Everyone will agree that knowledge is power and the best source of gaining knowledge is through reading books. In this new era of technology, there are various other sources of gaining information like TV, Internet etc but the advantages of book is more over the other sources. A book not only provides knowledge to them but it also helps to shape their behavior by providing morale from their stories.
Hence the habit of developing reading books is important for every kid and the best time is right from the early years of childhood.
During the initial years of childhood, parents must put an extra effort to develop interest for books in kids .For this they must introduce colorful picture books to them .This not only excites them but also creates a keen interest for books in them. Parents must involve their kids to identify and correlate between the different pictures, symbols, colors etc and encourage them to interpret.
Slowly we can introduce short story books to them. Instead of watching TV, parents must loudly read out the stories to them or can sometimes ask them to correlate the pictures and tell their imaginative stories. This not only helps in increasing the concentration and, knowledge in the kids but it also creates awareness of good and bad.Slowly,parents can teach them about the morale of the story which in return helps to shape up the behavior.
Parents must try to make reading as interesting as they can. By doing so, kids develop interest in books. Parents should maintain a consistant habit of reading books to their kids like during bed time .This later helps the kids to retain interest in books and when they grow up and learn reading, they continue reading books which helps them in their studies as well as in gaining knowledge.
Encourage the kids to select the books of their choice for reading. Going to library should be encouraged. Always advice them to read out the books loudly. Such reading habits has remarkable impact on the child development.
Kids should neither be forced to listen nor they should be forced to read books,rather reading should be encouraged as a fun activity and hence should be practiced as per the convenient time of the kids. Simple language books should be preferred .
Parents too must set themselves as role models by reading books along with their kids. They should show interest in kids’ reading activity and guide them as and when required.Thus, to develop healthy reading habit in kids, parent’s role becomes very crucial as its entirely how parents create interest in their kids ,as this process involves lot of experimentation and creativity.