HOW TO Raise a Kid Who LOVES TO READ

Research shows that fewer kids are reading for enjoyment. Here's how to turn that around.

- ALEXANDRA FROST

It's 1995. I'm riding on the bus...with a book. I'm in the car on the way to gymnastics...with a book. I'm on a plane, on the porch, under the basement stairs...all with a book. Fast-forward to adulthood, and you can imagine my distress that none of my five kids have plans to touch a book unless they have to.

It’s not just my offspring— even before the pandemic, kids’ interest and performance in reading was slipping. A 2022 report by Scholastic found that kids’ reading frequency and enjoyment declined as they aged. Of kids ages 12 to 17 who were surveyed, 41% said they read less than one book a week and 53% didn’t like reading at all.

Many times I’ve felt like throwing in the towel when it comes to trying to help my kids love reading. But then I remember the extensive benefits of reading, and I continue to trudge through their protests.

The 2022 Scholastic report also found that kids in the 12-to17 age group had better mental health if they were into books, with 19% of frequent readers feeling lonely compared with 30% of infrequent readers. When your elementary school teachers told you books were friends, they weren’t kidding! And in a world of social media drama, most kids could use such friends.

Books transport kids beyond their circumstances and environments, immersing them in cultures and adventures they might not otherwise be able to imagine. And reading to children from an early age is a research-backed way to improve language development and cognitive capacity; improve empathy and emotional awareness; and bond with them.

So why do many kids hate to read? Probably for the same because they haven’t yet found the right book, may struggle with their reading skills and/or may have experienced having adults make reading less fun by quizzing them on their reading or otherwise passing judgment on it.”