Give a Gold Star

A great way to get young children excited to read is by giving them an incentive. A wonderful way to do this is set up a fun and colorful chart in the child's room with a list of five or ten books. Whenever a book is read from start to end, have your little reader put a star next to the book. Make sure to get the whole family involved with this one, your teens who are reading much longer novels can have a chart in their rooms too, so that their younger sibling can see that reading is for everyone at any age! Now, every child is motivated by different things and since you know your kid or kid best, it will be up to you to figure out the perfect prize for wonderful reading. Maybe it will be stickers or maybe it will be that after reading seven books they will get a trip to the community pool, park or library. We would suggest to not have the prize be more time with the television, we do want them to eventually realize that reading alone is a reward!


If you want your child, students or other family members to be successful readers who are motivated to learn, make sure that those children know you are their biggest fan and that you won't give up on them. Once they know this they are sure to build their confidence. It's as simple as saying good job, or patiently helping them sound out a word, you are their reading cheerleader and will have more of an impact than you will ever know!


Happy Friday and have fun reading everybody!