You want your child to be good at reading and creative writing, then the first thing you have to do is to keep on reading this article. We will assist you to do that through easy fun ideas. Hopefully these ideas will encourage your little ones to develop a habit of reading and writing.
Make it sound like a Fun Activity
Ever heard the importance of good marketing? Yes, that is exactly what you have to do here.
Present the art of writing and reading as a fun activity to your children. Don’t make them sit forcefully on the study table while you peek into their notebook after every two minutes to see if they have come up with something good. Provide a conducive environment for the little creative minds to flourish. Once they get to see writing and reading as a “fun” activity, the rest will be a piece of cake.
In-house Library
Get a bookshelf, put some books and make it look like a mini library.
Want to get more in character?
Make small library cards for your children (child) . Put on a (imaginary) librarian hat and get to work. Make them come to you, refer you as a librarian. Issue them a book and they have a day to read it and then return the book.
Make sure you have books from all genres. Do not force them to always go for an informative book. As I said earlier, once they develop the habit of reading you can go for all the “should” of parenting and make them read informative books. In the start the most important thing is to let them associate writing and reading with fun.
Going for various genres will also help them identify their area of interest. One child might go for horror stories while the other would opt for funny stories.
Word of the Week
Once they are into the habit of reading it is time to enhance their vocabulary in a fun way.
Ask them to pick up a new word of their choice from the book.( This would also ensure that they read the book. Sneaky right ) Make a card of that word and stick it on a prominent wall. Somewhere they can see it while passing by. It is going to be the “word of the week”. They are supposed to use it frequently throughout the week. You may put a reward (or a point) every time they try to use the word of the week in conversation. Once they do that trust me it is going to stay in their mind for the longest time.
Give them a Paper and Pen
You have done enough of the story telling at night. It is time for them to come up with a story.
Here are some fun ways you can go about when making them write one.
- Give them an imaginary character for example a poor boy, a magical bus etc.
- Specify a genre to write on. horror, humor, fantasy etc.
- Specify the length.
Some day make them write a short story. Other times make them write a story comprising of chapters. If you are going for the latter it can be one chapter a week.
The key point here is to encourage them to write and secondly to make them improve their writing skills.
Make sure you point out the corrections in a constructive way. You don’t have to pretend there are none because that would make them stick to those mistakes. However, point out the corrections but don’t forget to always balance it out with encouraging remarks.
Making them write would help you understand their problem areas. You would come to know that by the nature of mistakes. For e.g. if your child is making too many spelling mistakes you can work on that area.
An Important Reminder
All the above mentioned activities would be meaningless if you end up comparing your child with others. Parents tend to do that a lot.(intentionally and unintentionally).
Imagine yourself in the shoes of your frightened child who knows he is about to be compared with siblings ( or that uncle’s children who come to visit on weekends) after the activity. Let them explore their inner talents at their own pace. It’s ok if your friend’s daughter can read three books in a day. Good for her, you let your little one stick to reading one book at a time. Learning should only focus on making them a better version of themselves.
Remember a happy child is better than a perfect child.
