Making Reading Fun!
- Speakeasy Solutions
- Feb 1, 2015
- 2 min read
As defined by some experts, reading has five components: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. These five components are the practical skills needed to complete the action of reading, but experts have also provided us with other definitions for reading. One of those definitions says reading is the “motivated and fluent coordination of word recognition and comprehension.” Motivation is a crucial part of the reading process that is sometimes overlooked.
Yes, readers need to develop certain skills, but they’re more likely to do so when they feel motivated and engaged with the material. In other words, reading has to be made fun, especially for those who aren’t particularly inclined to read or those students with difficulty practicing or attaining the skills. Below are some tips on how reading can be made into a fun activity to aid with motivation:
Find books about topics that your child is interested in. If they like music, try to find books that have sing-a-long CDs or books by or about musicians or music. For example, your child might be a fan of Machel Montano. Did you know that he authored a children’s book Boy Boy and the Magic Drum? Or what about steel-pan? Colin Bootman’s The Steel Pan Man of Harlem is a great re-write of the classic Pied Piper tale.
It’s Carnival time in T&T. What does your child know about the history of the festival? Well, they might find out more about it through reading something such as Jump Up Time: A Trinidad Carnival Story by Lynn Joseph or Pink Carnival by Joanne Gail Johnson. The key is knowing what they’re interested in and fostering that interest through reading.
Most children love games and there are many games in which reading is essential. Games like Scrabble, Apples to Apples, Taboo, Monopoly are all fun and require reading.
Make reading part of all your activities. If you’re in the kitchen and using a recipe, have the child help by reading the recipe aloud for you. While driving, you can have your child read traffic signs or billboards to you and make a game of it.
During summer camp last year, one activity that was extremely popular among students was Readers' Theatre. Students were asked to pick a story book, choose roles and to act. They were given props: like a hat for The Cat in the Hat, a cape for the superhero story; they also made props such as a sheriff's badge and a cat tail out of construction paper. They had fun. They read and became motivated to read other similar stories.
Motivating young readers is a sure way to make it easier for them to read longer texts, such as novels, when they’re in secondary school and beyond. By this time, they will be able to pick their own books based on their interests.
Take a look at the book trailer for Colin Bootman’s The Steel Pan Man of Harlem below:
Comments