Think your child doesn’t like reading? Think again, says Mary Rose Grieve, Hartland International School Librarian and Co-Chair of the Great School Libraries Campaign
Meet nine-year-old Sam.
“Sam doesn’t like reading,” says his increasingly exasperated mother. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t make him read anything.
All he does when he gets home is play on his iPad and watch YouTube. Every book he brings home from the library is non-fiction about transport or animals.
Why can’t he choose a nice fiction book, she wonders?
We all know a Sam. But here’s the thing—Sam does read. He reads books about transport and animals, online messages from friends, signs on the way to school, advertisements in the mall, and even his friends’ reactions to his jokes.
We need to show Sam that we see him as a reader to convey the message that he is a reader, that every day he decodes, infers, understands, and enjoys reading words in whatever form they come.
Yet Sam’s mother wants him to read books, fiction, and literature, because she knows reading widely benefits him beyond academic achievement.
Sam’s mother is not alone in wanting this for Sam. All of us who work in schools understand the importance of encouraging a love of reading for pleasure and relaxation, as well as for purpose and skill.
For seven years, I have led a group of teachers and librarians in Dubai as part of a large research project with the Open University UK and the UKLA, one of over 100 global groups passionate about Reading for Pleasure (RfP) pedagogy.
Our work is based on research by Professor Teresa Cremin, who found that fostering a reading for pleasure culture requires far more than competitions, reading records, or vibrant displays.
Instead, it’s about instilling intrinsic motivation—helping children choose to read “for themselves, at their own pace, with whom they choose and in their own way.”
From this reconceptualising of reading as a practice that comes from within, comes strong, vibrant, meaningful communities of readers.
The power of parental example
Reading habits, however, begin at home. Parents play a crucial role, and one of the simplest, most effective ways to nurture reading is to read to children—no matter their age.
Research by UK company Farshore found that children aged 8-13 who are read to daily at home are almost three times more likely to read regularly themselves.
Yet, many parents stop reading to children once they can read independently, missing a vital opportunity to reinforce the habit.
Modelling good reading habits to our children means that the act of reading is not stigmatised or seen as ‘odd’; if they see their parents reading, they will want to do it too.
Ask yourself how often your children see you read – and what do they see you reading?
Reading information from a telephone is still reading, but how do they know you are reading and not scrolling through images? How often do you talk to them about something you have read?
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Letting children choose
So, what about Sam? We know that the best way to encourage him to read is for his parents to read to him and for him to see them reading as well. But what should they read?
A great place to start is the Carnegie and Medals longlists.
As the most prestigious and longest-running awards in children’s literature in the UK, the books on these lists are among the best published each year.
Other notable book awards include the US-based Newbery and Caldecott Awards, India’s Jarul Book Awards and the Neev Book Awards.
This year, the Bologna Regazzi Award was won by Sheiha Budour bint Sultan Al Qasimi and Majid Zakeri Younesi for their book The House of Wisdom.
Reviews and recommendations can also be found at Books for Keeps, The Horn Book, and the IBBY Honour List.
However, lists alone aren’t enough—children must be free to choose what they read.
Without agency over what they read or listen to, children are much less likely to become volitional readers.
The best place to exercise choice is in the library or bookshop, where they can discover books that spark their interest.
More importantly, parents can share the joy of reading, the connection of discussing books and modelling enthusiasm for literature because as we know too well, our children model our own behaviour, so when we read, they read.
Katherine Rundell, in Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, reminds us that reading children’s books allow us to rediscover the magic of reading: “to find your way back, back to the time when new discoveries came daily and when the world was colossal before your imagination was trimmed and neatened, as if it were an optional extra.”
We are in a golden age of children’s literature, with books filled with extraordinary stories – even for our video game, Netflix generation of Sams – and contain richer and more fantastical adventures within them than any screen could provide.
The question is—are we, as parents and educators, ready to take that journey with them?
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