Today’s questioned was suggested by Barbara H:

How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teen-ager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books? If you do offer incentives and suggestions and that doesn’t work, would you then require a certain amount of reading? At what point do you just accept that your child is a non-reader?
In the book Gifted Hands by brilliant surgeon Ben Carson, one of the things that turned his life around was his mother’s requirement that he and his brother read books and write book reports for her. That approach worked with him, but I have been afraid to try it. My children don’t need to “turn their lives around,” but they would gain so much from reading and I think they would enjoy it so much if they would just stop telling themselves, “I just don’t like to read.”

I began reading to my boys when they were babies. They loved being read to and each learned to read very early. I was rather fortunate. They have a love for bookstores as well as libraries and all three request books for gifts. How would I encourage a non-reader? Lead by example, take the child to bookstores to look at books, magazines, newspapers, and comic books. Offer to take turns reading out loud to one another, share in the love of reading by finding books that are age appropriate on topics the child enjoys. I personally would not require book reports, while it worked well for Dr. Carson, I have seen many children turned off from reading because they viewed it as “work” rather than pleasure.

Anyone can play along each Thursday with Booking Through Thursday.