Instilling the love of reading into young students can be extremely challenging, especially to start. Not every student comes from a background where they were read to or encouraged to read. That doesn’t mean, however, that the encouragement shouldn’t start today. Young children are adaptable, malleable, and growing. It is important for them to be exposed to new things, even if they are brand new. Here are some helpful tips to help grow the love of reading within your students!
Read to Them!
Some students have a difficult time pronouncing and understanding words. The best way to encourage their comfortability is reading to them first. Find fun books to introduce into the classroom and read to them so they can solely focus on the story instead of new words, sentence structure, and grammar.
Share your Favorite Books!
Tell your students about your favorite books and why you love them. Encourage them to talk to you about their experience reading your favorite books to provide an experience similar to a book club! This will engage the students to read as they have someone to discuss their thoughts with.
Create In-Classroom Book Clubs!
Young readers will flourish from sharing reading experiences with peers. Establish small book clubs or one big book club within the classroom. The young readers may love to experience the aspect of choosing the book that they would like to read, so multiple small book clubs could be more appealing.
Listen to Audio Books!
This is a great way to experience books in the classroom that take a while to read. This provides the teacher a break from reading aloud while maintaining the experience for the readers. This is also a great way to break up the reading into multiple days.
Invite Local Authors to Speak!
Hearing artists speak is always a great encounter for young students, but having these artists be authors could be a unique way to incorporate the installation of reading into the heart of the young students.