[su_quote]‘Sometimes,’ said Pooh, ‘the smallest things take up the most room in your heart’.
Winnie the Pooh[/su_quote]

I was talking to a friend recently who bemoaned the fact her grandchildren did not read. She wanted to know if there was anything parents and grandparents should do to encourage their 9-12 year olds to read.

My first thought was that at nine it might already be too late to interest a child in books, but writers have to be optimists. So my first tip for parents, grandparents and teachers who want young people to read is to start early:

1. Read to children from the moment they’re born. Children love the sound of their parents’ voices so picking up a picture book, or a book of nursery rhymes or fairy tales is an excellent place to start. Not only does reading bring you closer to your child and increase their security, it helps them with the basic skills for their own reading. They learn, for example, that books have a beginning and an end, that you read from left to right, that there is a right way up to hold a book and so on. These are such simple things but give children an advantage when they start formal reading instruction at school. Anything that rhymes for young children is excellent because rhyme begins to develop the basic skills for later reading fluency.

2. Be a reader. If parents never pick up a book, children are unlikely to do so. This is particularly true with regard to fathers and sons. If a boy never sees his father (or grandfather) read he does not see books as important in his life. It doesn’t matter if they are reading comics or sports’ magazines to begin with, although the aim is to move on to ‘real’ books as soon as possible, as long as they see adults reading often. This is a great way to get your kids to read.

3. Talk about books with love. There is so much to love in and about children’s books. Tell children about what you read as a child. Go to the bookshop together and find your favourite childhood books, get your child to ask the assistant to help find a book he or she will love. Find books with beautiful covers and run your hand across them. Smell the pages. Compare the feel of a book with the feel of a kindle. If your child prefers the feel of a kindle, that’s fine – as long as they are reading.

4. Make books special treats. Go to the bookshop once a month and allow your child to buy a book they choose (give them a cost limit first and they learn about budgeting, making choices, being independent).

5. Make books an every day part of your life. Join your local library and choose three or four books a week. My son at 3 years old had ‘The Five Pennies’ out on permanent loan. I can still chant some of the pages by heart.

6. Ask each child in the family to look for a favourite quote from a book and talk about the quote over the dinner table. Here are three of my favourites:

• If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely (Dr Suess: The Twits)
• Promise me you’ll remember, you are BRAVER than you believe, STRONGER than you seem, SMARTER than you think (A.A. Milne: Winnie the Pooh)
• It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird).

And as for Winnie-the-Pooh? Every child I know who is a reader has books they cherish and talk about and remember. As they grow into adulthood they take with them what they’ve read and remembered from books, and can tell you how sometimes the smallest things they have read lodge in their heart and even change their lives.

I would love to know how books have influenced your life. Please comment below or view my latest children’s book “Glued”.