Growing up, I was not fond of reading books. I see them as a chore rather than something that I would enjoy doing. I only read books when needed, and most of the time I "speed read" the assigned readings up until I reached mid-college.
My appetite for books (or the lack of it) changed when I became a Christian. Since then, I desired to read and absorb whatever I can, began buying and collecting books, and would really sit still and read books for hours long.
And I want this desire for books to be passed on to my children as well.
Loving to read books doesn't come out naturally for most of us. As in my case, it took a life altering moment for me to like reading. How can we encourage our kids to love reading books?
It all started with stories. When our daughter was just an infant, we would tell stories to her from the Bible. We bought kids Bibles and some gave us other versions. Every time she feeds milk or before she goes to sleep we read to her stories from these books. Later we added other children's books to add variety to her reading list. And soon enough, she started to ask us to read to her books whenever she wants to.
Just last week, I thought my daughter leveled a notch higher. She brought home a children's book she borrowed from her school's library! She was very excited when she presented to us the book. And since it's a new story, she asked us to read it to her every night before she would go to sleep.
Yesterday, she brought home another book from the school library. This time, the book is about Moby Dick. After she had her afternoon nap, my wife and my daughter sat down and read half of the book until we had our dinner, and the other half afterwards. It was tough for my wife reading to our daughter the book. Because she need not only to read the story to her, but to explain and at the same time translate some of the words in Hokkien Chinese (my daughter's primary language). But it was well worth the hard work.
By doing this, we are accomplishing a few things. First, we are encouraging our daughter to continue to love reading books. Second, we spend enough time to be with her and do what she likes to do. Third, we are also teaching her new English words that are written on the books. And fourth, we are also encouraging her to continue to learn and to speak our Chinese language.Aside from these benefits, I desire that my kids will embody a quotation famously attributed to Dr. Seuss,
"The more that you read the more things you will know, the more that you learn the more places you'll go."
I'm hoping that when they grow up they'll be able to accomplish a lot of things in their life, go to more places than the places that I've been able to go to, and connect to more people for God's glory than I had, am, and will be able to reach.
- Photo credits to Motivational Memo and Open Colleges
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