On Helping Children Love to Read

My four sons would readily agree that I am no paragon of parenthood. However, some of those same sons might actually know what the word “paragon” means, because each of them loves to read. My goal here is not to explain a process for teaching children HOW to read, but rather describe one way that has helped our children learn to LOVE reading. You see, I am a firm believer that anyone who doesn’t love to read has simply not yet read the right books yet.

My wife worked very hard to teach our sons how to read, I can’t take any credit for that. However, she and I together have done our best to help each of our four sons learn to love reading, and the key was to follow a simple progression of particular books at particular times, as outlined below:

1. First, lay the foundation by reading out loud to your children long before they learn to read. Using the many wonderful picture books that are available, help your young children learn to associate books with happiness and family and time. Learning how to sit, quietly absorbed in a book, is as important as learning to run through the neighborhood playing with friends. Great picture books such as Who Will Tuck Me In Tonight?, When Dinosaurs Came With Everything, Counting Crocodiles, Pout Pout Fish, Click Clack Moo, Weslandia, and so many more, are as fun for parents as they are for children. Take the time to find your own family favorites.

2. Once your child learns to read well enough to struggle through very simple sentences, give them the first Calvin & Hobbes treasury. Calvin & Hobbes has been key to helping our sons learn to love reading. Young children are fascinated by Calvin’s antics and with Hobbes’ constant transition between reality and fantasy. Many of the jokes initially go over their heads, but many more land in the most delightful way. Your children will work and struggle to understand Calvin & Hobbes to a degree that will surprise you. They will not realize that they are “reading” in that process, only that they want to know so badly what crazy thing Calvin is up to today. Bill Watterson’s humor hits on so many levels, and he scatters vocabulary that will push your children not just from one level of reading to the next, but along and through and around multiple levels of reading at the same time.  My four sons range from ages 8-16, and they all circle back to Calvin & Hobbes at least two or three times a year.  Calvin & Hobbes is what they read when they want a break from reading—how awesome is that?  They treat it like an old friend they can visit anytime, who demands nothing of them but a smile. And, they find new things to laugh about at each new age.

3. After your child is fully ensconced in Calvin’s world, you should begin reading low level chapter books to them, such as the Magic Tree House series. My wife discovered this wonderful series and has read them to our children for many years. They follow a very predictable format, are written for young children, and can be read out loud quickly. Once you have read a handful of them out loud, you can confidently hand the next Magic Tree House book to your child and watch them take off from there. You may also use the Elephant & Piggy books by Mo Willems during this phase (which are incredible) and the always-awesome Berenstain Bears series.

4. After Magic Tree House, the next step is Beverly Cleary and Roald Dahl. These books are not gender specific, and are just a blast. You can start them with Fantastic Mr. Fox or Ramona & Beezus. Both authors have between 10-15 books and there isn’t a bad apple in the bunch. Also, each author has a very different style, so it exposes your child to a broad range of writing. Beverly Cleary is real and insightful about the most common daily occurrences, her writing is timeless. Roald Dahl is real in a very different way, and also so fantastical and crazy that he keeps your child guessing on every page. Frankly, if you haven't read these yourself, you're missing out.

5. Depending on how quickly your child moves through Roald Dahl and Beverly Cleary, you can move on to the next step, or just linger here for awhile. There are many wonderful authors in this same category as Cleary and Dahl, such as Edward Eager, Jean Craighead George, Scott O’Dell, Lynne Reid Banks, Betty MacDonald, John D. Fitzgerald, Gary Paulsen, E.B. White, Brian Jacques, and many more.

6. The series that will seal the deal on your child’s love for reading is nothing less than Harry Potter. There will be no going back. Fourth or Fifth grade is typically a good time to start the series, but you may decide to make them wait until they are a bit older before reading the later books. These are individual, parent/child decisions. If you do decide to delay them for a time in the middle of the series, there are plenty of other books to fill the gap, such as Narnia, Michael Vey, Rangers Apprentice, anything by Madeleine L’Engle, and many more.

One of the reasons my wife and I worked so hard to help each child develop a love for reading is faith-based. We both felt that it is difficult to obtain a love for the scriptures without first developing a love for reading. We felt that children who are accustomed to spending hours with a beloved book may be more willing and able to spend meaningful time in the scriptures. My wife and I both love the scriptures, and in addition to regular family scripture study, we make sure our children often see us reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon.  

In addition to the process described above, there are some religious books that can help you reinforce scripture study and a love for reading at the same time. The Who’s Your Hero? series by David Bowman is a great resource to help your elementary-school aged children relate to the scriptures. For teenagers, there is the Work and the Glory series by Gerald N. Lund. Give your teenager the first book in the Work and the Glory series and watch them go off on their own and have beautiful, personal, and powerful spiritual experiences centered around the Restoration of the Gospel that have nothing to do with you.

I cannot emphasize enough the powerful boost to your child’s testimony learning church history through The Work and the Glory can be. By placing your child “in” the story, they are able to "see" early church history figures as regular human beings who did their best to follow Christ, but were not perfect.  As a result, your children will be much less susceptible to concerns about the fallibility of leaders, because they will feel like they know them, and their weaknesses, personally. The Work and the Glory will help your children become more like Lorenzo Snow, who remarked in his journal, “I saw the imperfections in [Joseph Smith].  I thanked God that He would put upon a man who had those imperfections the power and authority He placed upon him ... for I knew that I myself had weaknesses, and I thought there was a chance for me. ... I thanked God that I saw these imperfections.”  The new Saints series is also a great follow up. I believe that scripture study and significant time spent reading about church history go hand in hand.  And such exposure is much easier if you have first helped your children to gain a love of reading.

Great books fill in the gaps of life to overflowing. A love of reading will help your children emotionally, academically, religiously, and on and on. Children who read for pleasure are often better able to finish their reading assignments in school, but if a child doesn’t already have a love for reading before their academic reading requirements increase significantly, they will associate reading with negative thoughts and feelings.  This negative association is hard to undo.

I don’t pretend the above process will work with every child, but I do believe it will help many more children learn to love to read than otherwise.  Now, if I could only figure out how to help my sons make the jump to reading literature like Dickens, Austen, Hugo, Dostoyevsky, Twain, Jewett and so many others.  I even tried meaningfully targeted incentivization with my oldest, but to no avail.  

There are so many wonderful books out there, I would love to hear about the titles and authors that have helped your kids learn to love reading.

A favorite bookshelf I built