Anyone can organize their children’s books neatly on the shelf, but only the true masters can organize books so kids will actually pick them up and read them! Just kidding! It doesn’t really take a true master! That just sounded cooler, didn’t it? It’s really all about making the books accessible and inviting. Check out our tips below to encourage reading in your child:
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Keep Books in Multiple Places to Encourage Reading
Set up a few areas for books in your home to encourage reading. If the books are easily accessible to your child, they are more likely to pick one up and start reading. Keep a stash of books in the living room or play area, in your child’s room, heck, you can even stash a few in the bathroom!
Make It Easy for Kids to Take Out and Put Away
If you have very young children, it may be difficult for them to pull books off a bookshelf and to put them away. Consider using baskets or storage cubes to store books. This makes it easier for little ones to find a book and put it back. This hack works well for older kids as well. Even though older kids can find books on a bookshelf and put them away neatly, it does take a little extra effort. Remove this extra step to encourage reading! Also, using storage cubes or baskets makes it easier to put little stashes of books all throughout your home.
Create a Reading Nook
Create a reading nook in your home to encourage reading! My children all loved the reading nooks in their elementary school classrooms and looked forward to snuggling up there with a book. Pinterest-style reading nooks seem so cute, but also seem so hard re-create. You don’t need anything fancy and you don’t need to buy anything new to create one. Simply grab some pillows and blankets and set them up in a corner of your home with a basket of books. You can even hang up and old sheet or put up a children’s pop up tent to make a little reading fort.
Don’t Worry About Books Getting Ruined
Honestly, there’s not much I love more than seeing my books in pristine condition neatly put away on my bookshelf. But, soon after having kids, I realized if I wanted to encourage their love for reading, their books would not remain pristine! When they were babies, they chewed on board books and now that they are older they leave books out or fall asleep in bed with them and the books show signs of wear and tear. But, these beat-up books look that way because they are being read! And, I’d rather they read the books and destroy them than just have them look pretty on our bookshelf.
Buy Lots of Books (Without Going Broke)
Have a lot of books available for your child to encourage them to read. A great and free way to introduce your child to lots of new titles is to head to the library on a regular schedule. This way you always have a fresh stack of books available. In addition, it’s a good idea to buy plenty of books so your child doesn’t get bored reading the same old ones. You don’t have to go broke doing this! Hit up consignment stores, yard sales, and online yard sale sites. Or, you can arrange book exchanges with your friends.
Take some time to organize your children’s books this weekend to make them accessible and inviting. Encouraging a love of reading now will lead to a life-long habit of continued reading and learning for years to come.
