A beautiful lady named Marisse sent us a message on Facebook asking for tips on how to cultivate a reading culture at home.
I have bad news: I’m not a reading specialist or expert.
But the good news is: I’m a mother of three, a daughter raised in a home which values books and a girl who visits libraries in her trips.
So if these credentials are enough with you, then here goes the ways on how to cultivate a reading culture at home.
1. Start them young
This tip has been repeatedly shared I can actually imagine many mothers roll their eyes as they say, “Yeah, we know that!” But I have to repeatedly emphasize this line as one of the most important tips in cultivating a reading culture at home.
Here’s the reason:
If I remember it right, the twins were three months old when they first held their first books and since then, they’ve been holding, flipping and “reading” pages. Nicholas can read sight words now and can understand words such as “environment”, garbage”, “shocked”, “giggling”, “mischief”, and the list goes on. He learned these from books such as Cristine Bersola-Babao’s Basura Monster, Reynald Renante’s The Last Tree, Mary Ann Ordinario-Floresta’s The Crying Trees, and Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.
2. Buy books as gifts
I love my reputation as the godmother or the aunt who gifts books. When children are younger they may not find it cool especially when they are raised in a home with television. But stay strong, steady and consistent. Continue the habit of gifting books. I always find storybooks written by Filipino authors as excellent gift ideas. Book Sale sells second hand books at affordable prices so dive in,
3. Praise books
Consciously and actively talk about books. Positive talk, talks that will encourage and motivate children to pick up books and read. Recommend books to them. For example, Jeff remembers her mother reading Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever to him as a child so I made the effort to buy the book and told the children how good the book is. Same routine with titles such as Susan dela Rosa Aragon’s When Color Came to Town and Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.
4. Read with them
Read not just bedtime stories when they are about to go to sleep; read when they’re fully conscious and their senses are fully awake so you can do other activities with them. I teach them correct pronunciation and enunciation of words, vocabulary, and comprehension. Storytelling is an important tool to cultivate a love of reading. There are different strategies to these and warrants a different post.
5. Get caught reading
Jeff reads, I read. I read everything. I read newspapers at 3:00 a.m. Jeff is a big online reader and starts his day at 3:00 a.m. too. Then we go back to sleep to dream about the news and information we read about. Ha! It’s safe to judge us as bookworms and news nerds. Our children see us read all the time. Most of the times, we don’t mean for them to see us. But it’s best to be intentional about it. Children mimic our words and actions all the time so if you want to cultivate a culture of reading at home, have them see you read.
6. Create a learning corner
A learning corner with a dedicated space for books is perhaps one of the areas in your home that you should spend time and resources to build/create. My children’s books are not nearly arranged all the time. Ate Joy will be too exhausted at the end of the day if I tell her to rearrange the books every hour. We trained the children to arrange their books even when they are not nearly stacked. But we do this because we saw the need of having them take ownership of the books, the shelves, the learning corner. It’s their space so it is but appropriate for them to take care of it.
I am looking forward to read your thoughtas. How do you cultivate a culture of reading at home?
