Austin Scholar #125: Seven things you can do to get your kid to read
& what I’ve been up to…
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Seven things you can do to get your kid to read
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been up to…
This past Tuesday and Wednesday were very important days for any college student: Amazon Prime Day!! My mom and I spent Tuesday morning frantically scouring Amazon for the best deals on college supplies. I’ll write a future newsletter about what all I’m bringing to college, but here’s a preview of some things I bought during Prime Day:
A mattress topper (EVERY SINGLE TikTok video about what to bring to college starts with the mattress topper necessity)
An air purifier (usually item two – no one likes getting sick)
Cute desk organizers for my makeup and jewelry (I want to love my room – I’m going to work as hard as I can this summer to curate the perfect selection of items to make my dorm seem like a home)
I was able to get most of my utilities and basics during Prime Day, but now it’s time for the fun part: decorations!!
Seven things you can do to get your kid to read
Two years ago, I wrote an article about how to get your kid to read over the summer, but I got a comment from one of my readers that they didn’t feel like the article had super clear action items, so I’m hoping to rectify that with this article. Here is the (updated) how to get your kid to actually read:
The “you can stay up as late as you want as long as you’re reading” rule
Love, love, love this rule. For as long as I can remember, my parents have told me that I could stay up as late as I wanted, as long as I was reading (and as long as I didn’t complain about being tired the next day). This made reading feel like a sneaky reward…exhilarating, almost. Of course, there can be exceptions for this rule (if they have a test the next day, if they’ve been staying up too late reading too much, if they have a game the next day, etc.) but if your kid has an early morning activity, they're likely to self-regulate this part.
Start a family book club
Reading together is the best accountability and encouragement system. At the beginning of the month (or week – however long you want) go to a bookstore and pick a book together. Make sure it’s a book your kid is excited about. Spend time reading together every few days and make sure to have discussions about each chapter and character. When you both finish the book, have a fun night where you order pizza and ice cream and talk about your final thoughts on the book. This not only associates reading with a reward, but it also shows your kid that you’re as involved in this reading thing as they are.
Spend time in libraries and bookstores
Just go to a bookstore or library!! Make it an outing and spend an afternoon walking through the shelves and reading together. Get a sweet treat after. Get a book to take home. I promise, you’ll be surprised at how much just being around that many books for a few hours changes things. It’s, like, osmosis or something :)
Encourage them to read books with their friends
This is what I’ve been doing recently. If I’m watching an interesting movie or show with my friends that is based on a book, we’ll go to BookPeople together and start reading. My conversations about these books have been some of the most memorable of my high school journey (whether it’s screaming about Leto II’s hilarious manipulation in God Emperor of Dune or arguing about Conrad from The Summer I Turned Pretty – I think he’s trash but my best friend loves him). Just get them reading with their friends and their friendship will do the rest. To do this, you could suggest reading the book together to compare it with the movie, bribe them with a fun pizza, ice cream, and watching the book’s movie or show night, or just buy the two of them the book to read (the friend will usually feel guilty if they don’t read it, so they probably will – I know I always read any book I’ve been gifted).
Now, if you want your kid to start improving their reading abilities and broaden their genres, you need to start implementing core knowledge into their daily reading.
Let me explain.