Tips to Make Reading Fun and Routine

The ABCs of creating a love for books. Reading is naturally part of everyday life and learning to read can be, too, says Shaunté Duggins, associate director of New Worlds Reading at UF’s Lastinger Center for Learning.

Games can make developing language skills fun. I Spy — I spy a bird whose name begins with the letter C, for example — supports the knowledge of letters and their sounds. Rhyming games give children a chance to manipulate sounds and understand that some words are spelled alike.

“That’s foundational knowledge, but it’s fun, too,” Duggins says.

Language and reading skills can be incorporated into the family routine. Car rides, for example, are a learning opportunity. On long trips, children can look for letters of the alphabet on passing signs and billboards.

Home routines also offer a chance to read. A child can help gather items off a grocery list and then help read a recipe for a treat, like cookies. Reading directions shows the function of reading as a tool that leads to an end product.

“And you get a tasty treat, too,” Duggins says.

As students begin to read, have them re-tell a story. Oral storytelling develops vocabulary and helps students pick up on narrative structure: a beginning, a middle and an end, so they can begin to create their own stories.

Talk about books and make connections. Do you remember a time when you felt the same way as the main character? How would you change the ending?

And then there’s bedtime.

“It doesn’t have to take long. They can read a few pages or a chapter,” Duggins says. “Putting reading in the bedtime routine establishes a time for reading every day.”

With or without flashlights.