• If they are obsessed with a character on TV, look out for books and magazines about them.
• If your child loves music and rhythm, read them nursery rhyme books when they are young, and poems as they get older. Try the Jump up and Join in books by Carrie and David Grant. Rhyming picture books are fantastic, for example Cats Ahoy by Peter Bently, anything by Julia Donaldson, The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord and Janet Burroway. For older children, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot is great fun.
• If they love interacting with people, then books about families and friendship might click: My Big Shouting Day! by Rebecca Patterson, Dave and the Tooth Fairy by Verna Allette Wilkins, Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent by Lauren Child, Dogger by Shirley Hughes, The Most Impossible Parents by Brian Patten, Grandpa Chatterji by Jamila Gavin or Coming to England by Floella Benjamin. For teens, try books such as The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden or The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks.
• If your child loves words and enjoys playing with words and sounds, you could try Silly Verse for Kids by Spike Milligan, Noisy Poems by Jill Bennett, or Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes.
• If your child loves gaming, there are even books about that too – strategy books for older children, guide books and so on. Try the Minecraft books.
• If they are fascinated about how things work, plenty of factual books fit the bill. Try the Usborne See Inside series. Or Egmont’s In One End and Out the Other.
• If your child is logical and analytical, likes to experiment and solve puzzles, then at a young age they might like search and find books. When they get older consider puzzle books: try Logic Puzzles by Sarah Khan, and for teens perhaps mysteries such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, or Mummies: Mysteries of the Ancient World by Paul Harrison.
• If your child is fascinated by the natural world then factual nature books might click. For example Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? by Robert E. Wells, and for the older child My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. Also try books about animals, such as Hammy the Wonder Hamster by Poppy Harris and Varjak Paw by S. F. Said.
• If they love a film or TV series, seek out the book it’s based on, for example The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson.
• If your child is technology mad, see if reading digitally is inspiring for them. Got a teen who loves their phone and texting? Try Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 by David Crystal.
For more suggestions see here.
EXPERT VIEW
Finding the right hook to engage a child in a book is difficult to plan as it may depend on the child’s mood at the time. However, you can validate their interests and personalities by introducing books that reflect their interests and that are accessible for them in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure. This will pay dividends and help with holistic development, not just literacy. Books with characters that a child can relate to can enhance inter- and intra-personal intelligence and those with problems to solve can develop logical thinking skills. Visually descriptive books, with maps and routes, can engage spatial intelligence skills, and traditional goody and baddy books can promote the development of morality.
Dr Amanda Gummer
Help Your Child Love Reading is a book born out of my passionate belief that establishing a love of reading for pleasure is one of the greatest gifts you can give your child. I know my own experience as a mum and that of others I meet in the course of my work bear this out completely. If there is one thing that comes of writing this book, I’d like it to be for parents to realise their involvement really really matters. You absolutely can make a difference to your child’s enjoyment of reading and it will bring your family so much happiness. I wish you every success. Believe me, it’s worth it.
Alison David, May 2014
You may have tangible wealth untold,
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I, you can never be –
I had a Mother who read to me.
‘The Reading Mother’, Strickland Gillilan
EXPERT VIEW
Recreational screen time is children’s main waking activity. By the age of seven, the average child born today will have spent one full year of 24-hour days watching recreational screen media. It’s hardly a coincidence that at the same time reading continues to decline.
Dr Aric Sigman, biologist and psychologist
Lurking behind every parent’s anxiety about reading and school work is the dreaded screen. It seems to hold a magnetic attraction for children (and adults) and has infiltrated our lives at a furious pace and across all age groups.
Our children spend a lot of time in front of screens. There are various studies and statistics bandied around – for instance, an average of 1 in every 12 waking minutes, or 6.5 hours a day (that’s 20 years of your life by the time you reach 80!) are spent in front of a screen. Whatever it is, it’s certainly a lot and in some families it is taking over leisure time completely with the result that there is little time left for other things.
There’s no doubt that the digital world offers our children exciting entertainment, education and stimulation. Children can learn logic, quick thinking, problem solving and strategy from gaming, and much socialising is now done through texting and social media. But I think screen time should be part of a rich and varied childhood and not dominate our children’s lives – certainly if you want your child to do other things, and especially if you want them to read.
Lots of parents tell me they would like their child to spend less time on digital entertainment and more time reading, as well as enjoying other things such as playing outside, getting involved with sport, taking part in imaginary and creative play, enjoying their toys, interacting with other children and so on. In other words, not spending the vast majority of their time in front of a screen.
The truth is that time spent on screen-based entertainment is eroding or even replacing time for other things. Parents I talk to have conflicting emotions about all this. Despite feeling anxious about it they see their children are happy, having fun, socialising with their friends, becoming more and more tech savvy. And that has got to be a good thing in this day and age, hasn’t it? So this is really not an easy problem to tackle.
Spending so much time in front of a screen also means children have become accustomed to immediate entertainment. They are growing up with the instant gratification that comes from digital attractions. This is one of the reasons that reading holds less appeal for children today. The ultimate reward from completing a good book is enormous, but it is not instant – it takes a while and some effort to get there. Watching television or YouTube, on the other hand, is a passive activity. Entertainment is presented fully formed and all children have to do is watch it. Gaming and texting are interactive but are also instant – and responses to actions, such as levelling up, winning a game and responses to texts all tend to come thick and fast.