Parents Can Foster A Love Of Reading

Susan Schwinger used to have a terrible time waking her 11-year-old daughter, Tara, in the mornings.

"When I would go in to wake her up every morning, it was just a big negative experience," she said. "I would end up screaming at her for 15 minutes to 'Get outta bed! Get outta bed!' And she would ignore me and continue to sleep and put the pillow over her head."

Eventually, Schwinger discovered a better way. She stopped screaming in the mornings and started reading instead. Not only does this make the mornings much easier, it also has helped Tara learn to love reading.

"She just said one morning, 'OK, Tara, I'm going to read to you every morning, because then I won't have to fight with you, and after I finish reading you'll be more awake and you can just get up and walk into the bathroom with me,' " Tara said. "So that's basically how it started."

"And being that I love to read, and I felt that reading could be something — a good way to wake somebody up, 'cause they just have to lay there and be passive and they don't have to do anything except basically listen," Schwinger said.

Tara and her mother's daily reading rituals last anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes. Schwinger said she simply props her up and starts reading right away.

"Usually we're enough into the book, and there's enough interest in the book that she starts listening," she said. "She's not, you know, necessarily responsive. But she's listening. Every once in a while, I look and check that the eyes are still open and that she is listening."

Over the years Tara has listened to her mom read classics and a few contemporary books, including two "Harry Potter" books, the original unabridged "Little Women" — all 700 pages — and the entire series of "The Traveling Pants."

"What I noticed is, since we had read so many books and really gotten into the stories, that when she starts reading now, she's getting into her own books, and not just reading like with a timer saying, 'Oh, OK, I did my half an hour now, I can stop,' " Schwinger said.

Tara said reading has helped her vocabulary improve and she has been learning new words. Not every parent can read to their child each morning, but most teachers are eager to help students discover the joy of reading.

"Involve them in activities that involve reading," language arts middle school teacher Mary Auriti said. "Bring them to the library. Sign them up for book clubs. When a teacher sent home book-order forms, allow the children to pick books out. There are other ways, other than reading to them."

Schwinger had the right idea. A recent study from The Kids and Family Reading Report showed that parents can have a direct impact on getting kids to read.

"The most important thing is for reading to be a habit for kids starting at an early age," Margit Feury Ragland, senior health editor for Family Circle magazine, told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm. "And the best way for parents to introduce this is for them themselves to be readers. If your child sees you as a reading role model they are more apt to enjoy reading themselves."

But today's children are often overextended and many things are competing for their attention. Still, Ragland said that 92 percent of kids say they like to read for fun.

"They like to but as they get older, a recent Scholastic study shows as they get older, the amount of time they spend reading decreases. So, for instance, children between the ages of 5 and 8, 40 percent of them read on a daily basis for fun," she said. "But once they enter their teen years, less than 50 percent read for fun once a week."

The problem, Ragland said, is that they often don't know what to read. Parents can help out by recommending some of their favorite books. Surprisingly, classics like "Catcher in the Rye" and "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" still appeal to many kids.

Ragland made some recommendations that may appeal to children of different tastes.

If your kid is in the mood for romance: