I don’t know about you, but around here we LOVE to read. Every time we go to the library it’s like Christmas. “Can I take another one momma?” “Momma, how many books can I check out this week? Aw…just one more….please?!” Getting my children to read is not a problem. In fact, probably the most horrible punishment my children could think of is having all their books taken from them. However, there’s no variety in my child’s reading.
However, we do or maybe I should say did have a problem when it came to getting them to read a variety of books. Every week we would go into the library and the girls would navigate to the same bookshelves and the same book series. They had no idea what was really before them. So, I decided it was time to add some variety into their life and help them to become more familiar with the different library sections available to them.
My plan for implementing variety into their reading was actually two-fold. I wanted to expose them to new genres of literature as well as help them to rotate reading the books available to them at home. So what did I do? Here are three simple things I added to our life to add variety to our reading. The result has been met with amazing success and long-standing excitement for different genres from both girls.
How to Add Variety to Your Child’s Reading
#1 Organize Your Home Library with Book Baskets
The very first thing I did was organize our home library into different book baskets and number them. Our only rule for book organization in our house? Put the book back in the same box you found it when you are done. That’s it. Makes for easy clean up and helps this momma find things faster too.
#2 Award Good Behavior or Completion of School With a Bookworm Ticket
My girls love rewards and what better reward than a good book. At the end of every school day, if they have finished their school boxes by lunch time my girls get a bookworm ticket which they can “spend” whenever they want with whomever they want (mom or dad). These bookworm tickets are assigned to different book boxes in our home library so that they are constantly choosing a book from a different book box. In this way, they still have a choice in what they get to read, but they are also getting exposure to books in our library that they may have otherwise forgotten about.
Fill Out the Form Below to Get These Bookworm Tickets
#3 Encourage Variety at the Library with a Library Checklist
Last, I created a laminated library checklist for my oldest so that she would remember to choose a variety of books from the library at each of our visits. We keep it in our library bag so that we never forget to take it each week. The first week or two in which I introduced the library checklist, we walked around to each section of the library becoming familiar with the book genres and where to find them. Now she automatically gets a book from each section without hardly even looking at her checklist, and she still enjoys choosing books just as much.
Fill Out the Form Below to Get This Library Checklist
These three steps have done wonders to create variety in my girls’ reading material and has also helped them to start understanding different book genres even at a young age. Have fun reading! The whole world is at your fingertips.
