It's so annoying when people talk about how much your kids read. It's not that hard of a skill. Also I hate it when it's OK to brag you read like 12 hours a day but if you play video games for 4 hours everyone loses their minds.
Parents like to talk about their kid's accomplishments; get used to it. Being able to read and understand at a level significantly greater than someone of their age is an accomplishment. Playing video games is not completely a waste of time, but it isn't really the kind of accomplishment that contributes to academic success. Since the child is in school, and school constitutes a large portion of their life, academic success is one of the most important aspects of their life at that age.
Dude I've learned a fuck ton from playing video games so don't give me that shit. I have better and quicker decision making, I have better hand eye coordination, I have a better ability of foresight and see the outcome of different situations depending on what I say or do. Reading is just another time filler along side video games, it's not that impressive. When I was a kid I could read eons past my grade level like any other kid in my class could. Reading always bored me so I never did it.
@thethirdi, good for you. Now if you actually accomplish anything with your amazing foresight and whatnot, that is perhaps something someone might care about. I do not think you know what "eon" means... perhaps if you had read more... Joking aside, playing video games is not really something to brag about, except maybe a kid bragging about beating a game to another kid; most adults do not care. If you are playing Call of Duty, you cannot convince me that you are learning anything really worthwhile; playing outside can teach you hand-eye coordination, foresight, etc. and is also healthy. If you are playing a game like Foldit and solving protein structures, that is a different story. Entertainment is a part of normal development, but it should not occupy huge portions of the day.
So he closes the post by telling parent's to encourage children to read, but he never explained how he managed to get HIS kid to read...
I'll tell you how my teacher encouraged me to read; she read from Roald Dahl's ' The Big Friendly Giant' and always stopped at the point where it got exciting. I got so fed up with her antics I decided to get the book myself and read the hell out of it. I moved on to other Roald Dahl book's and even when I finished all of those I never stopped reading.
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TL;DR
Frustrate your kids by reading a great story and stopping when it gets really exciting. Repeat untill you kids say "screw you" and get the book and read it themselves.
Yup, by the time I was 10/11 I'd read near all the books in the childrens section of my library, save the ones about boyfriends and horses. I wasn't interested in stories with 3 page discriptions of why a particular horse/boy was the best thing to walk the earth. I still am not interested in those.
I actually got interested in reading in a semi-similar fashion. I saw the first harry potter movie, got sick of waiting for the second one to come out and went and hunted down the second book
I'v always loved reading. The first books i read were the Junie B. Jones books. Then i found more books for my age range as I grew up and have been reading since. Thus is the end of my boring backstory.
I would try to make my kids read by rewarding them for every book they read.. like giving them a piece of candy or like $5 per book. The bigger the book they read the more they get. Soon they would try to read all that they can
Teacher here, seriously if you want your kids to read, READ to them early on every chance you get! Literature rich environments make life long readers not dutiful readers
My sister's teacher keeps making her read lower level books so that she can take reading tests at school more frequently instead of letting her try harder books.
*mutters in his beard : where the f*ck is my auto piloted car*
I'll tell you how my teacher encouraged me to read; she read from Roald Dahl's ' The Big Friendly Giant' and always stopped at the point where it got exciting. I got so fed up with her antics I decided to get the book myself and read the hell out of it. I moved on to other Roald Dahl book's and even when I finished all of those I never stopped reading.
.
TL;DR
Frustrate your kids by reading a great story and stopping when it gets really exciting. Repeat untill you kids say "screw you" and get the book and read it themselves.