Cultivating Worms…Bookworms, that is

One of my life goals is to have my very own library, one that I could share with other people.  This could be attributed to being raised in a family of readers.  As children, we were never allowed to stay late watching television but would be given a few extra minutes past bedtime to finish reading a book.  Television hours were also strictly controlled but the bookshelf was there to lure us for countless hours of adventures in distant lands.

This love for reading that my parents instilled in me is something that I would definitely want to pass on to my children. What have I been doing to encourage my toddlers to read books?

  1. I started early. I was already reading to them while they were still inside my womb.
  2. I read books to them everyday even when they were still infants.
  3. Now that they are toddlers, we read books together everyday.
  4. I make sure that their books are accessible to them.  Their books are placed on the bottom of the bookshelf. And there are books in the bedroom which they can read before bedtime.
  5. I make reading fun.  That includes making voices, doing silly actions, and basically just being more entertaining than television characters.
  6. I don’t impose. I let them choose the books they want to read and I let them do something else if they’re not in the mood for reading.
  7. I set an example.  The toddlers see me reading the newspaper, magazines, and novels.  I let them read magazines with me but the newspaper and novels would have to wait til their urge to crumple and tear the thin paper is outgrown.

As I said in #6, I never impose reading.  I would like for them to read not because they have to but because they want to.  As they grow older, I will continue to set an example hoping that they would pick the habit up themselves.

1-year-old Jade reading a book to 3-month-old Jakei

Oh, alright! She wasn’t exactly “reading” The Giver to her baby brother but she was mumbling words that could probably have been a great story in babynese.

Jade really loves teaching Jakei words that she knows

Mama finally bought them their own magazines so she could read hers in peace