (series) – A. A. Milne
- Finding Winnie – Mattick
- Make Way for Ducklings – McCloskey
- The Story of Ferdinand – Lear
- The Tale of Three Trees – Hunt
- Roxaboxen – McLarren
- Paul Revere’s Ride – Longfellow
Collection and Poetry Books
- James Harriot’s Treasury for Children – Harriot
- A Child’s Garden of Verse – Robert Lewis Stevenson
- The Children’s Book of Virtues – Bennet
- Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young – Prelutsky
- Aesop’s Fables
Bonus Tip
Audible is currently offering free audiobooks for kids while school is out.
