Yesterday was World Book Day. It’s a day to celebrate authors, illustrators, and the magic of reading. Teaching in a preschool classroom I believe in the importance of getting children excited about books. We spend a good portion of our day with activities centered around books – a story during circle time, looking at books on your own and with friends after snack time, and having books everywhere around the room for little hands to reach. My daughter is only four years old and loves reading books. Her bedtime routine has always included a story. As a pre-k teacher I’ve had parents ask how to get their children excited about reading. For me, my answer is always to take every opportunity at making reading an actual experience. Reading should not be treated as a chore for children, it should be exciting!
I recently discovered All Fancy Dress, a fun website full of costumes for every event imaginable.
With books in mind, there are so many fun ideas using costumes to make reading exciting. All Fancy Dress has an entire section on their website dedicated to costumes for books. They recently sent me some great tips on how to get kids excited about reading.
Top tips to get your kids excited about reading
With World Book Day celebrated throughout the United Kingdom this week, youngsters up and down the country will be exposed to a variety of fantastic children’s stories and authors that feed the imagination of hundreds of thousands of kids at an incredibly impressionable age.
The encouragement of reading for pleasure for children is not only to improve their literacy skills but to provide them with an alternative source of entertainment that youngsters still cannot get from digital media.
Children who regularly read will quickly improve their logical thinking skills, with the ability to grasp new concepts, apply lateral thinking to new scenarios and utilize good judgment. These are all facets that will apply in their adult lives and it is a powerful, yet enjoyable way to help them see the world differently.
With that in mind here are a few excellent tips to help get your children excited about reading during World Book Day week:
Read and reward
You can keep track of your children’s reading progress by monitoring it on a chart. Use stickers to mark each chapter of a book they read. The more they read the more motivated they will be to earn more stars! At the end of a book you could reward them further with a gift. Incentives can go a long way to exciting them about getting their head in a book.
Put pen to paper
Once your child is immersed in the world of their favorite storybook why not let them draw their favorite characters? Or better still let them create an alternative ending for the story through drawings and storyboards. This is a very fun, powerful game as you can really let their imagination run wild!
Dressing up
Fancy dress costumes are available for a whole host of storybook characters. Let them step into the shoes of their favorite storybook hero at home or even at school on non-uniform or World Book Day events and allow them to bring their personalities to life by dressing up in their favorite costume.
All Fancy Dress The Very Hungry Caterpillar Costume
Cool creations
For those creative types you may also wish to go the extra mile and get your hands dirty with some arts and crafts relating to their favorite book. For instance, Harry Potter fans may enjoy cooking up a storm with some wizard-like potions and concoctions that can not only be used to bring scenes from books to life, but also as a fun science experiment in class!
Do you have any other tips you’d like to share? How do you make reading fun for your kids or pupils?
All Fancy Dress is offering discounted shipping in recognition of World Book Day.
Have some fun with books this week and get your kiddos excited about reading!
