8 Ways I Tricked My Kids Into Reading

I was a bookworm as a child.  I'd sneak flashlights into bed to read late into the night.  I'd bring a book to breakfast.  When other kids were learning how to do back dives into the pool, I was finishing the The Little House books, sighing with relief as Laura and Almanzo lived happily ever after.

I assumed that my children would inherit the bookworm gene.  Little did I guess that I'd give birth to three active boys, who could barely sit still long enough to eat.  Fostering a love of reading in these wild animals seemed an impossible dream. 

My oldest is now twelve and the twins are nearly ten.  They're all readers, to varying extents.  Here's what my husband and I did to try to instill a love of books:

1.  I was one of those moms who decided that having television and video games in our house would cause the boys to instantly morph into obese, violence obsessed teens.  My theory wasn't completely consistent, as I let them watch and play whatever at their friends' houses.  My husband suspects that the true reason for the media ban was that Dora caused me to stick needles in my eyeballs. Regardless,  according to our kids, we've raised the only boys in Alabama who have been deprived of an XBox, a Wii or a steady diet of Disney.  They've had plenty of bikes and Legos and books, though, and I've kept them fed and their clothes reasonably clean, so I think we're even.

2. Everyone says it's important to read to your kids.  I've always hated reading out loud, and becoming a mother didn't change that one bit.  I'd much rather read the latest David Sedaris to myself than read Five Little Monkeys to my own three jumping on the bed.  In a sacrificial move, my husband shouldered most of the burden of reading to the guys.  For years Porter would climb on him saying, "Wead, Daddy, wead now!" and he would, night after night of reading Curious George. There were times I'd overhear the stories from the other room and want to slap that curious monkey, but the boys never grew tired of him.

3. When Finn was five or six, I noticed that he was stealing my US Weekly magazines.  Why would a first-grade boy need to know what's up with Angelina and Britney?  Then I realized that the pictures and simple text were (hopefully) the real attraction.  I reasoned that any reading was better than no reading, although I put that particular magazine off limits.  I tried to find the boys magazines that would interest them, even if they weren't geared solely toward children.  Highlights is an obvious kids' magazine, but the boys also enjoyed Sports Illustrated For Kids, National Geographic, and magazines about cars and trucks.  As they matured, I bought them their own copies of Newsweek or the regular Sports Illustrated. Sometimes I'll tiptoe into Finn's room and find that he's stolen my New Yorker. Although it momentarily ticks me off,  I'm secretly proud that some of the articles in there are capturing his attention. Here's a list of children's magazines.

4.  Big bookstores often have bargain shelves, and the boys always wandered to that section while we were browsing.  Once I found them looking at a large coffee table book about Leonardo da Vinci, and they weren't looking at his helicopter drawings.  They were looking at his paintings of Madonnas and other women.  More particularly, they were entranced with the women's exposed breasts.  After I put that book on a high shelf, they looked at other books with enormous pictures of the pyramids or guitars.  I took the hint and bought cheap picture-filled books-- one about shipwrecks, one about Johnny Cash, and one about Pearl Harbor.  At first the boys only looked at the pictures, but as time went on, they read the captions, and then the text surrounding the pictures.

5. Once I realized that pictures attracted the boys' attention, I looked at a way to capitalize on that.  There are lots of drawing-based books that lure children with pictures and encourage them to stay to read.  Everyone loves Calvin And Hobbes, and my boys are no exception.  We've found many Calvin collections in the bargain section, although if I'd known how popular they would be at my house, I'd have sold some plasma and paid whatever it took to purchase these.  I happened to read an ad about the first Little Lit book, and ordered it several Christmases ago.  We've since gotten another of these oversize fairy tale books, which are lush and entertaining.  Finally, Diary of a Wimpy Kid was on the bestseller lists for a reason-- an engaging story with hilarious pictures. 

6. As a woman, at first it was hard for me to decide what would captivate my guys.  It turns out that boys aren't that hard to figure out.  Books that teach you how to make a hat out of paper, or tie different kinds of knots are popular.  A book that shows you how to make a variety of different Paper Airplanesand comes with colored paper-- big hit.  And an "Encylopedia " of practical jokes; well, they ate that up. Sure, I found the sugar replaced with salt at the table, the boys learned to make armpit farts, the front yard was littered with paper airplanes, and Porter tied Feathers's cage closed with an intricate knot that took us a while to unravel, but all the escapades were proof that reading was going on.

7. I gave the boys a variety of books to try, and then saw what caught their interest.  At the library we'd browse all the sections, and come home with books about the Beatles, China, baseball players, and some old favorites, like Encyclopedia Brown or  Junie B. Jones.  When they had plenty of books to choose from they seemed more likely to settle down with something.

8. On the theory that forbidden fruit tastes sweeter, I made Drew beg for the first Harry Potter book for months before I gave in, faux-reluctantly.  It took all of fifteen minutes for him to become hooked.

Educators might fault our tactics, but they worked for us.  Locating books with pictures, practical jokes, and giving the boys a variety of books to try, while limiting their television, was our winning formula.

This is an original Deep South Moms Blog post written by Anne Glamore, who also blogs about other adventures with her boys at Tales From My Tiny Kingdom.