All About Grooming & Encouraging Good Reading Habits

[Chenonceau]

rains:

I think while it can be innate, the love for reading can definitely be nurtured.


You can try getting your kids to read together with you. My kid didn't use to like reading on her own. I got her to read one sentence while I read the next, until we finished the stories. I think that doesn't make her feel that she's doing all the 'work' and the 'load' is lighter. Eventually, she wanted to read on her own.

Do you take them to the library every Saturday or Sunday? It's nice to sit around and read for a couple of hours with the other kids. Even if they end up playing, they are still immersed in a reading environment. After reading books they fancy at the library, they can choose their own books to loan them home. It's a trip my kid looked forward to when she was young, and even now too, just that she goes to the library herself these days.

Another factor that made my kid read was because her younger cousin could recognise words that she couldn't. There was some element of competition involved I guess. She always had this slightly stunned look on her when her younger cousin read out words or sentences that she couldn't. And I caught her trying to imitate her cousin reading 三字经 (when she couldn't read a word in there!) after he went home.

I still remember how freaked out I was when she kept forgetting the words she just read one line above when she was in K1, but when the love for reading took off, she was reading Charlotte's web at the end of K2 and Harry Potter at P2. In fact, we got so upset with her reading we banned her from reading at various points. So hang in there, as long as you keep at it and explore ways to make them love reading, it will soon pay off.

:lovesite: This is a really kind and encouraging post.

[jeanieg]

Thank you, Rains, for your encouragement! Greatly appreciated!


You know, besides reading English books, Chinese books is another difficult hurdle I need to cross. Now I am trying to tackle 2 birds at the same time. My older P1 girl is able to read, just not keen on reading. When I saw her English Journal writing from school, I was shocked with all the broken English! That’s when I panic even more. I believe when you read, your English will improve. So now, die die will have to discipline myself to remind kids to read.

[Chenonceau]

jeanig... does this help? http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/reading-and-my-son

[Imami]

jeanieg:

Thank you, Rains, for your encouragement! Greatly appreciated!


You know, besides reading English books, Chinese books is another difficult hurdle I need to cross. Now I am trying to tackle 2 birds at the same time. My older P1 girl is able to read, just not keen on reading. When I saw her English Journal writing from school, I was shocked with all the broken English! That's when I panic even more. I believe when you read, your English will improve. So now, die die will have to discipline myself to remind kids to read.

Someone said to me – you think what you see/read, you say what you think, you write what you say. So, yup – I think reading will help to build the mastery of language.

[ammonite]

jeanieg:

Thank you, Rains, for your encouragement! Greatly appreciated!


You know, besides reading English books, Chinese books is another difficult hurdle I need to cross. Now I am trying to tackle 2 birds at the same time. My older P1 girl is able to read, just not keen on reading. When I saw her English Journal writing from school, I was shocked with all the broken English! That's when I panic even more. I believe when you read, your English will improve. So now, die die will have to discipline myself to remind kids to read.

Liking Chinese books is the same as for English books. Choose books that will appeal to them and keep them accessible. My sons are not proficient in Chinese yet, but they will still take out their chinese picture books to look at, or ask me to read to them. When i go to the library, i borrow both english and chinese books for them and despite not being proficient, they have never been averse to chinese story books. My elder son had a late start and only became proficient in English reading last year. This year he has started trying to read Chinese books on his own, checking the hanyu pinyin or consulting me when need be. It is just a natural process. Interestingly, he enjoys doing Chinese compositions even though his Chinese is generally not good but improving steadily. He started off in the low sixties in primary one, so it was really weak. If you can maintain that affection for Chinese books in your kids, i believe it will work out eventually.

[rains]

My kid doesn’t have problem with writing or speaking grammatical English since young. I would attribute it to the effort I put in to speak to her in grammatical English. Since she was a baby, I made a conscious effort to speak correct and grammatical English to her so that it becomes part of her subconsciousness. I suppose it works. Don’t use Singlish when they are young as they would take it as a given. In any case, they will pick it up from their friends when they go to school later on. For your kid who has started writing broken English, you might need to do some drilling in grammar by practising grammar assessment books to create consciousness about grammar rules.


As for Chinese books, I must admit I neglected doing Chinese as I had naively thought that Primary one Chinese started at the same level as my era did ie. 人，口，手 - they did say that Chinese standard was going down didn’t they?

I started with simple Chinese books with hanyu pinyin. The objective was not so much to make her love Chinese books but not to make her repel at the sight of them. I allowed her to take her time to like reading Chinese books because love cannot be forced upon, but I borrow and buy Chinese storybooks from time to time so that she has easy access to them. But that said, I love Chinese books myself so that might have helped.

[jeanieg]

With regards to English (whether spoken or written), my husband and I do speak some Singlish at home… cannot help it at times. But I do try to correct the kids when they do speak wrong English and also explain to them some terms are colloquial only.


Thank you all for sharing your experiences. It has been very enlightening for me. Hopefully as time pass and with more effort on my part, they will learn to read more!

[Geraldinelim]

I always make sure I keep my child in suspend so tt they would read more.

[studyhard]

I grew up on Tin Tin and Asterix, not sure I understood the words, but it made me want to ‘read’ books…

[Geraldinelim]

I think the recent Stella program, and show and tell in school is very useful.