Cultivating the Habit of Reading

THE FIRST STEP

My son was exposed to a lot of TV and YouTube videos since he was 1 year old. During that time, I did not know that such exposure would eventually lead to some kind of resistance to books. When I read to him during bedtime stories, he could not really understand the stories and showed no interest at all. He would not sit with me when I read to him and this somewhat discouraged me from continuing the act. Fortunately, my husband advised me to keep on reading to him even if he doesn't seem to be interested. True enough, he was actually listening to the stories because a few months later, he could say certain words at the right time as I read. 

The first books we bought for him was "Three Little Pigs", "A Story A Day", "Now I Can Read" (it's a collection of stories) and one with a collection of nursery rhymes. 

For bedtime stories, we would read a story from "A Story A Day" to him, and a few months down the road, he was able to select the stories that he wanted to listen to. Then, he started to have interest in a certain story, for example "Tough Tommy" and would request only for the story to be read every night for several times. Perhaps he was trying to memorize the story because after sometime, he was able to recite the first two paragraphs of the story with minimal guidance and a few words from every sentence thereafter. 

GETTING HIM TO SIT DOWN AND READ TOGETHER WITH US

A pop-up book entitled: I'm a Clown

Well, that was about bedtime stories where we do the reading and he just listened. Things were different when we made him sit down to read together with us (read after us). I started him off with classic tales like "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Ant and the Grasshopper" but they were too long for his attention span. So, to encourage him to read, I decided to buy books with less words and more interesting features to attract him to "look at the book" for a longer period of time. 

The first such book that I bought was with pop-up pictures but it somehow was not able to catch his attention too. He even tore the first page of the book. 

For a second try, I bought him a collection of "Lift-the-Flap" books on animals. This, on the other hand caught his attention and he was able to finish a book without me trying hard to hold his attention. 

A "Lift-the-Flap" Board Book entitled: Who Is Hiding In the Farmyard?

Here are some other books with fun features that I bought for him. 

A book with "Pull the Tabs" feature

A "Complete the Scenes with Stickers" Book

After 2 years of regular exposure to books, I am glad to say that JS is able to sit down and try to read on his own now. He could not read the words yet but he would recite the stories that he has already memorized and turn the pages accordingly. I hope that he would pick up the words soon as he continue to do so.