Tips for encouraging your scholar to read
- Set and example: Let your kids see you reading for pleasure.
- Furnish your home with a variety of reading materials: leave books, magazines, and newspapers around. Check to see what disappears for clues to what interests your teenager.
- Give teens an opportunity to choose their own books: When you and your teen are out together, browse in a bookstore or library. Go your separate ways and make your own selections. A bookstore gift certificate is a nice way of saying "you choose".
- Build on your teen’s interests: Look for books and articles that feature their favorite sports teams, rock stars, hobbies, or TV shows. Give a gift subscription to a special interest magazine.
- View pleasure reading as a value in itself: Almost anything your youngsters read—including the Sunday comics—helps build reading skills.
- Read some books written for teens: Young adult novels can give you valuable insights into the concerns and pressures felt be teenagers. You may find that these books provide a neutral ground on which to talk about sensitive subjects.
- Make reading aloud a natural part of family life: Share an article you clipped from the paper, a poem, a letter, or a random page from an encyclopedia—without turning it into a lesson.
- Acknowledge your teen’s mature interest: Look for ways to acknowledge the emerging adult in your teens by suggesting some adult reading you think they can handle. Check out the American Library Association’s suggestions for adult novels appropriate for young adults: http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/alexawards/alexawards.htm
- Keep the big picture in mind: For all sorts of reasons, some teenagers go through period without showing much interest in reading. Don’t panic! Time may help rekindle their interests!
- Please see this website for more tips on encouraging reading as well as tips for helping teens select books: http://www.rif.org/parents/tips/tip.mspx?View=18
- The New York Public Library publishes Books for the Teenage every year. This has many great recommendations sorted by genre and topic. You can pick a copy up at any library and it is also available online at http://teenlink.nypl.org/bta_new.htm.