Rosemarie Hester is a learning specialist in Park Slope.
Here’s something that I did with my younger son which I think contributed in many ways to his well-being as well as to his enjoyment of reading: he and I had “reading parties.”
A reading party was very simple. He had a book. I had a book. Sometimes we had food—crackers, apples and cheese were his favorite for a while.
We got comfortable on the sofas in our living room and we read. Sometimes the parties lasted quite a while. Sometimes they were as short as cat naps.
This kind of “parallel reading” helped to promote a sense of peacefulness and joy in reading. It was important that reading was not a “performance” for an adult, but that it was an activity that an adult found valuable enough to spend time on herself!
The key to this is to start “reading parties” early enough in the child’s life. Middle school, for example, would be too late!
The art of parenting is, in part, finding the right developmental moment, and, as we all know, that moment is different for every child.
Perhaps even a pre-reader can be helped to feel grown-up by looking at picture books while his mom or dad reads her/his own book. How much better even if you can share one thing about your reading with the child and the child can share one thing with you. One thing is huge.
Keep this activity short and quiet at first–kid-sized. Over time, as the child becomes a reader, you can turn these times into parties.
And, please, if your child is already a reader, don’t feel you’ve missed your golden opportunity! You can still introduce the idea or–better yet– even just decide to just pick up a book, get a cup of tea, put up your feet for ten minutes and see if after a week or two, your son or daughter joins you– or perhaps mimics you later in the evening!
If nothing else, the child will see you enjoying what you hope he or she will enjoy, and that alone is a very powerful thing.
Working with kids is a lifelong endeavor. Nothing changes over night. Here’s a good mantra: Drop. Drop. Drop. Ocean.