My belief is that it isn't so much a matter of teaching a child to love reading, as it is not teaching him that it is a chore. Children will naturally love reading if it presented as part of life. When reading is presented as a chore or something that is only done in order to learn "boring" material in school, children learn to separate pleasant experience from reading. More importantly, they don't learn that reading isn't always about forcing themselves to read material of no interest to them. Children have natural curiosity. Even children who have difficulty with learning to read in school can learn to love reading if the right message about reading.

HOW TO ENCOURAGE CHILDREN TO LOVE READING - THE SHORT ANSWER

The short answer to the question about encouraging children to love reading is that the key is in parents' seeing reading the the right light and in sending the right message. Another part of that short answer is that child usually just automatically enjoy reading when they've grown up around people who read regularly.

THE MORE IN-DEPTH ANSWER

Background Information

My three grown children are all people for whom reading is a part of day-to-day life. They have all enjoyed books from the time they were four months old, and I would hand them those plastic picture books for infants. When they were in primary school my two youngest children were several grades ahead in reading level. My oldest son, unfortunately, had a learning problem that made learning to read and spell difficult for him. The reason for the difference in reading abilities was that my two youngest children are biological children. They had all the benefits of having normal nurturing right from the day they were born. Although my oldest son was adopted from infancy, he had suffered injury which, although it did not affect his intelligence, affected his ability to learn to read in the early grades. The word, "illiterate", was brought up by a teacher or two over the years, and what they did not believe was that this child was an avid reader at home.

Today, he is more than capable of reading medical and scientific material with solid comprehension.

While, as a parent, I am, of course, happy that all three of my kids have always been people who loved reading; one accomplishment of which I'm most proud is having been able to foster that reading skill in a child who was once believed, by some educators, to be headed for a life of illiteracy.

The Right and Wrong Messages Adults Send About Reading

Many parents don't read much. Some read but mistakenly believe that children will not be interested in reading. Some adults who read only read when they have to read (such as for work or a college class). Some will only read about one particular topic that interests them. (I once had a friend who had been trained to be a teacher, and she actually made the statement, "I don't really read." I couldn't believe that someone who had studied to become a teacher could possibly also be a person who didn't read.)

When adults are not enthusiastic about reading, or when they don't just take-it-for-granted that reading is a part of life, they send subtle messages to children. These are often parents who will hand their child a football, a video game, or the latest Barbie with the idea that they're offering them "fun". On the other hand, they will hand the child a book as as if it is an unpleasant necessity.

Even schools sometimes send the wrong message. When my children were in primary school I would get aggravated when they'd bring home the "Pizza for Reading" information, which promised pizza points for every book a child read. Children shouldn't be offered pizza for reading a book, and schools certainly shouldn't presented reading as something that can only be encouraged with free pizza.

There are, however, parents for whom reading is as much a part of life as talking or walking is. It's just something they do. These parents don't isolate reading from life, and they don't separate reading from enjoyable activities. Reading is seen by these parents as something that isn't just an end activity. It is also an activity through which something else is accomplished. These parents deal with developing reading the way they deal with developing talking or walking. Most importantly, these parents' love of reading shows their children that grown-ups and reading go together, and that reading is something people enjoy and rely on.

What This Avid Reader's Parents Did to Encourage Love of Reading

My own parents were not college educated. My mother freely admitted that she never liked school. Still, my childhood home was filled with reading. Both parents read newspapers and books. My mother made sure the house has nice sets of books, including a variety of encyclopedia sets and other non-fiction reading/browsing.

We had a collection of story books as well. (A big, fat, copy of "Heidi" - complete with pictures of Shirley Temple - was one my favorite books.)

Golden Books were, of course, something that were bought regularly for us when we were little, so there was a huge collection of them in the house. When school offered "Scholastic Book Club" books we were always allowed to order something new, and encouraged to select what interested us most. My mother made sure there was a subscription to Reader's Digest once we were about ten, because there is always something even ten-year-olds will find interesting in Reading Digest. The stack of issues of Reader's Digest was always left somewhere handy, and browsing back issues was something we did when we were bored. Books that were part of a series were given to us for birthdays, and we looked forward to being able to get the next book.

Each Christmas "Santa" would bring us books, along with whatever else we got. Birthdays included getting and giving books as gifts. Subscriptions to magazines for children were always a part of my childhood. (Humpty Dumpty magazine came each month, beginning when I was three years old. My mother reader the stories and the instructions to the "find which one is different" pages.) Each Sunday my father would pick up the Sunday newspaper outside church. As my mother cooked Sunday dinner, my father and we, kids, would go through the sections of the paper that interested us. The littlest of kids would only care about the comic pages (with puzzles or paper dolls in them). As we got a little older we'd read certain sections of the magazine. (I faithfully read, "Ask Beth".)

Reading was just a way of life, and it wasn't just for students or people with college educations.

How I Encouraged Enjoyment of Reading in My Own Children

From the time they were four months old, I would hand my babies those little plastic baby books so they could look at the pictures. The babies would be propped up on their elbows, in the crib, looking at books, as if they were "reading". It was so cute. The books would be kept with all the other baby toys, so once my babies were a little older they would just reach for a book the same way they'd reach for any other toy that interested them. The baby books stated that young babies are not able to turn pages. They were not correct. A four-month old baby is able to use his hand to push each page over in order to see the next picture. As my babies got a little older I let them have the cloth books; but even when they were still toddlers I let them have inexpensive children's books as long as I could keep an eye that they didn't eat the paper. Babies and toddlers love just looking at pictures. (I used to hand my daughter the cat food box while I did grocery shopping, because it had a big cat face on it, and she loved looking at it.)

Although I was aware of the different areas of child development requiring nurturing, that's not what I was thinking of when I handed my babies a book. I had just grown up to see books as "yet one more thing to do" - so handing a book to a baby was just like handing another toy to him/her, as far as I was concerned. I believe, though, that this early practice in experiencing that books can offer something fascinating helps babies and toddlers have a natural foundation for their later approach to books

In fact, my toddlers and young preschoolers were so accustomed to finding what interested them, by way of pictures in books, that when they were old enough for me to read to them they often just took the book out of my hands, so they could "read" it themselves. There were, of course, times when they would listen to my reading the story to them; but it was just as common (if not more so) for them to want to "read" the book by themselves.

Our home was full of books and other reading material of all kinds. My husband and I were always reading, and the children would often find their own books and settle nearby. Yes, we were all engaged in our isolated activity of reading our own books, but there was also something very unifying about a family, all enjoying reading at the same time.

From the time the children were toddlers I also made it a point to introduce letter recognition and sounds to them. When they were preschoolers we would would play word games, such as rhyming games. Sometimes we would use our own language. We would (with a hint of humor in our voice) call pizza, "peez"; or we'd call doughnuts, "dones". The child saw the silliness of it, and it helped them to see the breaking down of syllables, as well as the fun of word games. When my daughter was too little to be able to spell, "Easter Bunny," she drew a picture and wrote, "E Bunny" on it. She had learned about breaking words down into parts or initials, which is an important part of learning how reading and writing are done. When the children were preschoolers I made sure that they heard plenty of words and word games, but also that they saw plenty of letters, parts of words, and whole words in books, on cards, or in activities aimed at helping children learn to read.

All of this led to three-, four-, and five-year-olds who had begun to enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out the printed words for themselves. They had learned that it was within their power to read the words that were printed beneath the pictures in their books, and they found enjoyment in this new challenge.

As my parents did, I made sure our home had plenty of reading material in it. I had my books and magazines. My husband had his. I built a little "children's library" with books for each child's development level, as well as for reading levels beyond where each child was at the time. The public library was a place we visited often. So were book stores and book departments of any store that had one. Like my mother, I, too, made sure we had a subscription to Reader's Digest once the children could read at, say, sixth-grade level. For my younger children that was when they were in second grade. My oldest, child, however, did his best to browse and figure out the words on his own.

I tried to buy plenty of books that would capture the interests of children. While I bought plenty of stories, I tried to keep browsable books around. My sons had one book that offered short pieces on real-life adventures, and pictures. We had the "How it Works" types of books, books about favorite sitcoms, and books related to collections of one type of another. Books of short stories for children made good reading for the child looking for a quick read. Books about how to draw or how to play one instrument or another were another favorite. There was books that discussed sports figures or sports, themselves. In spite of his difficulty getting a good grade in reading at school, my oldest son would bring a stack of books to bed with him each night. He'd head in early in order to have some browsing time. He taught himself the capitals of US states and the capitals of many countries of the world. My son began to scan books for information about different countries, and he learned about the climates, customs, and locations of countries that had names that captured his interest. I guess my son had learned that how well one does in reading at school is a separate thing from how a person lives and learns at home.

What helped my oldest son was having those books with small blocks of reading, rather than long pages full of words. He was able to muddle through the smaller groups of words or sentences, and eventually he took it upon himself to tackle whole stories that interested him. I really think that reading is like anything else: When you learn to balance on a bike you then decide to try riding over curbs. When you can do that you decide to try wheelies. My son had discovered that that hour or so of browsing books before bed offered real enjoyment. Once a child discovers that books offer that kind of enjoyment it's usually only a matter of time before natural curiosity leads him/her to try to move to the next level.

Whether it a baby who is satisfied to just study the pictures in a book, or a child who struggles with reading in school, offering books that have something that will capture a child's attention is the first step in getting that child to discover the enjoyment books offer.

For the record, all three children had plenty of interests besides reading. They were all involved in after-school activities, played outside with friends often, and played with any number of toys at home. In other words, books can be a part of day-to-day life without becoming the only thing in life.

Today it is not unusual for any of my grown children to give the other books as gifts. They exchange books of particular interest, and all three are people who fnd plenty to do at the public library or college libraries. One son has graduated college with a degree in fine arts. My daughter is on her last semester of college. My oldest son, who had such difficulty in school and still has difficulty spelling, taught himself to play guitar by reading. He reads books on physics, medicine, and other science-related topics; and he spends a substantial amount of time online and at a nearby college library, just browsing. Barnes and Noble remains a favorite hangout for them.

The usual advice to parents is to read to their young children. There's no doubt about it that that is good advice. It's definitely a start. Just reading to little ones, however, is often not enough to encourage a genuinine appreciation of, and enjoyment in, reading. Reading has to be a part of the fabric of family life, and it isn't enough to hope that required reading in school will capture a child's interests.

There are always children who love all school reading. Most have reading preferences and prefer some school reading over other school reading. Still other children (like my son) will have trouble with just about all reading required at school. Getting children interested in school reading is a separate challenge (and one for another day). When it comes to life-long love of reading, though, now that's something all children can develop, whether they're years ahead of grade level or struggling with learning problems.

We parents usually all have those things which we would have done differently, or could have done better - and I'm no exception. When it comes to developing life-long appreciation of reading, though, (and particularly when it comes to my son, who had school difficulties) I'm pretty confident that my approach would work for most people.