Raising Children Who Love to Read

There was a study done on children who love to read, and children who don't, have a second quality. They grow up in a print-rich environment. They grow up in houses that have books, that have a library. They have a lot of books around them, so they are surrounded with books in their young age. So they have access to books.

Number three, their own libraries. It is something good to encourage a child to own a library and to build their own library, because as a human being there is this love of ownership — especially with children, this can be seen — "this is mine." That is the word always heard: "it belongs to me, it's mine." So a child should be made to feel that they own a book, that they have their own library. It has some special meaning to them. Their parents would take them out to bookstores, to libraries. When parents want to entertain their children once in a while, they would take them to a public library, or they would take them to a bookstore. So all of this is part of encouraging them.

And finally, number five: these are children who watch little or no TV. TV is one of the greatest distractions from learning. Given the choice between TV and a book, a child will choose TV. So restricting their TV viewing would encourage them to read. So again, these are children who either don't watch TV at all, or whose viewing time is controlled. These are some of the steps that parents can take to ensure that their children will grow up loving reading.